Come on Marvel let David Golding draw Captain Britain please.

Here on the Captain Britain blog we are always on the look out for great artists who might have never drawn Captain Britain professionally, but have still drawn him simply out of their love for the character.

So for that reason today I wanted to highlight professional artist David Golding who while he has done lots of comics work and released a book, has never drawn Captain Britain for Marvel, much to my disappointment.

I first stumbled upon David’s work in 2012 when I bought some sketches from his Ebay shop one of which, a great looking Swamp Thing, is pictured below.

I began to follow David on Twitter hoping to pick up some more of his art when I noticed he was doing copies of comic book covers, of which one of his current ones follows.

But what really caught my eye was David’s version of a Captain Britain cover of which he was happy to provide a high quality picture so it could be shared with the blog.

Click on the pic to see it in its full glory, and check out more of David’s work on deviantART here.

A stunning picture you might agree and that’s right David did send me a photo of the art and his Spider-Man cover to use in this post. Why? Well I asked him if he would as to celebrate the release of his new book I decided the world of Captain Britain fandom needed to know more about his work, as it’s too good not to share.

The book is, The Greatest Comic Quiz Book in the Multiverse, 200 pages of comic book questions that covers American comics from their humble origins right up to the present day.

Before I talk about the book take time to admire the painted cover, the style of which to me is comparable with Alex Ross. Inside David has peppered the book with great black and white sketches of all sorts of super heroes, and this use of a variety of styles highlights just how bloody good he is at drawing.

I took the time to test myself on some of the questions in the quiz book and find myself having to issue a warning to anyone like me who prided themselves on being a bit of a comics guru, this book will soon have you eating humble pie. But in a fun way.

So more power to the pen of David Golding a man whose work I would love to see on the cover of a new Captain Britain comic or inside, hell I’m not fussy I’ll take both.

Fancy yourself a comic’s mastermind then you can pick up a copy of The Greatest Comic Quiz Book in the Multiverse here.

Or if you taste runs to comic book art order a reproduction of your favourite comic book scene/cover from David here.

Do you know an artist or perhaps you are one yourself who draws Captain Britain and would like to share work with this blog and it’s readers? Then why not send me the relevant details by leaving a comment below.

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Captain Britain and Big Ben – a life long love affair

Captain Britain like most superheroes has a title that tells you instantly all about him, he’s a Captain and he’s British – simple. Well not if you work at Marvel, who over Cap’s long career have constantly felt the need to remind us that Captain Britain hails from Britain.

How have they done this? Well, Marvel often feel the need to pair Captain Britain and iconic British land mark Big Ben together as if by doing so readers will immediately understand just who Cap is and where he is based. So read on to see the best and worst of comic book covers and art that honour Marvel’s life long obsession with pairing Big Ben and Captain Britain.

From 1977 the cover to the amazingly titled “Hickory Dickory Death!”

Yep Cap was that popular in the seventies he had an annual.

From the online game, War of Heroes.

Big Ben on Captain Britain trading cards.

Even zombie Cap does the ugly in front of Big Ben.

Variant covers include Big Ben as well.

And my all time favourite, Paul Cornell’s Captain Britain issue 1 .

After doing all this research into today’s post I have a great pitch for the next Captain Britain cover. Cap will be eating fish and chips, drinking a cup of tea, while riding a red London Bus up Big Ben and beating a super villain with a piece of Stonehenge. Oh, and it will be raining.

Too much?

Of course Marvel aren’t the only guilty company of pairing Big Ben and comic book characters; check out this great post from Bully the little stuffed Bull of Big Ben comic book images – which inspired my post today.

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The top 5 best Excalibur covers featuring Captain Britain

In its 125 issue run Excalibur had a varied mix of stories, writers, artists and covers some excellent others not so. Today I am going to focus on 5 of what I consider to be the comics best covers which feature Captain Britain.

First up is the cover to issue 18 which features Captain Britain to me re-imagined as a manga character. Chris Wozniak is the person responsible for a very straightforward cover but one with a great idea, years later Marvel went manga mad on a lot of their characters, but I think this cover is one of their first forays into this theme.

Next is issue 33 by Steve Lightle, who draws an image that rings true in my heart of Captain Britain dishing out deserved justice to Nightcrawler. Now I’m aware Nightcrawler has a lot of fans who won’t enjoy this image, but his lust for Cap’s girlfriend Meggan means for me he had this cover coming for some time.

Let’s move on to issue 51 drawn by the king of Captain Britain artists Alan Davis, this is a great image of the Excalibur team redrawn as dinosaurs which really catches the eye. Davis has produced some great art here that not only looks good, but makes you want to pick the comic up and find out what on earth is going on.

Issue 60’s cover by Scott Kolins is another great example of the humour that ran through Excalibur. Kolin’s almost feral Captain Britain rescuing or kidnapping the helpless Meggan looks great while raising a smile at the same time.

For my last cover from issue 125 we return to Excalibur’s emperor of art Alan Davis. This issue was to be the last we saw of Excalibur for a while but the send off with the marriage of Cap and Meggan at last gave fans closure to their long romance. Davis draws the happy couple with all the skill he bought to his renditions of them over the years, and the turmoil in the background is a great contrast.

Agree or disagree with my choices ? Let me know how you feel in the comments below, and join me later in the week for the top 5 worst Excalibur covers featuring Captain Britain.

If there’s ever a Marvel Now Captain Britain relaunch then hire this artist

It’s disappointing for Captain Britain fans that in the masses of Marvel Now relaunches there is sadly no sign of any new Cap comic.

Luckily to help Cap fans get over this, talented fan artist Ben Wilsonham has produced his version of a Captain Britain relaunch cover, and what a cracker it is.

Utterly glorious I’m sure you will agree, from the costume to the clever use of red, white and blue and how Cap is exploding out of the UK. I feel Wilsonham has produced a cover that would really stand out on comic book store shelves, in a similar way that any cover by the talented Brian Bolland screams ” buy me, buy me.”

If you enjoyed this cover then why not check out Ben Wilsonham’s homepage which can be found here. Maybe we can even persuade him to release a print – who knows.

What do you think of this Captain Britain cover ? Do you know of any great Captain britain fan art ? If you do please post a link in the comments below.

 

Captain Britain meets the Prime Minister

Captain Britain has met many famous people in his career including the Queen so it was only a matter of time before he crossed paths with the Prime Minister, but which one ?

Well in March 1977 in a crossover with Captain America to battle the Red Skull our heroes find they must shelve their differences to rescue the Prime Minister of the time James Callaghan.

Before we get to my favourite image from the story take a look at this great page where the Red Skull kidnaps the PM in the most audacious manner only a super villain can.

Below is my favourite page from the story which is also a superb cover where Callaghan shows he has more balls than any Prime Minister then and now.

As a closing thought I know artists often take liberties with how people look but that certainly isn’t the James Callaghan I remember.

Perhaps it was a life model decoy ?

It’s a Synne. Captain Britain vs a diabolical doctor.

Anyone named Dr Synne was always going to be stuck when it came to finding work as their name sort of disqualifies them from entering the medical profession or perhaps being a benevolent professor of any university. No lets face it if you’re named Dr Synne there is only one career path you can choose, super villain.

Dr Synne made his debut in Captain Britain vol 1 issue 7 written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Herb Trimpe and was to stick around giving Cap quite a lot of hassle for the next few issues. How much hassle can be quite a lot you may ask, well lets take a look.

Not one for a slow start first of all Dr Synne causes Captain Britain and his sister Betsy’s plane to crash and then makes a very dramatic entrance for reasons not really explained by riding in on a horse ( who also looks quite evil.)

Then in great comic book tradition he hypnotizes Betsy to attack Brian.

Dr Synne’s next diabolical move is to turn a whole village against Captain Britain, one of whom shoots him with a shotgun.

But even when Dr Synne sets Cap on fire it doesn’t slow our hero down.

Captain Britain defeats Dr Synne only to learn he was just a pawn in the machinations of his parent’s computer and unknown to them both he was defeated by the careless press of a switch from Captain Britain’s cleaning lady.

So another great Captain Britain baddy bites the dust but the stage is set for a showdown with the evil computer that spawned Dr Synne, more on that next week.

Captain Britain and the Walking Dead.

Zombies have always been popular at Halloween and other times and many comic book companies seek to exploit this with titles about the undead, Marvel Comics to make the most of the zombie cash cow hired Walking Dead scribe Robert Kirkman to create their franchise Marvel Zombies, but where does Captain Britain fit in?

Now every time a Marvel Zombies mini series hit the shelves most of Marvel’s current titles would get a zombie variant cover and Captain Britain and MI-13 was no exception as you can see below.

But there is in my opinion an even better Captain Britain zombie pic from Marvel Zombies issue 2 drawn by the great artist Sean Phillips, check it out below.

What I love about this picture is that the Captain Britain zombie is patriotic enough to do his undead thing in front of Big Ben, probably in case the reader gets confused about where he is from and the Union Jack and red, white and blue costume aren’t enough of a clue.

Seriously though the first two Marvel Zombies series written by Kirkman and drawn by Phillips are a great read and if you haven’t picked them up I recommend you give them a go.

Captain Britain goes ape !

How bereft of ideas were Marvel comics in 2008 ? Well so bereft it seems that they released a mini series called Marvel Apes which re imagined all Marvel characters as monkeys. These comics were envisaged as a money-maker in the way the successful Marvel Zombies comics were but to nobodies surprise Marvel Apes quietly curled up and died without any of the formers success.

So what has this got to do with Captain Britain you might be asking, well to promote Marvel Apes a lot of Marvel titles released at that time had ape variant covers including Captain Britain and MI -13 issue 5.

Take a look at it below.

This cover means a lot to me for two reasons, firstly I imagine it as was inspired by the great UK King Kong inspired monkey movie, Konga.

Secondly up to the release of this cover I had never been a fan of variant comics often deriding them as rip offs only put out to make fans buy two, three or even more issues of the same comic. However I am a shallow man and when I found out Captain Britain variants existed then I had a road to Damascus moment and suddenly found myself asking my local comic shop for them. Variant comics ended up costing me a lot of money especially when Swamp Thing returned to the DC universe and it’s fair to say they triggered my move to digital comics but that’s another story.

Anyway I digress as I often do, what I meant to say is that this is an excellent cover and I’ll share more Captain Britain covers and variants over the coming weeks.