Another fanfic Youngblood story

If you've been reading me for a while, you know that I like Awesome fan fiction. It makes the characters feel still alive. I talked about the Awesome Army Online and their Outpost fan fiction digests in posts here and here. My friend Rob Messick was involved with the AAO back in the day and was nice enough to send me the Outposts, which now live here.

In talking with him, he told me he and his artist partner Brian Milligan, had done another Youngblood story that they distributed with their other Youngblood stories as a Youngblood Bootleg at a convention back in the 2000s. He was nice enough to send it to me and even nicer to give me permission to reprint it here.

(He made me promise to say that it was one of the first comics he wrote and it was designed to be given away for free, but if I didn't think it was great, I wouldn't be sharing it. By the way, you can check out his great Facebook page here: facebook.com/AwestruckComics.)

I love the humor to these guys' Youngblood and the irreverent cartoony look and feel. It's just a fun comic and you can tell they have a genuine love of the Awesome and Extreme Universes. Check it out:

In addition, he showed me a couple of the celebrity artist sketches he's gotten to work on Youngblood characters over the years, including this beauty from Art Adams...

 ...and this one from Mark Bagley (which is for sale, incidentally).

Brent Anderson... almost artist on Supreme The Return

You might know Brent Anderson from his amazing run on Astro City or even his superlative work on X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills. Well, he also almost worked on Alan Moore's Supreme.

As I mentioned here, there was a report in The Ivory Informer fanzine that Brent Anderson was going to do the art for Supreme: The Return #4. However, he never did and Matthew Dow Smith ended up doing the art instead.

My friend Rob recently asked Anderson about the missed opportunity and was kind enough to pass on the exchange:

Q: Hello! I'm a long time fan. Been a reader of Astro City since the beginning! I've had a question for you for almost 20 years. I remember that you were named as an artist for one of the last few issues of Alan Moore's Supreme run. Unfortunately it never happened. Could you please clarify what went down. Did Rob ask you? Did you do any work on it? What issue was it? And finally why didn't it happen? I appreciate any answer that you can give. Those Alan Moore comics from Awesome are some of my favorites! Thanks!

A: It has been a long time, but I recall I was sent two scripts and asked to pick a favorite between them. They were both excellent and I couldn't immediately choose one over the other. While I was dithering, I guess the series ended, and there was no follow-up. I never did get to have a conversation with Moore. I still have the scripts and refer to them now and again and marvel at how adroit and accomplished a writer Alan Moore really is! I hope this info is useful to you. Best, -B.