JL8 #18 - Creator Commentary
Added 2022-03-11 21:42:49 +0000 UTCJL8 #18 by Yale Stewart
Originally published on February 23rd, 2012
Man, nice little streak of hits I've got going here.
I can't 100% recall how "Gym Coach Darkseid" popped into my head, but I do know that the minute I thought of it, I knew it'd be going into the strip. It's just too good an idea to pass up.
While his outfit is fairly vintage-gym-coach-generic, it's actually directly inspired by the coaches in "Dazed And Confused." There's no real significance to that other than I love that movie and knew it had coaches in it, so it was a quick and easy reference point to pull up.
For those unaware, Ted Grant is the DC character known as "Wildcat," who was a professional boxer-turned-superhero, and I thought he'd make for a good prior coach for the kids. This is the first instance of Golden Age characters being adults who play roles in the kids' development (like Alan Scott--the original Golden Age Green Lantern--being the Green Lantern Scouts Troop Leader).
I'm actually kind of cold on the "smells like...despair?" joke. I don't think it's a bad joke, but the "smells like [something that is not a smell]" formula is tired as heck in the year of our Lord 2022 (see also: sounds like [something that isn't a sound], tastes like [something that isn't a taste], etc.).
I do think that last panel works great, though. The cold vs. hot colors, the scale of Darkseid's foot/leg compared to the kids, the fact he's wearing Keds...very happy with it.
Like most strips, I always think I could go back and draw them better, but this one definitely has good bones. I think if I redrew it, it would just be sharpening up the drawings that are already here, rather than redrawing things completely with different compositions and stuff.
That covers it for this strip. I'll see you all next week. Have a great weekend!
Yale
