(Apologies to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for my post title)
This is now Day 12 of this year’s Jack Kirby Tribute Month, curated by Howard Simpson. The prompt for today is Crystal from the Inhumans, who were introduced in the Fantastic Four comic. I also drew her for last year’s FF-centric Jack Kirby Tribute Month here.
As I mentioned then, Crystal and her strange family of Inhumans make for lots of great story material after they’re introduced in the FF comic. She becomes a regular supporting cast member after awhile, as Johnny Storm’s love interest, and even joins the FF for a time.
At one point in the ’90s post-X‑Men, my friend and mentor in animation Larry Houston had moved over to Marvel to do an FF cartoon. I got to do a little bit of freelance for him (My day job on the X‑Men cartoon was still keeping me pretty busy).
On one of the episodes, they were introducing Crystal and the other Inhumans. I ended up getting to do the character design for Crystal. Larry wanted it based on her very first appearance in the comic, where she’s in a white dress and looks kind of ethereal at first when Johnny Storm sees her. He’s not quite sure if she’s really there, or he’s just imagining things.
I also thought that in that first appearance, her face looked a little like Kathy Ireland, so I tried to hang onto that in my design. When they picked the voice actors for that episode, they actually did cast Kathy Ireland in the part (something I had no idea was even under consideration)!
For this one, I thought it would be fun to have Crystal with her pet dog, Lockjaw. Of course, being an Inhuman, Lockjaw isn’t just a normal-looking dog.
That’s my take on Crystal this time. Who’s up next? You’ll have to come back again tomorrow to find out!