THE SHATTERING

Cover art I did for an omnibus edition of Van Allen Plexico's The Shattering. I didn't realize until now that he had not written that scene when I delivered the cover art, yet he described it to me in such detail I could "see" it in my mind. Obviously what I was seeing jived with the author's vision.

That's gratifying for me as an artist but aside from that I am amazed that a scene could be so well thought out two years in advance of the actual writing. Now that's planning ahead!

You can find the first volumes in the series and more from Van Allan Plexico at www.whiterocketbooks.com

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

SAY HEY (I LOVE YOU)

Michael Franti & Speahead.

I love this song and I love all you crazy blogger people who follow me!

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

SOLD OUT

Here is the cover art that I did for Joel Jenkin's newest Gantlet Brothers novel: SOLD OUT!

You can read all about it here.

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

IT'S BEEN QUIET...

...too quiet. This is all I've managed to finish (and I use that word in its most liberal sense) in the last week.

I haven't had much going on aside from my posts at the AMAZING STORIES website. I haven't done much artwork in the past little while. One of the reasons was that I became a grandfather. My older daughter had a baby three weeks ago.

And I guess I feel about as old as this guy, though hopefully not as evil-looking.

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

WHAT THE %&*# IS PERRY RHODAN?

I'm reprinting my last column for the AMAZING STORIES website here because... because I feel like it, that's why. You got a problem with that?

If you are a fan of science fiction and if, as I do, you have a particular love for space opera, then you probably have come across the name Perry Rhodan.

If you're anything like me then you would have spent many hours scouring paperback aisles or racks looking for science fiction paperbacks. Sometimes in drug stores or supermarkets or maybe in second-hand book stores. Either way you are bound to have come across a paperback edition or two of the Perry Rhodan books. The English editions, anyways.

And if you are like me you would have asked yourself: what is this Perry Rhodan thing? And you probably would have been warned away from it as I was many times.

Perry Rhodan is a weekly German science fiction pulp magazine series that has run uninterrupted since 1961. That translates into over two thousand five hundred issues released so far not counting reprints, books and spinoffs.

Lets let that sink in for a moment. Can you think of a similar North American science fiction hero who has had such a run? The closest I can think of is Doctor Who and his run was certainly not uninterrupted.

Does this not sound like the most successful science fiction series ever? So how come hardly anyone outside of Germany knows about it?

The magazine was originally founded by Karl-Herbert Scheer and Walter Emsting, two German science fiction writers. Initially it was only conceived to run for thirty volumes, which was ambitious enough. Its popularity within Germany allowed it to run well past the original thirty volumes and now it is still being developed and written by an ever-changing team of authors.

So what is Perry Rhodan all about? Well, according to Perry-Rhodan.us:

The series begins with the first manned moon landing (in 1971) led by U.S. Space Force Major Perry Rhodan. However, things do not go as planned and the astronauts discover a stranded alien spaceship from a star system called Arkon and its crew who need medical help. The realization that mankind is not alone in space and access to the aliens' advanced technology lead to the (not entirely trouble-free) political unification of Earth under the eponymous hero-protagonist Rhodan, first expeditions into the cosmic neighborhood, and the eventual founding of first colonies on other planets, all the while trying to keep the more powerful established factions out there (especially the decadent Empire of Arkon, which had dominated local space for twenty millenia) from finding out just where the newcomers hail from.

Over time (over the course of the entire series so far, more than three thousand years pass in-universe), Earth and its colonies evolve into a major power in their own right while other space-faring races lose some of their traditional influence.

Well that all sounds pretty standard space opera, doesn't it? There are elements of Doc Smith's Lensman stories as well as Star Trek. But why has Perry Rhodan lasted for so long, achieved this level of popularity in Germany but not elsewhere in the world? How can a franchise inspire Books, spin-offs, games, music albums (including one by Tangerine Dream's Christopher Franke) and even a movie back in 1966 (although Perry Rhodan fans will tell you that there never was a movie made... EVER! That's how bad it was) and not have been able to break out of its regional popularity the way Doctor Who has? Is it a German thing? Does it not translate outside of the German cultural ouvre?

I guess the question I'm really asking is: Is it any good?

At this point I should come clean and tell you that I have not read any Perry Rhodan. I have several of the English language paperbacks but I have never read them. I have been warned away from the books by fellow science fiction fans, yet, there is an appealing allure about the existence of such a successful franchise that very few people, even the science fiction community, has even heard about.

My question then is the one in the title of this piece: What the %&*# is Perry Rhodan? Who out there knows and can share what it is about this series that has captured your imagination?

Who out there knows just what this Perry Rhodan thing is all about? Who out there knows and can tell me why it has endured? And who has any theories about why it hasn't become a breakout world-wide success like other sf franchises?

THE MAN IN THE TORN SHIRT

Here is a reprint of my most recent post for the AMAZING STORIES website. This post was inspired by my good buddy Cal over at the Cave of Cool who tends to knock one of my great childhood heroes because of his choice of shirts.


 

This post is about icons.

It's about powerful images and the way that they can become stuck in the public consciousness.

But it's also about old pulp heroes. One in particular.

I suppose I should start at the beginning. Not back in the 1930's when Street and Smith released a new hero pulp magazine featuring a super-scientific crime fighter named Doc Savage. Not even in the 1960's when the adventures were reprinted in paperback format with covers painted by artist James Bama.

For me the beginning was the summer of 1976. I was eleven years old and it was the start of our family summer vacation. Summer vacation for me meant long drives in a hot car with my brothers and I in the back seat. We had made a stop somewhere and my mother sent us in to a used bookstore with a little bit of pocket money to buy comic books to try to keep us interested in something else other than fighting amongst ourselves.

I started rifling through the second-hand paperbacks. I can't remember exactly what I was looking for, but when I came across the Doc Savage paperback I was stopped cold. The cover showed a muscled man with a torn shirt and a strange haircut, fending off a trio of weasel-like creatures. The name DOC SAVAGE was blazoned across the top but above it was the name of the adventure: The Other World.

The description on the back of the book got me even more excited. “To the world at large, Doc Savage is a strange, mysterious, figure of glistening bronze skin and golden eyes...”

How could an eleven year old resist that? I read the paperback and wanted more.

Fortunately there were lots around at the time. George Pal had just made Doc Savage, the movie. There were comic books and magazines and plenty more paperbacks all featuring the iconic image of Doc Savage sporting a torn shirt.

The iconic torn shirt.

An icon is a religious work of art from Eastern Christianity. Depictions of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, saints, what have you, these images were very powerful representations of a people's faith.

The icon has become co-opted by our society for anything but religious purposes. An icon is a visual representation of an idea or a feeling. It can be a symbols that encapsulates a feeling or an idea. Icons are very powerful, though we tend not to think too consciously about them. But that's how they work.

Take Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was never... NEVER... described as wearing a deerstalker cap. The illustrator of the stories, Sidney Paget depicted Holmes wearing a traveling cloak and a deerstalker hat for one adventure. For whatever reason, the deerstalker became permanently associated with Holmes. The deerstalker was a country cap, favored by hunters. To wear it year round, in the city was an absurd thing back in the late 1880's, yet it quickly became Holmes' costume.

Put on a deerstalker cap and you are Sherlock Holmes. Even the recent BBC TV series Sherlock, which has updated Holmes to the Twenty-First century, could not entirely get away from at least giving a nod to the existence of the famous cap.

Doc Savage wearing a torn shirt ALL the time is ridiculous. Yes, he's an adventurer and very busy. If, in the course of an adventure his shirt gets torn he doesn't have time to get a new one.

Some bloggers, including Calvin from Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool, take to complaining about it, asking why he doesn't make his shirts out of the same, seemingly durable material out of which his pants are made.

But these questions are immaterial. Doc Savage's ripped shirt is iconic. It's as iconic as Sherlock Holmes' deerstalker, or Tarzan's loin cloth.

It was not always like that. Just as with Holmes's deerstalker, the torn shirt is a product of the illustrator. Doc Savage's original pulp magazine run featured lots of action-filled covers and on some Doc appears wearing a ripped shirt. In the very first issue Doc's shirt is torn. Nowhere near as torn as it would be in later covers, but it was there from the beginning. But other covers do not feature the torn shirt. In some cover illustrations Doc is wearing a suit and tie with not a single rip in sight.

When the adventures were released in paperback the job of painting the covers went to artist James Bama. Bama was the one who settled on the image of the torn shirt (the publishers insisted on the weird, widow's peak hairstyle, but that's another story) and the torn shirt appeared on every single cover that Bama or any other artist painted, right up until today.

So now, poor Doc Savage has to wear a torn shirt all the time, just like Sherlock Holmes was saddled with his ridiculous deerstalker. Perhaps Doc will move beyond the torn shirt. There is supposed to be a new movie in the works. Perhaps that will give us a new iconic image for Doc Savage. Maybe something cleaner, sophisticated and less... torn.

Perhaps that is a vain hope. I imagine that the poster for the movie, should it ever materialize, will feature a picture of whatever broadly muscled actor they cast sporting a shirt hanging raggedly about him to better highlight his pectorals and six-pack abs. That image will still overshadow the essence of a character who is so much more than a torn shirt.

Such is the power of the icon.

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I GIVE YOU THE NEW DOCTOR WHO...

That went well, I think.

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

WHO WILL IT BE?

On Sunday the BBC will announce who the new Doctor will be. But it doesn't matter who they cast as the new star of Doctor Who.

Whoever the new Doctor is, I won't like him (or her).

I know this because it's always the same.

I know this because I've been through this before.

Seven times.

When Tom Baker regenerated into Peter Davison I thought that would be the end of the show. There was no way it could ever be as good as it was when Tom Baker played the Doctor. Tom WAS the Doctor.

I mean, sure, I had seen Jon Pertwee in the role. He was the first Doctor that I watched. But Somehow I missed his transformation into baker. I lost touch with the show, but then I heard so may great things about it I picked it up again.

Tom Baker was fabulous as the Doctor. It was like he was born to play this part. Of course, he was, because he was really playing Tom Baker. That's the beauty of Doctor Who, each actor puts his own personal stamp on the role. His time as the Doctor becomes inextricably linked with who that actor is and vice versa.

And when Baker left it wasn't the end of the show. It was never as popular, of course, as it was during the Baker years. That kind of popularity wouldn't come until later with the show's return.

Peter Davison because the Doctor. I knew him from his role as Tristan on the BBC's All Creatures Great and Small. He was different. He was contained and sincere.

He won me over, so much so that when it was announced that he was leaving I was sure that the show was coming to an end. It could never be the same.

It wasn't. Colin Baker took over the role and I didn't like him. Until he won me over as well.

I met Baker at a convention in Bellingham, Washington shorty after he was fired from the role by the BBC controller. It was an awful situation. The producer, John Nathan Turner, wanted to move on. Baker wanted to stay. BBC controller at the time, Michael Grade, hated the show. He did exactly the opposite.

Baker was bitter about it, to say the least. he'd heard that they'd cast some actor named Sylvester McCoy. "I don't know who he is," he said. "I only know that he does a comedy act where he puts ferrets down his trousers."

Baker wanted the show to fail. I didn't, but I still didn't like Sylvester McCoy.

But then he grew on me.

So that when the show was finally cancelled I thought; that's it. That's the end.

I introduced my daughter to Doctor Who -- to the Sylvester McCoy Doctor. She loved it.

Then it came back with Paul McGann. I remembered McGann from the movie Withnail and I. My daughter and I watched the movie. We watched as McCoy regenerated into McGann.

I didn't like him.

He was too young, too handsome, too pandering to American audiences.

Then it was over and I thought; well, that's it, Nice try but its done.

Then, years later, they brought the show back. My daughter and I were excited. I saw pictures of the new Doctor, Christopher Eccleston with his short hair and leather jacket and I thought; when are they going to show him dressed as the Doctor?

So the show premiered and I didn't like him. His hair was too short and his clothes were contemporary.

But he grew on me.

He only lasted one season.

So we watched as he regenerated into David Tennant. And may daughter said to me; "I don't like him"

So now Matt Smith is leaving and everyone who criticized him when he took over (myself included -- He's too young, not forceful enough) are sad to see him go.

So when they announce the new actor on Sunday I will not like him.

Until the new season is well underway, then he (or she?) will grow on me.

And when this actor announces that he or she is leaving the role I will be sad and when they cast his or her replacement, I can guarantee that I won't like him.

Until he grows on me.

UPDATE: I just had a sudden certainty that the new Doctor Who will be Julian Rhind-Tutt. I'm probably wrong. I was absolutely certain that actor Rhys Ifans would replace David Tennant and I was completely wrong about that, so take this for what its worth. (Nothing)

If I'm right no one will be more surprised than me. (Of course I'll act all cool about it, like I knew all along, but inside I'll be gobsmacked).

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

BLONDIE'S

So a local bistro called Blondie’s needed a logo. I came up with a pencil sketch. They decided just to go with a picture of a flower. I took the pencil sketch home, scanned it and worked in some color.

So this is for all you blondies out there. (And one in particular. She knows who she is).
I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

ICE CREAM (NSFW)

Well, I just had to finish this one. I should have been working on something else but I just couldn't let this one go.

And, there you go, Erik. I told you the ice cream was gonna melt and drip everywhere!

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

TODAY WE ARE CANCELING THE APOCALYPSE!

GO SEE PACIFIC RIM! IT IS FRICKIN' AWESOME!!!

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

ICE CREAM - WIP

Not sure where this is going but I started on it yesterday. I'd like to work more on it but I have another two commissions ahead of it and an article to write before tomorrow.

So here it is so far. It's not the whole picture. The rest is NSFW, but I will show that eventually.

What do you think so far?

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

LORDE - Royals

So, this tune is stuck in my head, thanks to my brother's Facebook post. So now it can be stuck in yours.

Sixteen year old singer from New Zealand. That's all I know.

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

THE ROYAL OCCULTIST AUDIO ADVENTURE

Here is the album art that I did for the audio adventure of Joshua Raynolds' Charles St. Cyprian, the Royal Occultist.

Josh has written several stories featuring this character and they are extremely entertaining. Some are in magazines and anthologies but others are available to read for free at The Royal Occultist website. Also keep an eye out for the first Royal Occultist novel coming out soon.

The audio version of Reynold's story, Owd Hob, is produced by Richard Gough-Thomas and is only the first of hopefully many more.

Take a listen to it here. You can name your price.



I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

...AND THE ROCKET'S RED GLARE...

Happy Fourth of July, America, you sexy country!

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

ME AND THE MAD MONSTER PARTY (1967)

So here's my story: When I was a kid, around 11 or 12, I turned on the TV and caught the last five minutes of this movie. It blew my mind and I was outraged that I had missed the whole thing. The next day at school I asked all my friends if they'd seen it. No one had.

Back then, in rural British Columbia, we only got two television channels, so it was inconceivable that none of my friends -- NONE OF THEM -- had seen it.

Looking back, maybe there was a big hockey game on the other channel, I don't know. Nevertheless, for years I doubted that I had actually seen it. I convinced myself that I'd dreamed it or something.

Then I started hearing about it on the internet. It was real! I hadn't dreamed it! Then yesterday I found a VHS copy in my local thrift store. I picked it up and last night I forced my family to watch it.

Well, it was entertaining, but not without its problems. It's very dated and certainly NOT politically correct. The film was produced in 1967 by Saul Rankin and Jules Bass, the same guys who made Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. It was co-written by Harvey Kurtzman who wrote for MAD Magazine.

The film features Baron Boris Von Frankenstein, voiced by Boris Karloff, gathering all the monsters at his castle to retire and pass on his secrets. The other monsters, Dracula, The Mummy, the werewolf, the creature, etc, realize that he is going to give his secrets to his nephew, Felix. Each wants the secret for himself and chaos ensues.

The film has some good performances and some bad ones. The animation is really clunky and Phyllis Diller plays, Phyllis Diller, which can get old pretty quick.

Some of the musical numbers are good and some are terrible -- I mean really bad! And the attitudes are very dated. The female lead, Francesca, wants the secret for herself and hates Felix until, in a moment of hysteria, Felix slaps her around. Then she falls in love with him! Wow! Not cool!

Should you see it? Yes, particularly if you are old enough to have potentially seen it as a kid. It's loaded with nostalgia. If you are younger it probably will mean little to you without the cultural context. This is stop motion animation -- NOT CGI.

Anyway, now that I have finally seen the thing after waiting for 36 years, I can cross THE MAD MONSTER PARTY off my bucket list. Yay!

UPDATE: If you really want to see it, you can download it from the itunes store (U.S. only, though) but at $9.99 you'd better be really sure you want to watch it!

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

SUMMER SOLSTICE -- GO WILD!

It is the Summer Solstice, but here in the Frozen North it is cold, damp and decidedly chilly. Winter is coming.

Until then, let's hit the beach. Here are some of my very few "summery" type pictures.

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

FIRE AND ICE:LIVE ACTION?

Frank Frazetta and Ralph Bakshi got together and made Fire and Ice back in 1983. Using his rotoscoped animation technique Bakshi tried to make the paintings of Frank Frazetta come to life. The results were mixed at best.

Now director Robert Ridriguez wants to use the same cinematic techniques he used to bring Frank Miller's Sin City to the screen to film a live action remake of Fire and Ice.

“I want it to look like you just stepped into one of his (Frazetta's) paintings, where you get to see his world, and how he saw people, anatomy, and composition and color,” Rodriguez said. “It will feel like it’s real, but not real. It’ll be his reality. He saw things differently. He painted from his imagination. He didn’t take a photograph and just paint it.”

Here is some of the concept art:

Can this happen? Pleeeeease!


I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

IMPERI

Quick sketch I did this morning based on a vintage photograph.

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

DAVINCI'S DEMONS

 So last night I started watching DaVinci's Demons, a British-American series which presents a highly fantastical representation of Leonardo Davinci's early adult life as an artist, inventor, idealist and intellect and Florence under the Medici's. The series is conceived and written by David S. Goyer.

Described as a historical fantasy, the series explores the untold story of DaVinci "inventing" the future at the age of 25, at a time in history when “thought and faith are controlled...as one man fights to set knowledge free.” The young DaVinci struggles with his inner darkness “tortured by a gift of superhuman genius. He is a heretic intent on exposing the lies of religion. An insurgent seeking to subvert an elitist society. A bastard son who yearns for legitimacy with his father.”

I was not expecting much with this show so I was pleasantly surprised at how good it is. It strikes the right balance of history and fantasy. DaVinci is presented as a sort of Florentine Sherlock, his unique vision and insights highlighted by moments of slow-motion and animated DaVinci drawings.

In fact, if you're waiting impatiently for the new season of SHERLOCK in October (and, let's face it, who isn't?) then this just might be the series to tide you over. Visually it is very lush with beautiful scenery and costumes and, as this is Starz, there are enough expletives, boobs, bums and dicks on display to satisfy the GAME OF THRONES/SPARTACUS crowd. There is also enough action, sword fights, spurting blood, clever chases and explosions to satisfy attention deficit viewers.

Tom Riley does his best Benedict Cumberbatch/Johnny Lee Miller as Leonardo. He is difficult, a womanizer, a drunkard as well as a man of frenetic action and tortured genius. The rest of the cast is good and mostly British. DEEP SPACE NINE fans will recognize Julian Bashir -- Alexander Siddig as Al-Rahim and SHERLOCK aficionados will recognize Irene Adler -- Lara Pulver as Clarice Orsini.

I'm only two episodes in but I'm enjoying it enormously and I would recommend it based on the opening two. There are only eight episodes in the first season but it has been renewed for a second. It's certainly worth a look.

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

RANDOM GUY

Freehand sketch, no references -- something I have been doing far too infrequently lately.

I think I need to do more of this -- just pure drawing with no expectation of what it's gonna look like once it's done. It's very freeing.

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio

BELLA VonCATWOMAN

Here is the awesomely awesome Bella Von Doom as Catwoman.

This is the second time I have worked with Bella and once again I had a blast. She is a fun person, a fantastic model as well as a terrific artist herself.

Go visit her tumblr and give her a shout out. (Just be warned that her tumblr can get very NSFW). Check it out here. 

I've been here and there. I've drawn a lot of pictures. I've written a bit, too. I'm not good at this self-promotion thing. Look, you want to know about me? just visit these websites. Okay?
www.mdjacksonart.weebly.com
http://mdjackson.deviantart.com
http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/mdjacksons%5Fportfolio