GALACTA: Daughter of Galactus

Behold, the cover art for the upcoming Marvel Comics one-shot GALACTA: DAUGHTER OF GALACTUS, due out on comic retailers' shelves on May 19, 2010 [link] The pencils for this piece are by yours truly, with all the color artwork (and, quite clearly, the bulk of the artistic heavy lifting on the illo) provided by the book's actual artist, DA's own . I'd much (make that MUCH) rather have had Hector do the cover all by himself, but at the time, I was the only one of us cleared to do cover work at Marvel. (Alas.)

Here's the solicitation copy for the issue:

"Galactus is the terror of the universe, devouring planets and destroying civilizations as he goes—and a father to a growing daughter! Meet GALI, daughter of the infamous planet-eater GALACTUS and the WINNER of last year’s MARVEL ASSISTANT- SIZED SPECTACULAR poll! Unlike her father, Gali has formed an affection for the planet Earth, and does her best to subsist only on invasive alien life-forms…but when her cosmic hunger begins growing out of control, can she hold herself back from a deadly binge? Featuring WOLVERINE, THOR, and the FANTASTIC FOUR, this collects the original Galacta short plus three Marvel Digital Comic Exclusive Galacta stories from writer Adam Warren (Empowered, Gen 13) and with stunning digital paints by artist Hector Sevilla Lujan!"

To clarify, this one-shot features the original story that introduced Galacta (11 pages) in MARVEL ASSISTANT-SIZED SPECTACULAR #2, plus all three of the new Galacta short stories currently running online (22 more pages), plus extra material including: sweet bonus artwork by ; a selection of choicer tweets from Gali's Twitter page [link] and possibly a wee bit of artwork by me (a layout page or two, perhaps).

Note that, if you are a subscriber to the aforementioned Marvel Digital Comics dealie, you can see the new Galacta stories online right now: [link]

Anyhoo, check it out. In the event that this one-shot garners decent sales figures, it's possible that we might see further stories with Galacta down the road... Much thanks to Marvel editor Jordan D. White for making the whole thing possible! And, needless to say, major props to for his spectacular work on a series of rather challenging scripts... I'd almost forgotten how much fun it is to see how another (and often, better) artist handles the creative heavy-lifting on one of my stories, as opposed to having to always draw the damn things myself!

I should note that I was thinking of posting the roughs, layouts and original pencils for this piece separately, but at present I'm a tad short on free time to indulge in such luxuries, as I'm currently engaged in the desperate struggle to wrap up the pencils for EMPOWERED vol. 6. (In truth, "wrap up" is a bit of a stretch, as I still have months to go before I'm anywhere NEAR being done with the book.) This is why I've not posted any artwork in quite a while, and prolly won't be posting any more in the near future, at least until the grinding ordeal of EMP 6 is finally out of the way.

In closing, here's a nice GALACTA review from her original appearance (with bonus points for use of the word "abstemious"):
[link]

"As with many anthology titles, there tends to be one story in every issue that rises above the others to stand out as an above-average yarn. Last issue it was the American Eagle short story, and this issue it's the debut of 'Galacta' in a tale penned by Adam Warren (of Empowered fame) and illustrated by Hector Sevilla Lujan. The concept of Galactus having a daughter who lives on Earth and disguises herself in human form is a fun one, but it's made even more enjoyable by Warren's decision to make her an abstemious, neurotic young girl who will only ingest Earth's non-native lifeforms, thus helping to protect the planet from alien invaders. There's techno-speak worthy of Warren Ellis, great-looking painted art in a manga-esque style, some fun characterisation of the lead (I love the way that she can't help but see the estimated calorific yield of anything she looks at) and an intriguing cliffhanger that definitely has me interested to read more."