Excalibur #106
“A Portrait of the Artist”
Writer: Ben Raab
Pencils: Casey Jones, Randy Green, Rob Haynes & Aaron Lopresti
Inks: Jason Martin, Rob Haynes, Rick Ketcham, Rachel Pinnock, Aaron Lopresti, Tom Simmons & Casey Jones
Colours: Ariane Lenshoek & Malibu Color on colours
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft
Editors: Matt Idelson & Paul Tutrone
Original publication date: February 1997
Piotr Rasputin is a trouble starter, punkin’ instigator in the danger(ously) illustrated Excalibur #106, “A Portrait of the Artist.” And we’re drawing on the artistic insights of one Adam Reck, co-host of the Battle of the Atom podcast, to illuminate the inner beauty and random chaos of these creative choices. Will Adam succinctly explain the unique styles and discursive contexts of Abstract Expressionism? Will Mav measure the distance between Sibera and Ukraine? Will Anna say the word “moist”? Anything can happen when Andrew’s away and we’ve got too much space to play.
On character:
“Is it in character for Piotr Rasputin to paint this way? … And is it in character for him to listen to an album that opens with the track ‘Smack My Bitch Up’? I think the answer to both questions is, quite explicitly, no.” -Adam
On Acolytes:
“I have a certain demented love for all the bizarrely large villain teams of the 90s. There are so many of them, and every time they show up, there’s two more of them.” -Adam
On geography:
“It feels like they did not do any research into past stories, past characterizations, the geography of the planet Earth…” -Mav
On immaturity:
“Colossus is, at his core, a very immature person.” -Adam
On symbolism:
“This is a very damp, very wet, very moist sequence. And he’s doing a painting of Meggan, which is a callback to him doing the painting of Psylocke. And in the last panel, there’s an allusion to him wanting a family.” -Anna
On excuses:
“When people make excuses about Colossus, they’re making the same excuses Colossus would make about himself.” -Mav
On "ideology":
“The ideological conflict is reducible to: the Acolytes want to follow a power hungry tyrant who mind controls people, and Colossus is like, maybe that’s not a good idea, but they’re like, we think it is a good idea.” -Anna
Want to listen to that VoxPopcast ep about Sucker Punch? (Yeah you do.) Find it here!
Want more Adam Reck?
You can find him on Twitter (@arthurstacy) and ranking all the X-Men stories that are fit to rank with Zachary Jenkins and a bevy of big-name guests over at the Battle of the Atom Podcast.
Adam also makes awesome art and comics! Hit him up on Instagram, find him contributing lewks to ComicsXF’s redesign series, and if you haven’t read Bish & Jubez why haven’t you??
And as usual:
You can find Anna on Twitter (@peppard_anna) and at Sequential Scholars (@seqscholars).
You can find Andrew on Twitter (@ClaremontRun) and at Sequential Scholars.
You can find Mav on Twitter (@chrismaverick) and on his podcast, VoxPopcast (@VoxPopcast).
Enjoy!
-GGW Team