Marcus Montgomery aka The Bolt

Some sketches of my character Marcus from "The Bolt Strikes"

Madame Monster cover (copyright Samir Barrett MindWave Comics 2011)

Well I have been absent from this blog for too long and its time to make up for that.  A lot of stuff has been happening, got a job (unfortunately not art related) so that's been taking up some time. I'll be posting some long overdue images and sketches, I had hit somewhat of a dry spell for a while but hopefully this will get me back into the swing of things.

Techno Insecto on Patchwork

My Techno Insecto character toy design is now up on Patchtogether!  Please help me out and head on over to the link: http://www.patchtogether.com/designs/designs/view/id/4668 and vote for it.  If it does well enough then the toy design can become a reality, thanks a lot and please spread the word!

JUST US

My version of "JUST US" the original name of DC's Young Justice. I wanted the line-up to consist of characters that aren't currently present in any DC cartoons on television.  The line-up is as follows: Impulse, Robin (Tim Drake), Static, Wonder Girl (Donna Troy), Ravager, and Cyborg as the team mentor.

With Static I took a lot of influence from Khary Randolph's interpretation: http://www.tencentticker.com/projectrooftop/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Khary-Randolph.jpg
Donna Troy's suit is derived from the new Wonder Woman outfit, because I always thought that her new look suited Donna better than Diana.
Cyborg I can of just went all over the place, with the design in mind for animation I think it's too busy so at some point I'll have to go back and tone it down.

All characters owned by DC comics.

"The Bolt Strikes" Preview

So this is way easier than trying to be all secretive and junk.  I'm currently working on the first issue of "The Bolt Strikes" featuring the title character the Lightning Bolt (aka The Bolt).  These pages are no where near full completion but I figured I'd still share some.  They're all in order but have a few missing gaps in between them, I dont wanna give it all away now.

all characters copyright samir barrett 2011

Random Old Sketches

did these one time, on a computer, somewhere...

Warm-Up Sketches

been a while since I've updated ANYTHING, or even drawn if you can believe that.  So I hopped on a cyntiq and knocked out a few sketches to get me back in the groove.  So I present to you, nekkid women and a dinosaurs

Mythology Comic

Hey, so this is a short comic I did for my final presentation for Mythology Class pretty much going over the Greek tale of Zeus freeing his brothers and sisters from Cronus' captivity (Cronus swallowed them in his belly),  then inciting a war against the Titans, and finally acquiring the lightning bolts for the first time.  This comic is far from perfect and has a host of problems, but I think it turned out alright in the short amount of time I had to create the thing.  Because of everything I had to do, I only got to work on this for a few days so it was very rushed.  That and also I colored and lettered the entire thing in one night (got no sleep at all).  I want to use this in the future, so when I get the chance I'll fix it up and probably throw in another page between 2 and 3 just to flesh out the story more.

 

And let this be a lesson to you guys, if you're ever doing a comic project that requires a narrative make sure you write the script out first, or it will be difficult trying to come up with words to fit your images.

PS - Also I realize now that I mispelled the word "Throne" as thrown.  I apologize to the artistic, linguistic, and grammar community.

Birthday to Remember

Yesterday I turned 22, and it was a momentous occasion but not at all in the way I had hoped. Being stung by a bee for the first time in the neck wasn't much fun, and having to spend an all-nighter working in a dark window-less animation department was even less so. But all of that I could handle, what I couldn't handle was learning that one of my all-time heroes and inspirations Dwayne McDuffie had passed away.

Dwayne McDuffie was co-creator of Milestone comics, creator of characters like Static and Icon, and overall a very gifted writer who worked in comics and animation. As a little kid I read comics every now and then but I wasn't at all big into them, more into cartoons, but then I was given a ton of Milestone comics and something sparked inside me. It was really the first time I personally had ever seen comic titles featuring black heroes as main characters leading the story. They weren't tokens, they weren't sidekicks, they weren't back-up but actual title characters.

People may think my character the Bolt is taken from Black Lightening but it really was inspired by Static. I'm one of those fans that hates it when people call him Static-Shock because thats the name of the show, and there was a character that existed long before that. I had a ton of comics, I had first issues, I loved watching the cartoon, and it definitely influenced the creation of my character when I was around 10 or 11.

This was extremely depressing and even had me tearing up. I have always really wanted to meet this man and tell him thank you and just shake his hand, and I knew it was in the realm of possibility because I'm closer into the world of comics and animation now. Unfortunately I won't ever get that chance. So it was the lowest point of my birthday to find out this trailblazer passed away, but now every birthday I have will remind me of how great this guy was to the industry and how he helped inspire me do what I'm doing today. I hope one day in the future I can be half as cool as Dwayne was and inspire somebody else like he did me.

I hope you all will take a look at this: [link]
its a tribute thats going to happen for his creation and one of my all-time favorite comic book characters Static. I know I'm super swamped with tons of work but I'm still taking part in this. Thank you McDuffie, I'm sorry I never got to meet you in person, but I won't ever forget you man. R.I.P.