It's Raining Men

Hallelujah!

So my buddy Wheeler is starting a new themed sketchbook.

A themed sketchbook, for those of you who don't eat, sleep, and shit comics, is a book fans (and occasionally non-drawing professionals) will use to collect sketches and commissions by artists, all adhering to a single theme. Such as Green Lanterns, or jungle girls, or monsters, or occasionally, a more rarified choice, like the Royal Tanenbaums, or in the case of Wheeler's sketchbook: Gender bent superheroes, specifically, female to male.

The whole thing kind of arose out of a conversation we had about the way I'd approached gender bending the JLA in a Superwoman/Batwoman one-shot I did a few years back. Redesigning a male superhero costume for a female is so elementary, you  barely stay awake while doing it. But going the other way, from female to male presents some interesting challenges, since so many female heroes' costumes are designed to accentuate and emphasize their (female) sexuality.

They wouldn't let my male Black Canary wear the short shorts I'd given him. They made me give him long pants, and I'd even done away with the fishnets to show what a good sport I was... They did let me have my stalky, hirsute, bearded Wonder (Wo)Man though.

I had the honor of inaugurating the book with Man-Storm, maybe the only female to male gender bent character with less clothing than his female counterpart.

A bit of context for the less-than-obsessed.

More Wheeler fun here and here.