Steve Ditko: 1927-2018.

The comics world is mourning the loss of Spider-man co-creator Steve Ditko, who passed away a couple of days ago. The sad news, which was released today marks a huge loss to the comics industry, as Steve was undoubtably one of the all-time greats. It was his work on Spider-man, plus his Hulk run on Tales to Astonish that will always stick with me... those issues keeping me company for many hours during my childhood, and remaining favourites to this day. This is a tribute piece dedicated to Steve as a thank you for the memories and inspiration that his work has given myself and many others during his long and illustrious career.
Thank you, Mr. Ditko... may you rest in peace.

Tribute artwork by Simon Williams, dedicated to the late, great Steve Ditko.
Black and white variant version in top corner.

Spider-man: Homecoming

I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming Spider-man: Homecoming movie from Marvel Studios and Sony. After his debut in last years Captain America: Civil War, I'm fairly certain that new Spidey actor Tom Holland will carry on the fine tradition of those valiant crime-fighters of the past, who paved the way for today's blockbuster superhero movies...

UPDATE: I've just added an alternate version featuring the 1970's live-action (and my personal favourite) on-screen Spidey, Nicholas Hammond. So, turn up that Dana Kaproff soundtrack, and enjoy!

Bat-Photoshopped by yours truly.

The Amazing Spider-man

Here's another digi-painting of the Amazing Spider-man... again, based on the classic TV series starring Nicholas Hammond. This pic was pure experimentation... I incorporated the previous Spidey/Nicholas Hammond image into this, to give it more of a poster feeling. I'm really proud of how it's turned out.

Plus, this just happened:

@Soulman_Inc my pleasure. Stunning artwork, brings back happy memories of my time as Peter Parker.
— Nicholas Hammond (@nicholasham1) January 3, 2015

Thank you for the kind words, Nicholas... you are the (Spider-)MAN!

Nicholas Hammond as Spider-man

My latest digi-painting... Nicholas Hammond as my favourite live-action Spider-man. Nicholas thanked me for posting this, and retweeted this on Twitter!!! These live-action Marvel heroes just keep making my day!

@Soulman_Inc I'm honored. Thank you.
— Nicholas Hammond (@nicholasham1) December 30, 2014

The Amazing, Sensational, Spectacular SPIDER-MAN!

During my comic art career, I've been known not only to draw big, green (and sometimes grey) skinned Goliath's, but also a certain web-slinging wonder as well! I was just looking through some of the DVD artwork I produced for Clear Vision's line of Marvel Comics DVDs, and thought I'd present them here.

These are covers that were produced for the 90's Spidey cartoon show DVDs. I know I've posted a couple of these before.. but here they are unabridged, without logos etc (and as I originally intended them to be... before C.V's in-house designers altered the characters around to the covers.) I really enjoyed working on these, as I got to work with legendary Marvel artist/inker (and all-time favourite of mine) Joe Rubinstein... as well as my Auto Assembly bro-in-arms Liam Shalloo. I also went on to work with Liam on covers for the 60's Spider-man show. I may post these sometime in the near future.

Hope you enjoy these covers as much as I enjoyed drawing them.

Venom! I really love drawing this character.
Inks by Joe Rubinstein

Spidey versus the Goblins! Inks by Joe Rubinstein

Black Cat! Inks by Joe Rubinstein

Doctor Doom... I was asked by Clear Vision to draw these
covers in layers, so they could animate them for the DVD
menus (the name of the layer for Doom's swoosh effect is called
'Swoosh'. Honest!). To cut costs, they asked me to re-use the
 background from the Black Cat pic. Inks by Joe Rubinstein

Inks by me this time... with colours by Liam Shalloo.
I coloured the others myself.. but you can see the
difference it makes when you get a colour artist to
colour your work. Liam did an outstanding job on
this.

Fantastic Four 50th Anniversary pin-up...

... featuring pulse-pounding pencils by 'Jolly' Jon Haward, and sensational inks by 'Sizzling' Simon Williams! (and now updated to feature colours by 'Jazzy' Jason Cardy... featuring a Gray Hulk variant exclusive to this blog! Check out the 'Green Hulk' version of Jolly Jon's pin-up here!)

Pencils by Jon Haward

Inks by Simon Williams

Old-school colours by Jason Cardy.

This is the first time I've ever inked another artists work, and I must say I really enjoyed it. Jon is a long-time artist for Marvel/Panini UK, having worked mostly on their Spectacular Spider-man Adventures title, as well as cover artist on Panini's line of Marvel pocket books. You can find out more about Jon and his artwork at www.jonhawardart.com. But in the meantime (and in the spirit of classic Mighty marvel from yesteryear!): enjoy this titanic Marvel masterwork, as the fabulous Fantastic Four team-up with the ever Amazing Spider-man... to battle the forces of Doctor Doom and ol' Jade Jaws himself, the Incredible Hulk!

Truly this is the Marvel age of bombastic bloggery!!

Marvel Heroes and Spider-Man Annuals 2012

This years MARVEL HEROES and SPIDER-MAN Annuals, published by those fine folks at Panini Comics UK both feature a little dose of Soulmania! Yep, both books feature comics strips by yours truly!

First up is MARVEL HEROES Annual 2012, which features among others, an Incredible Hulk strip of mine.... and is a re-print from MARVEL HEROES #5. I drew this strip wayyy back in 2008, and am still proud of it to this day. I'm doubly thrilled to see it printed in a hard-back format as well. It's a great little story written by James Peaty... and features ol' Greenskin against the forces of Hydra (as seen recently on the big-screen in this years awesome Marvel movie, Captain America: The First Avenger)! Other strips in this awesome annual feature Captain America, a Doctor Strange/Hawkeye team up, Iron Man and a certain web-slinger, who does whatever a spider can!

Which brings us to this years SPIDER-MAN Annual, which features not one, but THREE Spidey strips... reprinted from my work on Panini Comic's SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN ADVENTURES (all inked by Simon Ecob, with colours by the brilliant Jason Cardy)!!

First up there is a Spidey/Thor team up from SPEC SPIDEY#129 (also recently re-printed in MARVEL HEROES #34).. written by Ferg Handley. Then there is the Spidey/Fantastic Four two-parter (as featured in SPEC SPIDEY issues 119 & 120).. written by Mitch Scanlon. Add to that a Spidey/Avengers team-up from SPEC SPIDEY issue 126, and you've got an action-packed annual featuring a multitude of guest-stars!

With Christmas coming up, would make some MARVELous stocking fillers! Both annuals are out now in all good UK bookshops, priced £7.99.

My work with Joe Rubinstein

Over this past year or so I've been honoured to work with one of my all-time favourite inkers, comics legend Joe Rubinstein. It was an absolute dream come true to work with one of my long-time favourite artists, and I am very proud to be able to share this work with you.