In the last Swizzle Studio newsletter, I noted that I was looking for new commissions. The first request came a few days later from Luckystar Studio’s Gene Evans:
Are you up for a painting of Batman? I collect artistic interpretations of Batman.
I started with drawing of a fully-armed Batman (part of the Batman legend is that he never uses a gun) based on poses I found in the Italian pulp comic Diabolik, but Gene gravitated towards a weird little outlier sketch:
I was ready to start on Working Title: Weird Bat-Dog when another email from Gene arrived:
Hate to change gears, but, how about a bat wearing a shirt and tie?
Sometimes gear changes are fortuitous, as the resulting painting in this case is rather nice. I switched from the planned square format to a long rectangle and got something pretty unique, Man Bat 9-5:
Man-Bat 9-5, 12″x6″, acrylic on canvas (click to view large)
Incidentally, there is a DC Comics supervillain named Man-Bat, but he lacks the charms of my little Joker-colored dude.
