Back of Page Art: General Zod Design For Supergirl Adventures (Bonus! Fanboy Stupidity of 1997 DC Editorial)

Flipped an Eltingville page from 1997 that I was packing up to send to a customer, and found this. pencil sketch on the back.

General Zod hadn't been in the design pack or bible for the Superman Adventures series (for whatever reason, we never asked), so when we were working on the script that would introduce Supergirl into the animated comic series we figured he's be a good villain to revive as a Supergirl nemesis. We had to do some convoluted plotting in the comic owing to the hardline stance from DC Comics regarding the Supergirl character. Mike Carlin was adamant that no character other than Superman could be from Krypton. Our boy Kal-El was the lone survivor of Krypton, don't make Mike scream and call people names over any suggestion that another character could be a super-Kryptonian or as strong as Superman. Especially not a character who was black! Oh, my, no. What am I referring to? Oh, just something horrible out of the mouth of a DC executive to the face of a DC freelancer we all know and (should) love and respect. Maybe someday I'll tell you about it, but it's the kind of doozy that would cause some shit I'm not in a position to deal with, so, don't hold your breath until I'm on my deathbed. We can't say everything we'd like, not even us chatty, open types. 

There's a reason the tail doesn't wag the dog, from a power-wise angle, at DC Entertainment anymore, because arbitrary fanboy decisions like that were stifling the Cartoon Network and other DC media outlets wishing to exploit the IP library. Paul Levitz put the kibosh on a Joker cameo in a Power Puff Girls cartoon. And in my own WTF situation, DC wouldn't let the Cartoon Network/Adult Swim use DC titles and character likenesses in the comic shop backgrounds for Welcome to Eltingville. Ask me why? No reason, just "no" from the folks in charge hugging their toys at DC -- most of which were created before they were born -- tightly to their bosoms. Just not gonna share with anyone. But I digress. About churlish stupidity.

 Anyway, Supergirl couldn't be from Krypton, otherwise American society would collapse (like it is now). So while working on the animated series two-parter, "Little Girl Lost", that introduced the new version of the decades-old character, it was decided that Kara would be from Krypton's sister planet, Argo (which iirc was a city on Krypton that shot into space after the world went kaboom, yeah, that makes sense to me, too). And yadda yadda yadda. A bunch of fucking whatever. MEANWHILE, Carlin and the brain trust at DC Comics has no qualms about the characters Jax-Ur and Mala. Who are they? Oh, just two-two-two other Kryptonians with superpowers who rode out the planet snuff safely in the Phantom Zone prison. meaning -- GASP -- they're super-Kryptonainas #2 and #3. So what the fuck, right? It makes your fucking head split. 

Stupid, stupid comic people.   

Whatever. For the Supergirl comic we reworked it so General Zod was a scourge from her home planet  Argo. Argo authorities didn't subscribe to using The Phantom Zone, considering it cruel and unusual punishment. But they made an exception for Zod, because he was a Space Hitler, and without him being in the Zone, we'd have no convoluted way of busting him out along with Jaz-Ur and Mala (through the machinations of Granny Goodness, building on events from the animated series). It gets a bit twisty, but we were dealing with the cards DC let the DCAU play, and how the DCAU played those cards. This is one reason I don't enjoy meddling in continuity comics proper. I don't need that much puzzle-solving in my life for such relatively little money (and forget creating a new villain, major or otherwise, for relatively little money even if it ends up on a screen). But we got things worked out and we introduced "a" General Zod to the DCAU, not that it was a design ever used again.

For the design I was looking at the Silver Age and Terence Stamp versions of Zod, older Russian and German military gear, and the Bruce TImm et al designs for Kyrpton outfits and Jax-Ur and Mala. My design was translated to the page by Brett Blevins (who also worked on the animated series, and storyboarded segments of some of our scripts. He was inked by Terry Austin on the comics we did together) and it was a nifty feeling to see it in 'action", since I never contributed anything visual to the DCUA. 

I have more sketches scattered through my old sketchbooks somewhere, but I didn't remember working on the backs of any pages, let alone an Eltingville page. 

So, there's that. A nerdy extra drawing, a bit of trivia for the customer. And you folks. 

Above: The recently-released Supergirl Adventures collection reprints our first two Supergirl comics, including the story discussed here, originally published as Superman Adventures #21 (1998). That comic was supposed to be a one-shot to bookend the Batgirl Adventures special, but the production lag on the "Little Girl Lost" two-parter at WB played hell with the comic schedule so it became a giant-sized version of the regular comic. Sales were lost, oh, for sure. The Girl of Steel  also collects the sequel to SA #21, "Reunion", which follows up on events from the comic and the cartoon and marks the return of the villain Brainiac in a way that relates directly to Supergirl tragic past. (Cover art by Bruce Timm)