Posted in: Comics | Tagged: ,


Artist Andy Smith Talks X-O Manowar, The Return Of Ominous Comics And More Brutes And Babes

Jonathan Rich writes for Bleeding Cool

x-o-andy-smith-borderlands-variant

 Artist Andy Smith has been in the business working for every major publisher the past two decades and is also known for his work with creator-owned independent publisher Ominous Press in the mid-1990s.

Now, more than two decades later, Smith has reunited with his team (and some new friends) hoping to bring some of those characters back to life.

Smith was signing copies of his X-O: Manowar issue #50 variant cover at Borderlands Comics and Games in Greenville S.C. when he took a few minutes out to talk with Bleeding Cool about his love of that character and the plans for Ominous Press to make a comeback next year.

andy-smith-and-fans

"I just did the cover for Borderland's variant, but I love the character," Smith said. "I love the design and I did issue #50 almost 20 years ago, so it's kind of special for me. I don't know anything about the story inside, but I'm happy to make a return to it with this variant issue for the store."

For full details on X-O's final issue, including spoilers, go here 

Smith got his start in the industry under the mentorship of Bart Sears while he was studying at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, and it was Sears who made the introductions for Smith to land his first freelance work drawing issues of the anthology book Justice League Quarterly and the first Green Lantern Annualbefore getting more work at DC, Marvel and Image Comics.

andy-smith-head-shot

"When people ask how I broke in, it's not the typical story of samples after samples and getting rejected, I got in on the second try," Smith said of his fortunate career path, which also included some work on the X-O character's video game debut.

"They had two versions: Valiant did one which was X-O and Iron Man and Marvel had Iron Man and X-O," he explained. I did the Valiant one because I was exclusive with Valiant at the time. A lot of what I like about characters always comes down to the visuals, which makes sense being an artist, but I always liked the look going back to the original Barry Windsor-Smith and Bob Layton series in the 90s. I liked that design, and really every incarnation since. When I worked on the monthly book with Bart when they were putting it out twice a month, he designed the upgrade. When I did the X-O Iron Man,I got to do my own take as well and design an Iron Man costume. That was fun. Aesthetically, Green Lantern is my favorite DC guy because of the costume, but for X-O I think the concept is pretty cool, too."

Since then Smith has done some advertising work and served as an adjunct professor at UNC-Charlotte teaching both figure illustration and sequential storytelling, but most recently he returned to his mid-90s roots working withOminous Press.

ominous-press-group-shot

"Back in '94, Bart was the Stan Lee of all of it because he created all the characters and I was the art director, but we put out three out of four titles we wanted to do before the company folded," Smith said. "This year at HeroesCon, we announced we're bringing it back. It's Bart, me as the art director again. Ron Marz is editor and chief now and head writer and our business partner is a friend named Sean HusVar who was the director of business marketing before. The three main guys are back, and now Ron is too."

ominous-press-return

The first preview of Ominous Press World Premiere debuted at HeroesCon this past year featuring three page stories of the company's trio of new properties Giantkillers, Prometheus and Demi-God.  Legendary #1 Infinitydebuted at San Diego Comic Con and the second issue followed at Baltimore Comic Con early last month, but the new stories are not exactly picking up where things left off.

"Instead of launching right in from that, because it has been 22 years, we wanted to take the three issues we did back in the day and re-release them with new art and new story," Smith said. "The new story is from Ron Marz and the art is by Tom Raney, who is also the artist on one of the new properties, Prometheus. It's six pages of new story each issue, but it's a framing sequence to tie it all together. Because we never got our fourth issue out, we're finishing it out now. Bart is drawing the fourth issue and I'm inking the issue to complete the saga from back in 94."

legendary-infinity

Smith said the next new Ominous Press comics should be out around the same time of Free Comic Book Day in 2017, but he also coyly dropped some mysterious information about its publication.

"We're talking about partnering with a main publisher, we just can't say who just yet," he said. "I know who, but until all the contracts are signed, I just can't say. It's a 90 percent done deal and we're going to be co-publishing with them. If we were just doing Ominous Press our publishing would be different and probably earlier in the year, but now we want to go by their recommendations because they've been doing it for a while. So it looks like it will be May or June for the first title."

brutes-and-babes

In another nod to retro 90's favorites, Smith also said Bart Sears' illustration column 'Brutes and Babes' from the pages of Wizard Magazine will soon see a rebirth.

"(Bart) owns all that, so next year we will be releasing a whole book collecting that with some new material."

Nothing in comics ever truly dies, and at least for Andy Smith, it looks like some things even come back.

For the latest on Ominous Comics, follow them on Facebook at and on Twitter. 

Jonathan Rich is a freelance journalist, high school educator, and self-professed comic book nerd working in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. He writes about entertainment and pop culture for various print and web publications, including bleedingcool.com.


Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!

Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
twitterfacebookinstagramwebsite
Comments will load 20 seconds after page. Click here to load them now.