I couldn’t think of stronger panel to bring this feature back with, nor to kick off its new improved version (more on that later). I’ve long been a proponent of Remender and Moore’s work on this book and the latest issue (though hobbled a bit by some fill in pages) is no exception. We see Remender’s trademark staccato take on Castle’s dialogue here, but the star, of course, is Tony Moore’s Wolverine, easily the best rendition of the character since Quitely’s in New X-Men. There are two nigh-perfect drawings of him in the issue, the one above, and this one:

I went back and forth between which one deserved the crown this week and in the end it was actually the simpler background of the first that won the day. Along with Dan Brown’s fantastic color work, it’s a really lovely little bit of almost abstract set dressing. (The issue takes place in Japan, hence the neon colors all over the place.)

And speaking of Winning The Day, I figured since this was the first week of a new month, it might be fun to make this feature a kind of bracketed tournament. At the end of the month, we’ll gather up all the entries and decide Your Panel Of The Month. And then next September, we’ll gather up all those winners and decide Your Panel Of The Year.

As always, I provide excitement for a very meager few.

A few weeks back, I decided that the best way to light a fire under my lazy drawing ass was to tell everyone on Twitter I was going to do something by the end of the month. I’d been meaning to draw Don Gately, from David Foster Wallace’s Best-Novel-Of-All-Time Infinite Jest, since probably before last year’s Infinite Summer re-read of the book.

There’s a lot of great Gately moments to choose from in the book, and for a long time I toyed with the idea of drawing him in an apron holding up his brick of a Halfway House dinner. But I ultimately settled for one of the most spectacular scenes, not just in the book, but maybe ever written. If you’ve never read it, well, seriously? Also, you probably have no idea what’s going on.

But I suppose finding out is as good a reason as any to finally read it, no?

For the first time since, maybe, that Top Chef finale maybe, what, three years ago, I was suddenly compelled to draw something that I hadn’t previously conceived or had put on my To Draw list.  Just a vision of radness that had popped into my head.  Within an hour it was pencilled, inked, colored, and mottoed.

Feels pretty damn good.

Another month, another kick ass Twitter Art Jam from the mind of Rusty Shackles.  This month, the topic was Video Games.  True Confession, I’ve never played more than a few seconds of Mario Tennis.  I had planned on doing a new cover for Goonies II, the first game I ever beat, but this idea came to me in a flash and I just had to do it.

So I was riding the subway the other day, musing, as I often do, about how totally awesome comics are.  And my attention sort of drifted to the subway map on the wall and I was looking at all the lines and the fairly obvious hit me.  So I made all these Lantern symbols into New York City Subway signs, naturally.

Whoops, almost forgot one!

(With a lot of visual/brand design by yours truly, by the way.)

The great Rusty Shackles came up with the fantastic Vinyl Canvas project on his Twitter account.

I decided to do Elliott Smith’s Figure 8.

HE’S ALWAYS WATCHING, GANG!

Sometimes I find the most incredibly dumb shit hilarious.

See my handwriting in action in the latest installment of The Rack

A look, en media res as it were, at me inking the latest installment of The Rack.

That’s a Pentel Brush Pen, by the way. It’s got some Kanji on the cap. I forget its exact model name or number, but it rules the school.