Today makes day 16 of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, which means we’re officially over halfway through! If you’ve been keeping score, you know that this week’s theme has been the D.N.Aliens created by the DNA Project or the Evil Factory, as seen in Kirby’s run on Jimmy Olsen. Today’s prompts are the heads of the Evil Factory, Simyan and Mokkari.
Working on behalf of Darkseid to wreak havoc on Earth from their secret location, Simyan and Mokkari’s Evil Factory created a number of creatures that they seemed in some cases to not even really have any control of. It was science run amuck! They were definitely responsible for creating some “interesting” times for our heroes and the DNA Project. There’s also a sense that maybe the alliance between the two is on the fragile side, that each has their own interests and ought to watch their back.
These guys were fun to try to draw. It struck me that those facial tattoos (or markings, or whatever they are) on Mokkari kind of make me think of something Steve Ditko might’ve designed.
Hope you like my take, and stay tuned! There’s one more day of this week’s D.N.Aliens theme, which you’ll see tomorrow!
Mokkari Tattoos as you refer to the markings are surely interesting. The markings above his eyes almost take the shape of antlers or horns. I wonder if they have that sort of function? Your color choice clearly make both characters interesting. And I’m wondering if your positioning of the two in the panel space will lead us further into a narrative?
Thanks Mark.
Previously, I had never before made the connection between Mokkari’s facial markings and Steve Ditko’s designs. But as sometimes happens, I see more when I’m scrutinizing things while drawing something. Color choice on these two was down to how they were colored in the original comics. Even with the backgrounds, I’m trying to use colors that were authentic to the original coloring.
As to positioning, I was trying to get across the sense I got from their original appearances: that they were allies working for Darkseid, but couldn’t necessarily trust each other.