Cropped Will Cardini artwork

January 31st, 2017

Tom Grindberg’s Thick Lined, Bulky Superheroes in 1993 and 1994

Filed under: Comics Criticism — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 9:41 am

In 1993 when I was a kid, Tom Grindberg was a guest penciler for two issues of my favorite Marvel superhero series: Silver Surfer #84 and Spider-Man 2099 #14. I hated his artwork then because it was such a radical departure from the thin lines of Ron Lim and Rick Leonardi.

Spider-Man 2099 #14 by Tom Grindberg
A splash page from Spider-Man #2099 #14. Artwork by Tom Grindberg, penciler; Don Hudson, inker; Eva Grindberg, colorist; and Rick Parker, letterer.

But now I love it! It’s amazingly ugly. His figures are impossibly bulky and stretch in weird, fluid ways. They just seem so big and imposing and in your face which is great for bruisers like Thanos, Thor, and Drax.

Secret Defenders #9 cover pencils by Tom Grindberg
The cover of Secret Defenders #9. Artwork by Tom Grindberg, penciler; Don Hudson, inker; John Kalisz, colorist; and John Costanza, letterer.

It looks weird for someone who’s usually more svelte like the Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Dr Strange, or Adam Warlock, but I like weird.

Silver Surfer #84 original artwork by Tom Grindberg
The original art for a splash page from Silver Surfer #84. Artwork by Tom Grindberg, penciler; Tom Christopher, inker; and Ken Bruzenak, letterer.

Overall his renditions of characters look more alive than the stiff figures of more popular artists like Lim and Rob Liefeld. The thick, wavy black lines are out of this world. But what’s strange is that, as far as I can tell, Grindberg only drew this way in 1993 and the first half of 1994. By his next issues of Silver Surfer and Spider-Man 2099, #93 and #25 respectively, he’s much closer to early 90’s Marvel house style. And it didn’t matter whom his inker was – Don Hudson inked Spider-Man 2099 #14, Secret Defenders #9, and Grindberg’s short story in Spider-Man 2099 #25. Someone must have told him to rein it in, which is a bummer.

March 17th, 2015

Silver Surfer 2099

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: , , — William Cardini @ 9:04 am

I moved recently so I went through my six longbox comics collection and culled the fluff. It was a lengthy process that involved a lot of re-reading old comics that I’ve been lugging around for years and never removing from their plastic bags. I tried to only keep the comics that I’ll want to re-read again in five or ten years.

This process led me to re-read all of the 2099 comics that I have. One that’s really stuck out is 2099 Unlimited, which had some cool little shorts in it that are pretty far from a typical 90’s Marvel book. It’s got me thinking about what I’d do in the 2099 ‘verse, and the obvious answer is SILVER SURFER 2099:

Silver Surfer 2099
Collage background is “The star cluster NGC 3572 and its dramatic surroundings” by ESO/G. Beccari. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

ORIGIN: The Silver Surfer was infected by a rogue Celestial AI techno-virus in 2077. Norin Radd’s mind has become a war zone. The mutant Celestial mind tries to compel the Surfer to destroy unfit alien societies through hallucinations – sometimes the Surfer sees through these illusions and sometimes he doesn’t. Paranoid, the Surfer begs Galactus for healing, but all Galactus can do is wall off the Surfer’s consciousness from the exterior universe, sending Norin Radd and the Celestial AI on a vision quest through layers of subconsciousness, trying to destroy each other.

November 14th, 2012

BCGF 2012 Recap

Filed under: Recaps — Tags: , , , — William Cardini @ 12:19 am

Thanks to everyone who came by the GCPM table and traded for or bought an issue of Vortex.


Me and Josh Burggraf. I look like a madman.

BCGF was amazing (and hot and crowded and intense).

Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest
I keep showing people this picture from the BCGF tumblr to give them an idea of how crowded BCGF was. You can see me staring directly into your soul through the camera.

It was my first time tabling at an east coast comics festival so I got to meet a lot of people IRL that I’ve only known online, which was fantastic. I’m really feeling the comics love right now. It’ll be a while before I can travel to another con so it’s good that BCGF was so great.

William Cardini Silver Surfer and Josh Burggraf Batman fan art
One really awesome moment was when this dude Barney came up to me and Josh and asked us to draw some sketches of superheroes for him. Barney’s a big fan of Rub the Blood, if you look at his Twitter he asked other people to do fan art.

You can see Josh’s perspective of our weekend on our GCPM tumblr. I’ll put Vortex #3 in my store soon.