Entry 139: Astonishing X-Men #50

"WHAT IS WITH THESE X-MEN COVERS, MAN? Where is S.H.I.E.L.D. # 5?... I needs my Shield V2 #5, man. I need it! I NEED MY FIX!"

That was the voice of an imaginary Shield fan in my head who really likes Shield. To him I say: "Hang in there, ol' chum. You'll get your Shield V2 #5, and it's going to be so good. It's going to make you forget there was ever a time when you didn't have Shield V2 #5. In fact, it's going to make you forget ALL your problems."

Does such a fan really exist? I don't know.

There is another Shield fan that lives in my head and he sounds something like this:
"Shield? Oh yeah, I remember that book. I liked it. Whatever happened to that? Hey look, A SQUIRREL! Did you see that? He ran right up to me! I totally could have grabbed it. I'm pretty fast, you know. I once snatched a fly right out of midair. I immediately let it go because it grossed me out, but still. Hey look, A FLY! I'm going to catch it!"

To that fan I say: "WHAT? Hey, I'M STILL HERE! SHIELD IS COMING! IT'S COMING! Hold on! It's coming, you dummy! Oh, you stupid, stupid dummy. YOU'RE NOT GOING TO CATCH THAT FLY! JUST COME BACK! Great, now your chasing the squirrel again. Jeez!... That's  it, he's gone! What do I do now? Maybe Shield needs more flies and squirrels in it. Yeah, that's the answer."

Oh, you guys. I amuse myself.

Anyway, the answer to where Shield is has to do with the fact that Jonathan Hickman has a lot on his plate. You might have noticed that Marvel is - in love with him. They love him! They've got him writing a lot of things and some of these things are tied in with big events and they've got him co-architecting the whole Marvel Universe along with his fellow "Marvel Universe Architects". They're apparently building some kind of structure with domes and columns and a complicated system of structural supports... but with super heroes punching each other. Shield has been put on the back burner for a little bit, as it is not really tied into these bigger plans.

I'm totally cool with that. I'd prefer for Jonathan to be able to dedicate some focus to writing these last two Shield issues rather than squeeze them in and have the writing suffer for it. And Marvel has been really cool about it by giving me some cover jobs and even an X-Men issue to work on while I waited on script.

Here's a little sneak peek at that X-Men issue-

 I'm trying something completely different with this stuff. It's a lot of fun! I think this is going to be a very unusual X-Men issue... So, there's that to look forward to.

What else? I'll have some more covers for you guys to see soon.

Oh and the cover in this entry is my cover for Astonishing X-Men #50. That's right, I like drawing buildings... That's not really accurate. I actually like drawings of buildings, so I draw them despite how unpleasant it is to do so.

Here's that cover with Rachelle Rosenberg's colors followed by some sketches for alternate versions of this cover.

 

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