The Mark, "Taking Back the Streets", Page 11

This page makes me cringe; The 2 female close-ups are hideous. I don’t know why the editor, Bob Schreck, didn’t make me re-do them. He was usually very “hands-off”, giving me complete free-reign, but in this case I wish he’d stepped in.

As stated previously. I modeled Helda (panel 3) off Glenda Jackson, Larissa (panel 4) off of Anouk Amiée, (and the Archon, in panels 1 & 2 off of Arnold Schwartzenegger). My method was, I would rent a laser disc, spend 2 or 3 hours sketching a given actor, then use my sketches as reference for the rest of a project. I felt this gave a more consistent likeness. One of my pet peeves has always been artists using photo reference: In the panels where they have ref, the character looks like the star in question; in the panels where they don’t, the character reverts to the artist’s beautiful woman/handsome man (or whatever) stereotype.

Part of the challenge with this page was, Larissa had to be immediately recognizable as the character briefly introduced in pages 7 and 8. In pages 11 and 12 she has an altered hairstyle and radically different costume, with no dialogue cue to link them as the same woman until the very last word balloon of page 12. Part of my solution was to play her up as much as possible on pages 7 and 8. I’m not sure how successful I was (in cuing the reader that these 2 women are the same woman).

Glenda Jackson is an actress I’ve cast repeatedly over the years; She has an expressive, almost negroid face (big lips, a wide nose) and a masculine chin. I felt she was perfect as the assertive, dynamic Helda. Unfortunately, she has the tendency (as is the case in panel 3) to look like a man in drag.

This is page #11 from Dark Horse Comics #14, “The Mark: Taking Back the Streets”, written by Mike Barr, drawn by Brad Rader, published in November, 1993.