Webs Weekly #9

You know what I could use? A clone. I don’t think Spider-Man really appreciated the beauty of having someone else run around doing his work for him. Brian #2 could go sit at my desk job all day while I sat around at home reading comics, or playing video games, or napping and dreaming about playing comic based-video games. It’d be glorious. But I don’t have a clone and I am therefore required to do things for myself.

There’s just not enough time in the day though, especially when life cruelly rips away the summer vacation you were once so accustomed to. So my apologies to anyone who missed the Webs Weekly segment during it’s summer vacation period I enacted (iron_patriot, I’m looking at you), but now it returns. To keep my sanity (and day job), I am going to change things up a little and post this entry once a month and feature one “art of the week” per monthly Webs Weekly (that way I can keep the Stan Lee approved Webs Weekly title). Every Monday I will pick a piece I like and then, at the end of the month, I will compile all of them into the new Webs Weekly entry. So in order to tie this all together, here is the return of Webs Weekly featuring everybody’s favorite clone.

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August 01, 2011: Spider Clone Trinity by Soul-the-Awkward (colors) and spiderguile (pencils) (left)

They say two is company and three is a crowd, but Soul-the-Awkward makes it look more like a party. A dangerous party, though, based on the battle-torn attire worn by the heroes. Soul does a great job coloring spiderguile’s drawing of Peter Parker and his ‘brothers.’ There is great detail in the shades of the colors and I like the outerglow around the spider symbol in the background. At first I thought Kaine was missing his legs, but then I realized that he was standing in the circle of the spider. spiderguile and Soul have teamed up on some other classy looking jobs including a shot of the classic Fantastic Four and Soul has a few nice commissions on his Deviant page as well, such as a portrait of Alex from Clockwork Orange.

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August 08, 2011: Spiderman Ben Reilly by mdavidct (right)

There’s no escaping pumpkin bombs and razor bats if you run around with a spider-emblem on your chest. Ben Reilly’s version of the Spider-Man costume is one of my favorite takes on the classic red and blue threads. mdavidct’s Spider-Man has a somewhat angular and sinewy look to his arms, but still muscular and strong. I like the subtle cityscape in the background to add some detail but not distract from the main focus of the art. mdavidct has a library of artwork showing off Spidey’s spectacular wardrobe including both versions of the Spider-armor, Miles Morales’ new Ultimate Spider-Man outfit and his own redesign of Spidey’s costume. 

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August 15, 2011: dsc scarlet spider by snareser (left)

snareser is another repeat customer of Webs Weekly, this time displaying Ben putting the spider-hood to practical use. The background to this piece is really awesome in my opinion, and I love how Ben, the chimney and the rain are perfectly framed by the rectangular backdrop. I also enjoy the crosshatching to distinguish the light and dark portion of the blue. snareser has a spidey costume redesign of their own to show off in their gallery, and a touching portrait of the Human Torch done with markers and Photoshop.

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August 22, 2011: Scarlet by angel5art (right)

I’m a big fan of superhero costumes that look more like fabric instead of spandex. Ben’s Scarlet Spider outfit looks loose enough around the knees and feet to give Ben some flexibility, and the detail of the wind blowing against the hoodie conveys the speed at which Ben is slinging. The unfocused portions of the webline in the foreground and background, as well as the lens flare effect, give the art a nice photographic quality. angel has an impressive collection of fan art sketches and digital paintings with plenty of Marvel love, as well as some NSFW pieces of art for something called Dungeon Dolls, so be careful when browsing. But definitely browse it.

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August 29, 2011: Ben Reilly the Clone by spidermanfan2099 (colors) and Spiderfreak818 (line art) (left)

Spider-Ben sure has an affinity for chimneys. Hmm, I wonder if there is a reason for that… I’m sure Spider-Peter spent plenty of times over chimneys, especially during the cold New York winters, but I just thought it was clever of the artists who use a chimney as a platform for Ben to perch upon. spidermanfan2099 is the third contributor this month to have a second piece featured in Webs Weekly, having teamed with snareser on a Spider-Man 2099 piece in the Shattered Dimensions WW entry. I love spidermanfan’s colors in the background, going from light to dark, left to right. I also like Spiderfreak’s version of Spider-Man here and the artist’s arachnid-like pose he gave the hero. After perusing his numerous sketches on his deviant, I wouldn’t be surprised if Spiderfreak pops up in future Webs Weeklys. He also has a cool sketch of Shredder standing over some defeated ninja turtles. 

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That will do it for August’s Webs Weekly entries. We may be seeing Spidey’s clone running around again if Marvel’s teasers are any indication of things to come. For now, we can only wait to see what the Jackal and Spider-Island have in store for our hero. I’ll get to work on the cloning process on my end.

“Remember that one time during the fight when it looked like you might actually win? No? Me neither.” – Marvel vs. Capcom 3
“Did I mention I beat up Firelord once? No, seriously. Firelord.” – Ultimate Alliance 2