Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Sean Chen

Sean Chen — Rogue Salvation?

Original Art and The Artists

Salvation Run #1, January 2008

“Stop gabbing and fight!”

After quite a few fits and starts, The Flash feature film is making its way into theaters this week, so naturally here’s a great Flash page… minus the Flash.

But all the classic Flash rogues are here in a story which focusses specifically on them. If you’re a fan of the classic Silver Age Flash (guilty) this splash by my pal Sean Chen is definitely the pen and ink version of comfort food.

As far as I can tell from the trailer, The Flash movie will be light on the rogues, so this is good way to get our fix.

Rogues, nothing but rogues. Comic book professional and historian Peter Sanderson — as a fan — wrote an amazing summary with pros and cons of each character, which Julius Schwartz published in Flash #174

Sean Chen — Savage Team-Up

Original Art and The Artists

Red Sonja Conan #1, July 2015

Red Sonja and Conan together again, as they say, on this great cover by my pal, the very talented Sean Chen.

That’s it. That’s the post.

Red Sonja made her first appearance in Conan #23, and appeared on the cover one month later in issue #24. Both issues feature glorious art by the legendary Barry Windsor Smith.

Sean Chen — Catch Me Now…

Original Art and The Artists

Shadow #4, August, 2012

Concluding our ongoing series celebrating multiple anniversaries for the classic pulp character, The Shadow.

Gravity. What a bitch.

Comic art (and animation) often defies gravity, and pretty much all other laws of science. (Not just physics.)

Didn’t care as a kid, don’t care now. 

As long as the art is dynamic, the storytelling is clear, and we don’t push the boundaries into the realm of downright ridiculous, I’m good.

Also, consistency helps too. If Wile E. Coyote has a one-second mid-air pause before he falls helplessly to the earth, each and every time, no problem. Not realistic, but completely plausible within the context of the character and story.

Falling: always a bit slower in comic books than reality. And the character is often calm and composed about the whole thing. 

Like our friend Lamont Cranston here. He’s not flailing; he’s carefully shooting at whomever caused his drop. 

We know he’s going to finish getting some shots off, and, at some point in the drop, reach for a convenient flagpole. Or something.  He will figure it out.

In “real life,” perhaps not so much.

A terrific cover, illustrated by the terrifically talented Sean Chen. Flailing not permitted.

Hans Gruber’s famous fall with gun in hand in Die Hard is probably a bit more realistic… no handy flagpole or awning nearby. Also, sheer terror.
Your favorite heroes, on their way down, down, down.

Tom Grummett / Sean Chen — He’s Dead, Jim

Original Art and The Artists

X-Men Forever #10, December 2009

As noted earlier, John Byrne had returned to X-Men with X-Men: The Hidden Years.

His original collaborator, writer Chris Claremont, returned much later on in 2010 via a more direct route, in X-Men Forever.

Basically picking up after he left off in 1991 — and then immediately diverging — Claremont quickly killed Wolverine and had the remaining X-Men team deal with the ramifications of his death.

Tom Grummett’s character-packed cover deals with the team laying their fallen comrade to rest. Grummett was the many artists on the Forever series, which also included X-men mainstay Paul Smith on this issue, and others.

It’s an interseting choice — and a good one, commercially — to leave Wolverine’s uniform on top of the coffin. Contextually, of course, it makes little sense.

Sean Chen’s variant cover takes a look at an imaginary one moment later — when “zombie” Wolverine breaks out of his coffin(In uniform). This event is not in the series. Wolverine in fact stays dead. This image seems a tribute to the popular (and multiple) Marvel Zombies series.

It’s a clever set-up, and one of the few times a main cover and a variant are done in this manner. Kudos to editor Mark Paniccia — or whoever came up with the imaginative idea.