Nick Marino

I started using this garish image as my user icon around the web this week. But I'm not exactly sure how to explain what's going on here.

If I were to describe it based upon my original drawing, I guess I'd say "a squid getting stabbed through the head by a very liberal interpretation Aquaman's freakish hook hand."

But I'm not really sure that description properly captures the effect of this cropped image, one which eliminates both Aquaman and the tentacles of the squid. Not to mention that the squid is orange and the background is pink, thus altering the meaning of both the creature and the setting.

So I dunno what to say about this cartoon other than "I like it." If you can think of a better way to describe it, lemme know!

Originally drawn for Sequential Underground's Strip Club v1.

Here's a doodle of mine that was nearly lost to time:

I drew this back in 2006, when I first started dating Justique. She dug the Harry Potter books, and I wanted to sketch something that'd be familiar to her.

So I fused my love of antiquated, macho, gun-toting action heroes with her love of magical, modern, sensitive teen heroes... and voila! Arnold meets Radcliffe to birth a "Badass Bloodbath."

Justique unearthed this gem the other day when she was flipping through one of her old journals. And, as you can see, the ink from my Paper Mate Flair pen has bled a little bit, giving the drawing a nice extra sloppy effect in places.

Share this on: Facebook -- Tumblr -- deviantART -- Flickr -- Google+

I've been cartooning since I was a little kid, but I didn't really start scanning my work until the mid-00s. In fact, I rarely scanned my art even in college. I used to fill up notebook after notebook with sketches, but it never occurred to me that I could be sharing my work online!

Anyway, in early 2005, I decided to print out a portfolio. So I went to Kinko's and scanned eight of my favorite drawings. And this Havok sketch made the cut:

Havok is one of my favorite comic book characters. I love the themes at work with him, especially how he tends to struggle with unwanted power and responsibility. I'm a bit of a Havok fanatic, having followed the character from Uncanny X-Men to X-Factor to Mutant X back to Uncanny X-Men, and, soon, back to X-Factor!

Visually, few characters can hold a candle to his original design by Neal Adams. It's gorgeous in its simplicity and complexity, especially under the pencil of Jim Lee. I also like his 90s redesigns by Joe Quesada, Jeff Matsuda, and Tom Raney.

My visual rendition is a mix between Havok's classic look and Sunspot's silhouette form. Also, I decided to try out a more tactile representation of Havok's concentric circle plasma blasts (which, if you notice here, appear to be made of the same material as the bands on his head).

I wish I was the type of artist that could eloquently capture the negative image effect of his powers and the perfect overlapping circles of his blasts. But neither of those effects are in my bag of tricks, so instead you get this version!

Regardless, to this day I have a special place in my heart for this sketch, and that's why I've dredged it up... FROM THE VAULTS!!!

Also: Tumblr

When I thought both my first and second 500th Twitter followers ignored my offer of a personalized sketch, I decided to contact a third person -- someone who was already following the Super Haters on Twitter.

See, Lisa-Marie Wilson (@upsetapplecart) had expressed regret that she was already following me because she wanted a combination animal sketch too. So who better than to make my honorary 500th follower?

She requested an echidna tortoise, which is a brilliantly crazy combination. Her request was the first time I'd ever heard of an echidna, and it took me several tries to get this sketch right.

Anyway, suffice to say that I was all sketched out after this. So when I gained my 600th follower a week ago, I offered them a non-art related prize. However, I'm sure I'll be back to sketching by the time I hit 700. Stay tuned for the results!!!

ALSO:
Echidna Tortoise on Twitter
Echidna Tortoise on Tumblr
Echidna Tortoise on deviantART
Echidna Tortoise on Flickr

Last time, I explained how I ended up drawing three different combination animals for my three 500th Super Haters Twitter followers.

There isn't too much of a story behind this sketch -- when I thought my first 500th follower didn't reply to my sketch offer, I contacted a second person (who had literally become my new 500th follower... I assume someone unfollowed me).

And just like my previous 500th follower, Stafford Huyler sent me his request for a Duck Cat Horse as a direct message. And by the time I realized that, I'd already sent a tweet to a third person.

I found Stafford's request to be unique in that I was comfortable drawing all of the animals he wanted, but creating the combination was tricky!

FRIDAY: My third and final combination animal sketch!!!

ALSO:
Duck Cat Horse on Twitter
Duck Cat Horse on Tumblr
Duck Cat Horse on deviantART
Duck Cat Horse on Flickr

I made a mistake. See, for the Super Haters Twitter account, I like to offer special incentives for my milestone followers (300th, 400th, etc.). And for my 500th follower, I offered a free personalized sketch of a combination animal (for examples, see Napoleon Dynamite or Avatar: The Last Airbender).

Author David Corbet was my original 500th follower. So I tweeted him and asked him what he wanted for his sketch. And I waited. And waited.

I never saw a reply from him even though he was tweeting other stuff. So I figured he was ignoring me. And I decided to select another 500th follower for the prize.

But I failed to cover all my bases! See, I never expected David to send me a DM. However that's exactly what he did and I found it days later after I'd already offered the sketch to two other people.

So I decided to do the honorable thing and draw all three of the requests. Hence David's Monkey Bear that you see here.

WEDNESDAY: The combination animal requested by my 2nd 500th follower!!!

ALSO:
Monkey Bear on Twitter
Monkey Bear on Tumblr
Monkey Bear on deviantART
Monkey Bear on Flickr

I can't believe I forgot to post this!

Nearly a month ago, I completed this piece for my 400th Twitter follower, Chris K of Zany Comics (@zanycomics). I offered to draw a personalized mythical creature for the 400th person to follow Super Haters on Twitter, and Chris chose a dragon. And when I asked him if he wanted to kick it up a notch, he suggested a machine gun arm and an eye patch. BRILLIANT!

If you dig this sketch, then git yerself back here next Monday when I'll be sharing the first of three Combination Animals that I drew for my three 500th followers on Twitter. (Yes, "three 500th followers." It's a long story.)

ALSO:
Dragon with a Machine Gun Arm on Tumblr
Dragon with a Machine Gun Arm on deviantART
Dragon with a Machine Gun Arm on Flickr

My Nik Furious song Essential* was included in the new promotional video for the upcoming Pittsburgh Zine Fair. This event is happening on the evening of Sept 1st at AIR in Pittsburgh.

Also watch the video to check out some of my art! You can see my fishbowl collabo with Justique Wooldridge @ 0:22, and @ 0:27 you can see me flipping through an old copy of my zine, NoPants.

*From my album, Brilliant Shower. You can listen to the full song using the Flash player here.