Note: Listen up, P:R hopefuls! Both the deadlines for the Green Lantern: Emerald Ensemble contest and the Fan-Art Friday: Beast are imminent. All entries for Green Lantern: Emerald Ensemble are due in by 5pm Eastern time on May 16, 2013. Fan-Art Friday: Beast entries are due at 5pm Eastern time today, May 15, 2013. Good luck! – Chris A.
Longtime Green Lantern writer Ron Marz and internationally known artist/designer James White To Act As Guest Judges
Project: Rooftop is proud to announce their next redesign contest, spotlighting on the DC Entertainment hero Green Lantern. Originally created back in 1940 by John Broome, Gil Kane, Bill Finger and Martin Nodell, Green Lantern has become one of the biggest super-heroes in comic books. And now Project: Rooftop is putting out the call for artists around the world to submit their own renditions of the hero to be spotlighted on Project: Rooftop’s website and be reviewed by the P:R staff as well as long-time Green Lantern writer Ron Marz and in-demand artist/designer James White.
“I’ve always thought Hal Jordan’s costume was one of the best designs in comics. Simple. Sleek. It’s pretty tough to beat Gil Kane for costume design,” says Marz. “But the Green Lantern mythology is vast, and we’ve seen so many cool costume interpretations in the Green Lantern Corps. I’m anxious to see what the artists come up with.”
In this contest, artists are invited to redesign DC’s Green Lantern hero and can choose any of the various characters who have served as Green Lantern’s in the past. Artists are cautioned however that the judges will be making their scores based on how well the redesigned costume fits both the Green Lantern Corps and the person inside the suit.
“When I was a kid in the early 80s, all the neighborhood kids had their favorite heroes. Most would fight over who was going to be Superman or Batman, but I was always Green Lantern,” said White, who will act as a guest judge and also designed the contest’s banner. “Green Lantern had a kickass symbol and a wicked green power ring that could materialize anything. What’s not to like when you’re 6? And therein lies the key. Lantern’s design was elegant, iconic, and most importantly: simple. Designing a new uniform for Hal brings with it a unique and challenging opportunity. How does one maintain that elegance, while at the same time re-imagining it?”
Entries for Green Lantern: Emerald Ensemble should aim to create a new take on the hero that stays true to the character’s concept and history and only revise their costume, as if your design was in the running to be used in current continuity. All entries must be received by May 16, 2013 at 5pm Eastern Time. As usual, check our guidelines, and save your submission as a .jpg, .,png or .gif with your full name as the file name. Send your submission as an attachment to projectrooftop@gmail.comwith the subject line being “Entry for Green Lantern: Emerald Ensemble,” and make sure to include your name and website in the body of the e-mail.
Thanks to James White for designing the logo for this contest.
Comics Veteran And Shadowman Co-Writer/Artist Patrick Zircher To Act As Guest Judge
Project: Rooftop is proud to announce that they’re partnering with Valiant Entertainment to host their next redesign contest, spotlighting on the hero Shadowman. Originally created back in 1992 by Jim Shooter, Steve Englehart, David Lapham and Bob Layton, Shadowman has become one of the biggest heroes in independent comics, selling over 5 million copies of his long-running series and prompting several video game spin-offs. And now with the character returning in an all-new series, Shadowman in November, Project: Rooftop is organizing artists worldwide to submit their own renditions of the hero for prizes, reviews and recognition.
Shadowman is one of the key figures in the Valiant comics universe; a dark vigilante who strives to banish the sinister forces that try to creep their way into our reality. The character returns in November with an all-new series by co-writer/artist Patrick Zircher and writer Justin Jordan.
“We’re excited to partner with a prestigious comic company like Valiant and give our readers and our artists something special for this redesign contest,” said journalist and P:R co-founder Chris Arrant. “On behalf of Dean, the P:R contributors and our readers, we’re excited to see how artists will reinterpret the Shadowman character.”
Joining the regular P:R judges is veteran comics artist and artist of the upcoming Shadowman series, Patrick Zircher. Zircher is responsible for the modern designs of both Shadowman and Ninjak, and previously worked on a variety of Marvel titles including Captain America and Iron Man.
“Valiant’s night-prowling, monster-hunting hero is a very special character for me,” said Zircher. “There’s a terrific pool of talent out there and I’m really looking forward to the contest designs for Shadowman.”
Valiant Entertainment is providing prizes for the top three places in our contest. First place will receive a copy of the rare Shadowman Black, the Bill Sienkiewicz variant cover to Shadowman #1 and the Dave Johnson variant covers to Shadowman #1 and #2. Second place will receive the Dave Johnson variant covers to Shadowman #1 and #2 as well as a complete run of the Valiant books released since the company returned this summer. Third place will receive the Dave Johnson variant covers to Shadowman #1 and #2.
Entries for “Shadowman: In A New Light” should aim to create a new take on the hero that stays true to the character’s concept and history and only revise their costume, as if your design was in the running to be used in current continuity. All entries must be received by November 30, 2012 at midnight EST. As usual, check our guidelines, include your name and website, and send your art as an attachment in jpg, png, or gif format to projectrooftop@gmail.com.
Note: In the end, only so many people could win awards but we wanted to take time out to honor the other top contenders. These are the honorable mentions for Project: Rooftop’s Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward Redesign Contest. Congratulations to all! – Chris A.
Note: Thank you everyone who submitted and commented on the winners for Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward earlier this week. We’ll be posting the honorable mentions this Friday, but before I do that I want to personally thank our judges — both our regulars and our special guest judges — for their contributions in making this happen. Some people might think of them as mere fans spouting their opinion, and they are… but many of them are also professionals in the comics field and provide valuable insight with their judging comments. Therefore, I’d like to give a brief rundown each of them for you. – Chris A.
Dean Trippe: In addition to co-founding Project: Rooftop, Dean has built himself up as an innovative artist and storyteller with his webcomic series Butterfly and last year’s Power Lunch graphic novel with J. Torres. Here at Project: Rooftop, Dean is the key decision maker on what art makes the site, deliberating over hundreds of submissions each year and providing a professional artist’s perspective to the site.
“Calamity” Jon Morris: Jon is the most prodigious artist of the bunch, balancing his work here with a full-time career as an artist while also running a series of super-hero “re-creation” blogs like the current The Official Handbook To The Marvel Universe: Reduxe Edition. At P:R, he’s shown the impeccable ability to see through various artist’s style to find the deeper meaning of the designs presented to us.
Joel Priddy: If ever there were a voice of reason in our defacto P:R group, Joel would be it. This former Memphis College of Art professor has award-winning taste and a discerning eye, and has more than once made me rethink my views on a piece of art after hearing his comments.
Vito Delsante: One of the P:R originals, Vito Delsante is a longtime member of the online comics community and has written some of the biggest heroes in the world from Superman to Batman to real-life icons like Albert Einstein and Babe Ruth. Delsante is the wellspring of creativity here, seeing a simple design and imagining the story-telling context that could foster such a design.
Rachel Edidin: As a long-time editor at Dark Horse, Rachel provides the unique (and often overlooked) perspective of someone put in charge of shepherding a character through time. Currently editing books like Finder, Axe Cop and Alabaster: Wolves, she knows that a imaginative redesign must be tempered with the history of the characters. But with all that stuffy professionalism, she gets just as excited as the rest of us when she sees a fantastic design.
Glen Weldon: A more recent induction into the P:R contributors group, Glen came to us purely of us enjoying his tastes as heard on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast and over at the NPR Monkey See blog. One of us. One of us.
Jessica Plummer: Jess is a big believer in the ability of superheroes to empower people on a personal level, and through her work on Girl-Wonder.Org we’ve learned much about the views on female superheroes and the tropes, tragedies and triumphs.
… and our guest judges:
Brett White: Called in like a secret operative Mission: Impossible-style, Brett joined us for Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward to share his opinions on the team and what makes them cool. Hear why we picked him and go listen to the Matt & Brett Love Comics podcast.
Stuart Immonen: Currently working on the new All-New X-Men series, Stuart Immonen has long been a bastion of great comics design and storytelling. From his early years on Legion of Super-Heroes and Superman (and his overlooked Inferno series) all the way to his master-class at Marve with Nextwave, New Avengers and Fear Itself, Stuart has become one of the industry’s top artists while also becoming admired considerably by his peers. For Project: Rooftop, Stuart has been an informal inspiration and sometimes contributor to us, and his contributions for Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward really brought the site to whole new level.
I wanted to say thanks to everyone for submitting to Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward, and to make sure it was abundantly clear that the deadline for entry has passed and no late or revised entries will be accepted. I have emailed all of the artists whose entries we’ve received a confirmation, so if you haven’t heard from us then your submission didn’t go through. We have well over one hundred entries into our contest, giving our contributors and guest judge Stuart Immonen (!!) a lot of work to do in the coming weeks. The results will be posted when they will be posted, so please give us the time, courtesy and patience to do that. – Chris A.
We’ve received an epic number of entries for our Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward Redesign Contest, and after talking to a number of artists we’re extending the deadline one additional week. The deadline for entries is now next Tuesday, August 7, 2012 at midnight EST. Review our original announcement of Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward Redesign Contest for how to submit. Thank you, and we hope all you artists sitting on the fence will use this additional week to turn in your take on Marvel’s first family!
They’re the first family of comic superheroes, and the first truly nuclear family in history; they’re the Fantastic Four. Created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, the F.F. rang in their fiftieth year last year with Reed finally growing into that greying hair he’s always had. In modern comics, the team (and the title) are have been floating in one of the most critically acclaimed runs since the original days of Stan and Jack, and to celebrate the team and their tenure Project: Rooftop is taking them in in our next redesign contest. “Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward” is a Project: Rooftop contest giving artists worldwide the chance to redesign this super-hero family in a friendly competition for honor, recognition and just plain fun.
“The Fantastic Four have been high on our list of heroes to celebrate here at Project: Rooftop for years,” says site co-founder and comics journalist Chris Arrant. “Now seems like the perfect time to honor these four timeless creations and the two men who created them 51 years ago.”
For this ambitious contest (Project: Rooftop’s first team contest), P:R’s staff will be joined by a very special guest to judge the entries: Stuart Immonen, artist of Fear Itself, New Avengers, Nextwave and creator-owned projects such as Moving Pictures, Shockrockets and Superstar: As Seen On TV. For the Richards & Co., Immonen has illustrated them in runs on both Fantastic Four and Ultimate Fantastic Four. Project: Rooftop has long admired his work and featured critiques of his superhero design on multiple occasions, and Project: Rooftop was in fact launched back on March 14, 2006 with a original redesign of Marvel’s Black Widow Immonen contributed.
Entries for “Fantastic Four: Fashion Forward” should redesign the original four members of the Fantastic Four: Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, the Thing and the Human Torch. Any entries including other characters or missing these four will be discarded. All entries must be received by July 31, 2012 at midnight EST. As usual, check our guidelines, include your name and website, and send your art as an attachment in jpg, png, or gif format to projectrooftop@gmail.com. Thanks to Daniel Irizarri for designing our contest logo!
Project: Rooftop visitors may have noticed a bizarre redirect effect occurring here at the site this week. The incursion causing that effect has been resolved, thanks to our friend and frequent web-consultant, John Bintz. Thanks also the P:R Pals who alerted us to the issue, and helped me with the initial troubleshooting. We now return you to our regular awesomeness.
Note: After an inbox full of submissions including some from professional comics artists, frequent P:R contributor Kris Anka stepped forward and claimed the title of First Place in our Invincible: Viltrumite Vogue Redesign Contest. Anka is a Los Angeles-baed artist who works for Sideshow Collectibles, but recently launched his comic career doing the final issue of Invincible spin-off Guardians of the Globe and currently does covers for Marvel’s New Mutants. I caught up with the artist after the winners were announced to try to get inside his head and see how he came to this remarkable design. – Chris A.
Chris Arrant: Everyone’s seen your name here at Project: Rooftop before, but why’d you decide to do an entry into Invincible: Viltrumite Vogue?
Anka: I spend a lot of time sketching out redesigns of characters, it has sort of become a therapeutic exercise for me at this point, but when the contest came up, it was just hard to pass it up. I am both a fan of the comic and having a contest to do a redesign just made too much sense not to do.
Arrant: How’d you go about deciding what to do with your redesign of Invincible?
Anka: The first and foremost principle I adhere to when approaching a redesign is to respect the original concept of the character. So when I approached Invincible, I first went the route of trying to see how i would approach the costume in the comic. I sat on a design for a few weeks, and when I went back to it I felt that I was still too close to the original. I decided to throw out any notions of taking from the elements from the original, and I just kept the idea of the design, and just tried to reinvent it my way.
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