Who's Hughes

Thought I'd share some of the humor and remarkable illustration of Adam Hughes.

"That's nice, Wolfie.  Who?"  Ah!  (Which is how he signs his work, AH!)  You've seen one of the first things he did in 1990:

I've always thought that what made that cover, besides blonde Julie's adorable pout, is the reaction from her crew mates.  The space dragons are interested, too, but it's always hard to read dragon expressions.  There are nice artistic touches, too, like positioning the woman's pointing thumb on the fold so that you want to turn the thing over to see the rest of the wrap-around cover, and the copy on the back as well.   


Since then, both Adam's skill and the printing processes for comic book covers have improved exponentially.

Pretty cool, eh?  I love Adam's sense of humor, which ranges from gentle and warm to downright wicked.  The kids Wonder Woman is entertaining crack me up!

When young Billy Batson says the magic word "Shazam!" he becomes the world's mightiest mortal, Captain Marvel.  His sister Mary also undergoes a spectacular transformation.

And this... well, this is kind of a sad story.

As you see, Mr. Hughes excels at characterization.  Even if you don't know who these people are supposed to be, their expressions, postures and the myriad other details tell you lots about them.

Now, even I don't know who two of those women are.  But everyone will recognize these:

Adam does a lot of drawings for fans.  Here's the scene we didn't get to see:

A take on Tinker Bell:

Susan Richards, the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four, and her two offspring:  

Captain America, as he appeared in his first 1941 comic:

Don't mess with the Black Canary.

Really.  Don't.  

Transformations are hard on clothes.  The sensational She-Hulk:

Speaking of tough women, there was a Marvel Comics character meant to epitomize the Women's Liberation Movement of the early 70's.  Sometimes you have to be a little extreme to make a point:

And, touching on things mythological, here's the... er,  face that launched a thousand ships:

Gamers will recognize Lara Croft:

Adam has designed some statuettes, too.  Here's the plan for Donna Troy, AKA Wonder Girl:

And this one of Peter Parker's wife Mary Jane doing the family laundry raised a fuss with some folks.  I have no idea why. 

And, to wrap it up for now, here is my favorite Adam Hughes Wonder Woman drawing, done to raise money for charity.

More about Adam Hughes and his art is on line, natch!