Still doing Jack Kirby Tribute Month, we’re in the midst of Granny Goodness’ Orphanage Week, featuring characters who grew up in that institution on Apokolips. Today’s prompt is the one and only Big Barda, erstwhile commander of the Female Furies!
There’s something really neat about her battle armor that makes it a fun challenge to wrap your head around and try to draw it. I took a shot at it last year too.
Apparently at one point, Jack had wanted to star Barda and the other Furies in their own book, but I gather by that point, DC felt sales on the Fourth World books weren’t enough to justify doing it, sadly.
Hope you like my take on Barda here, and please feel free to come back by here tomorrow to see who’s next from the Orphanage!
Thanks Mark. It is the blue in Big Barda’s costume that makes her stand out for me, which is accentuated by the bright yellows. I have no idea if Jack chose color to reflect anything about a character’s mood and/or life experience, but it sure seems to some extend he did. She rose above, as is said, the horrors of the orphanage. Granny Goodness went well beyond Annie’s Ms. Hannigan after all. I am curious as to the reason you choose the looking up at us pose for her you did?
I would assume Jack had at least some hand in the color designs, but don’t know the extent of it. For example, I’ve seen what appear to be concept drawings he did of Mister Miracle where instead of red, he’d used more of a reddish violet. DC (or maybe Jack himself) changed that to a standard comics red instead.
There’s sort of a rule of thumb in superhero comics that good guys are in primary colors, while bad guys are in secondaries. You can of course find exceptions to that, but Barda definitely makes use of that primary formula.
As to the pose, I wasn’t shooting so much for a down shot as I was for the kind of forced perspective shot Jack excelled at: her leaning into camera, having fired the Megarod, but ready to leap into further action if needed.