Welcome to The Drawing Board on the Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast. Now I don't think I've said anything about my favorite artists in comics on the broadcast before. Now you can't have your favorite comics without the artist, whether he's the guy doing the pencils or the guy doing the inking. Without these guys, there'd only be words and well, that's just not comics to me. So for this edition of the broadcast, I'm going to talk about one of my favorite artists in comic books.
So for this edition of The Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast, we're going to take a look at one of my favorite artists in Comics, his name is Travis Charest. The first time I saw the name Travis Charest, I thought that's how you
pronounced it. Pronounce it as it is spelled, so I kept saying Travis
Cha-rest. Little did I know at the time that the correct way to
pronounce it was Travis Cha-ray. I found out after reading about it in
Wizard Magazine. Say what you will about Wizard Magazine, it was sure
packed with some useful information about comics and artists. Anyway back to Travis Charest. I believe the first time I saw his artwork was on a tiny little house ad in a DC Comics issue of Superman I think it was about a new title coming out soon called Darkstars.
The Darkstars were a group of fictional intergalactic policemen that appeared in DC Comics series Darkstars # 1 released in October of 1992. The Darkstars were created by Michael Jan Friedman and Mike Collins. The series lasted a total of 39 issues, ending with issue #38. Wait 39 issues but the series ended with issue # 38, is my maths that bad? Well, not really cause Darkstars also had an Issue # 0which was published between issues #24 and 25 during the whole Zero Hour major cross over storyline. Remember Zero Hour? It was the time when DC Comics decided to clean up their universe, kinda sorta like a reboot. Is it me or does DC Comic love reboots? Story wise the Darkstars were created by an offshoot of the Guardians of the Galaxy called The Controllers. Though their goal was to establish order in the universe, the ancient Maltusian race known asThe Controllers were isolationists by nature, guess they don't like company much. Anyway that's all I know about the Darkstars, other than the fact that the Darkstar agents wore a suit of armor called an "exo-mantle" which granted
the wearer incredible power. Strength, speed, and agility could be
increased to superhuman levels while a personal forcefield protected
against impact and energy weapons. The forcefield could be expanded
somewhat to allow the Darkstar to take others into his/her/its
protection as well. With the exo-mantle, one could achieve high speeds
during flight, all the while protected from wind friction by the
forcefield.
The first time I saw the art of Travis Charest was on the cover to the first issue of Darkstars.
Now at first I thought that he did the entire cover but I was mistaken, on this cover there were three names credited, Larry Stroman who did the flashback portion and Travis Charest who drew The Darkstar on the cover, Scott Hanna did the inks. It was a little puzzling to have Charest do the house ad and cover but have Larry Stroman do the interior art. Puzzling.
So month after month, Travis Charest would just be the cover artist while Larry Stroman would do the interior art, now don't get me wrong, Stroman is a good artist in his own right but I was curious to see the panel to panel work of Charest.
I think at the time I had just about given up hope but as luck would have it, Issue # 4 came out and man I was in for a treat.
This was the first issue of Darkstars featuring the art of Travis Charest inked by Scott Hanna. I was impressed by his artwork, I liked it, alot. I liked his eye for detail and was a little disappointed that he was only doing the artwork until issue # 7.
Issue # 7 of Darkstars featured a cover penciled and inked by Charest. I was again disappointed to find out that he only did about 20 pages of this issue and Jim Balent did the remaining pages. Charest would remain as cover artist for this title but the penciling duties went to Patrick Zircher. It was during this period that we got to see the evolution of Charest as the artist we know today. His art was a little different when he started out, I guess he was looking for his own style and was experimenting with his artwork. When he drew the covers to Darkstars, he did his own inks and you could be a more refined style starting to emerge. Now I could be wrong but I believe his last Darkstars cover was with issue # 11.
After that, I didn't really follow the title anymore, in fact I dropped it. If I like a particular artist, I will follow that title almost religiously and if or when the artist leaves, usually I don't stick around, unless the new artist impresses me as well. After Darkstars, Charest also produced cover work for other DC titles such as Detective Comics, Batman and The Outsiders.
As luck would have it, Charest was contacted by Jim Lee who had left Marvel and formed Image Comics, everyone remembers the story of Jim Lee together with Todd McFarlane and the other hot shot artists of that time. Jim Lee offered him work on Wildcats and that as they say is history.
I have to admit at the time when Jim Lee launched Wildcats, I was a huge fan of his Jim Lee's work on X Men,. So it was natural that I followed his work on Wildcats. Now when I saw the name Travis Charest on Wildcats, I was overjoyed to see him working on this title. I thought it was a perfect fit for Charest and great title for him to further hone his skills and boy did he ever.
It was almost as if with each issue, each poster and trading card Charest drew, he got better and better. Remember I said his eye for details? You could see the amount of time and effort he puts into each line, each detail in the comics page, poster and trading card.
His work was astounding, unbelievably stunning. It's hard to believe that this artist grew up on a farm, Charest was isolated from the comics industry, and
he says the main reason he eventually turned to comics as a profession was
because he could draw, having been through a number of dead-end jobs
because deciding that comics was his calling. I for one am glad that he became a comic book artist.
It's amazing to note that Charest actually started out just doing back up stories featuring Voodoo and Warblade in issues 8 and 9 of the regular series
(February and March, 1994). He became the regular artist of the series
with issue #15, illustrating the title during the runs of writers James Robinson and Alan Moore. But in comics nothing lasts forever, sooner or later, a talent would move on, Charest would leave Wildcats, his last regular issue was #31 (September 1996), though he later returned to illustrate the title's 50th issue (June 1998).
However in 1999, Charest would return to
WildC.A.T.s to illustrate five of the first six issues of that title's second ongoing series, written by Scott Lobdell.
The art for Wildcats Vol 2 was out of this world, showing once again that his art had...well evolved for a lack of a better word, it was still that detailed beautiful work of Charest but it was some how different. Have a look at some of the pages.
When I ordered Issue # 1 of this new title, I actually expected to see the familiar style that Charest has, it is definitely his unmistakable style but now it was different, more detailed, more expressive, it was just stunning. Charest would later leave Wildcats and subsequently moved to Paris to illustrate a Metabarons Graphic Novel.
That's just beautiful. One day I hope to get a copy of this graphic novel if it's still in print and have a look at his work. One of the projects that Charest was involved with was a crossover special called Wildcats/X Men: The Golden Age.
When I heard of this crossover, I made sure that I bought this first issue of the crossover, The Golden Age featured Charest magnificent artwork. This issue remains a favorite of mine to this very day.
Charest's stunning artwork just seemed to be getting better and better, his eye and attention to detail is almost completely flawless. According to what I read, Wildcats/X Men: The Golden Age took Charest close to a year to complete. WOW. To this day, I am still a fan of his artwork and I hope to see more of this very talented artist/illustrator in the future.
I hope you're enjoyed the 57th Edition of the Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast as I share with you the art of Travis Charest, who is my favorite artist, who are your favorite artists? Let me know, let me know through the comments or send me an email: comicbookbroadcaster@gmail.com
This is the first edition of more (I hope) of the Drawing Board where I can share with you my favorite comic book artists. It's been fun for me and I hope it's the same for you. Join me again next time for another Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast, until then as always take care.
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