WWWOLF

It stands for Wild ‘n’ Woolly Wrestling Of Loudmouth Furballs. Clever, innit?

These two lycanthropic louts are characters from two of my favourite comics. The one on the left in the fetching leather jacket is Ralph, the speed-demon wolfman from Richard Moore’s Boneyard (a clever and funny thing involving the not-at-all creepy denizens of a cemetery and its hapless owner), while the one on the right catching an elbow in the giblets is Bubba the Redneck Werewolf, from the comic of the same name (a splendidly bonkers affair by Mitch Hyman and Brian Graham, which generally involves the eponymous anti-hero wandering into utterly bizarre situations and hitting people). As to why they’re bashing each other, it all stems from an idea that was had on the official Bubba website by a talented chap known as BlueEyesWolf. In the course of a discussion about interesting and/or entertainingly silly comic book crossovers, he suggested that Ralph and Bubba would make for an excellent spin on the old “Bloke VS Other Bloke” format so beloved of DC and Marvel; and after coming up with a few more ideas between us about what form such a meeting might take, I drew this. I tried to give Ralph a kind of The Rock look by combining black trunks with his trademark leather jacket and sunglasses (you never actually see his eyes in the comic), and Bubba didn't need a different costume, because he looks like Hillbilly Jim as it is (only not quite as hairy).

I was extremely pleased with this one, as I've never attempted a mixed media pic along these lines before (the figures and letters were all drawn in ink, the wrestling ring and shadows were drawn in pencil, and the two elements were combined using Photoshop), and when I came to put the whole thing together everything turned out exactly as I wanted. All that practice with the Furry Fight picture clearly paid off, and even the lettering looks authentically comicky, which is something I’m not always that good at.

Both characters are the copyright of their respective creators, and you really don’t want to go infringing that copyright, y’know. It would be...bad.

Matthew Smith

Back to Main Page Back to Finished Art