On page 14 of the archived G2 gallery (http://almondink.com/bobarchive/gallery/recreations2.html) I continued my BP cover recreations as started on an earlier G2 page (http://almondink.com/bobarchive/gallery/recreations.html). Here was what would have been my next one (10th in my series) had not some Phantom work and other smaller jobs and commissions not been added to my schedule. The original cover to Black Panther#17 (2000) by Sal and myself was an homage to an earlier Jungle Action cover by Rich Buckler and Frank Giacoia. I pushed Sal for the homage idea and we waited until an existing cover image fit a story theme we were working on. Since writer Priest intended this issue to be a ’70s blaxploitation’-themed issue, we found our cover! (too bad we were stuck with Falcon’s temporary clunky design from the Avengers animated series on the air at that time.) (incidentally, this was also the issue that I requested to dedicate it to Jungle Action/ Hero for Hire artist Billy GRaham who had recently passed away with no fanfare whatsoever.)
We even asked editorial, at this point Tom Brevoort, to use retro cover elements from the first BP solo series Jungle Action. (It was Tom who came up with ‘Urban’ Jungle Action.)

I scanned the original pencil art by Sal and then scanned the cover copy on top to the published cover which was different from the title then being used on our modern series. I combined these two elements as one file in Photoshop and then converted them to non-photo/cyan blue. I then inked it, including the top cover elements. I used my entire arsenal of inking tools on this image on 11X17 Kubert 2-ply board and then decided I wanted more contrast so I added black spatter to the background, further deviating from the original cover. This meant using some ‘low-teack’ frisket sheets which picked up some of the surface of the board after I’d done my cutting and spattering and lifted the board….the comic code stamp, for example, tore on the bottom of it and I had to redo the word ‘authority’. This was completed on 1/6/10. “Christmas!”

Date: 01/12/2010