THE STF 1000th ISSUE SPECTACULAR!

Welcome to the Super-Team Family 1000th Issue Spectacular!  

When I started this blog back in April 2010, I had no idea how long it would run - I figured maybe a year or so.  Now here we are, after 308 Brave and the Bold covers, 200 Marvel Two-In-One covers, and now 1000 Super-Team Family covers. I am at 1508 covers, with more to come!  As promised, this post includes a bunch of extras:

The never before told Secret Origin of the Lost Issues!

The Best of Brave and the Bold: The Lost Issues!

The Best of Marvel Two-In-One: The Lost Issues!

The Best of Super-Team Family: The Lost Issues!

What are... The Lost Lost Issues?

A special peek at what the interiors of a Lost Issue might look like!

A step-by-step tutorial on how a Lost Issue cover is created!

(Since the images here are larger than in my regular posts, please note that you can click on them for an overlay image, or right click to open in a new tab if they are not displaying properly on smaller monitors)

My love for comic characters and crossovers goes back as far as I can remember.  As soon as I could draw, my interests were clear:

Like many kids, I decided to create my very own comic books.  I made up my own character, Alastor the Avenger.  Alastor only made a single solo appearance in his debut origin issue.  My love of team-ups was alive even back then, and I decided to pair him up with a superhero from the comics I loved for each issue.  And as you can see, I was already pairing Marvel and DC characters together in the same tale:

I made 15 issues of Alastor and I am glad I kept them around, they always remind me of happy childhood times when I look them over.  I kept on doodling as I grew older, and in 1992 I decided to make a complete 50-page comic as a Christmas present for some members of my family. This story featured the Justice League of America (currently disbanded in the comics, I made a tale to reunite the original cast).  My mind was still on inter-company crossovers, and that was definitely an element in the story, here are a few pages:

And yes, the Justice League invited Alastor the Avenger to join their team by the end of the issue! Believe me, I have never had any illusions about becoming an actual comic artist, I just enjoyed drawing and creating stories for my own personal enjoyment.  The Idea of crossovers kept rattling around in my mind, so a few years later, I decided to start a new epic adventure.  This one would be a massive Marvel/DC crossover, featuring all of my favorite characters.  I wrote a 100-page script and loosely penciled 50 pages before I got busy with other things and put it aside.  I will present about half of them for you here - if you have ever wondered what the interiors to an issue of Super-Team Family: The Lost Issues might look like, well here you go!  Oh, and don't bother squinting to read my overly-wordy text, the story is basically this:  Darkseid and Doctor Doom discover each other tampering with a nexus between realities and use it to trap The Watcher and The Spectre.  Using energies from these two, they gather villains from the DCU, disguise them as DCU heroes, and have them wreak havoc on the Marvel Earth.  They do the same with Marvel villains, sending them to cause chaos on the DC Earth.  The real heroes of each Earth then gather at the summons of The Spectre and The Watcher (still being controlled by Darkseid and Doom) and after being fed misinformation, decide to set out to defeat the heroes of the other Earth, who they think are villains. While DC would travel to The Marvel Earth, villains from both earths would conquer the now hero-less DC Earth.   That's as far as I got with the first 50 pages, the rest of the story involved various battles, each with a clear winner.  At the height of the battles, Doctor Strange and Doctor Fate would have realized the ruse and notified the heroes.  The Heroes who won the battles would assemble to defeat the villains in the DCU.  In a panic, Doom and Darkseid send Galactus, Brimstone, Sentinels and other giants in to turn the tide.  The heroes who lost the earlier battles recuperate and arrive as the cavalry.  The story would have ended with a merged Earth - not like Amalgam, but with characters from Marvel and DC operating on a single Earth.  Yup, a very silly, wonky story - but it was never meant to be read by anyone.  I just wanted an excuse to draw as many heroes and match ups as possible.

I got out of the habit of regularly drawing after that, only very occasionally putting pencil to paper - but when I did, there was usually a crossover element:

One day, I was thinking about The Brave and The Bold, how I loved those Batman team-ups and was sorry to see the series end, despite enjoying Batman and the Outsiders, which replaced it, as well.  There were so many cool characters Batman hadn't met in the series, Captain Marvel, Martian Manhunter, Starman, etc.  I wondered what it would have been like had the series continued, so I decided to use MS Paint to make up some imaginary covers.  At first I was very strict, using only DC characters that appeared during the years that B&B was published with Jim Aparo artwork wherever possible.  Soon enough, though, my interest in inter-company crossovers came through and I began adding heroes from Marvel and elsewhere to team up with the Dark Knight Detective.   I posted these on a comics message board, and it was suggested that I start a blog featuring them.  I thought the quality of these early covers was pretty rough, but what the heck, some folks might get a kick out of them.  Thus began The Brave and the Bold: The Lost Issues!  

I have often been asked what my personal favorite B&B Lost Issue covers are.  I looked them over and narrowed it down to my top 12:

People seemed to like the covers, so I decided to keep things going by switching to Marvel-Two-In-One: The Lost Issues! It was fun to use Ben Grimm as an anchor, he is always enjoyable to write for.  Here are my personal top 12 MTIO Lost Issues:

When the time came to switch to another title, I decided to blow the doors wide open with Super-Team Family: The Lost Issues!  This time I decided to present the issues with chronological numbering, rather than random as I did with B&B and MTIO.  While I was happy with what I had been able to accomplish with a simple program like MS Paint, I felt it was time to kick things up a notch.  After 350 issues or so, I bit the bullet an bought a copy of Photoshop, which really allowed me stretch creatively.  Here are my personal favorite top 24 STF covers:

Believe it or not, there are actually Lost Lost Issues! Here are a couple of covers I did as commissions years ago, back in my MS paint days: 

Now to fulfill a request that I often receive for a tutorial on how to create a Lost Issue.  I posted one of these for my MS Paint techniques a few years back, and here I will present how I currently use Photoshop to make a cover.  We'll use yesterday's issue, #999, a relatively simple one:

I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to visit this blog over the years, especially those who have left comments letting me know how they feel about my covers.  Thanks also for all of the great suggestions - I may not reply to each individual team-up request (because the answer is always the same - "Maybe"), but I am constantly taking notes and many suggestions eventually make it to the blog.  Thanks to everyone who has shared my blog with others, helping the audience grow.  A big thank you to the good people at Near Mint Radio, The Clobberin' Time Podcast and Compton After Dark for inviting me to be interviewed on their programs.  Thank you very much to Michael Eury of Back Issue Magazine for giving me an awesome plug in a recent issue! Last but certainly not least, A giant thank you must go to the folks who have lent support to the blog by advertising here or with donations be it one-time or as a patron!  Every little bit helps and I can't say how much it means to me.

If you would like to help support the blog, there are a few ways to do so - by advertising (still dirt cheap, my ads usually go for a few pennies a day), by making a one time contribution by clicking on the "Donate" button at the bottom of the page, or by becoming a Patron.  The blog of course will always be free and the easiest way of showing support is by visiting and commenting.  Thanks again for 4 1/2 fun years!  Keep coming back, there will be a new cover every single day!

This is Ross, signing off!