Big in Japan
I was digging through the storage room here at the underwater headquarters and ran across these character sheets I did almost 10 years ago. So I slapped on a new coat of digital paint and put ‘em up for your amusement. Similar to Grant Morrison’s ideas for Super Young Team, I imagined that the DC universe had a band of Japanese superheroes inspired by their original Western counterparts. It’s basically a mix of DC, old school anime and kaiju. This got a tiny bit of interest around the offices (this was a year prior to the Marvel Mangaverse) but it never went anywhere because they already had Chris Moeller’s giant robot Justice League book in the works. Here, Batman is a wealthy but orphaned college student, the Joker is an insane visual kei rock star, and Superman is a giant robot controlled by the radio wristwatch of a young boy (the roles of Clark Kent and Lois Lane are filled in by the robot’s nerdy creator and the boy’s widowed mom). They’re really shameless pastiches, but kinda funny too. I’d like to draw some more finished versions of these at some point, just as a goof.
May 16th, 2008 | Posted under Sketches
Comments: 53
Comments
Comment from Jamie S. Rich
Time: May 16, 2008, 9:08 pm
Seriously? Way to be ahead of your time. You’ve been sitting on gold, man.
Comment from Cliff
Time: May 16, 2008, 9:21 pm
Thanks, Jamie. I dunno if it’s gold, but it certainly is trademark infringement! It would take some work to push it beyond the obvious references and still retain the charm, which is probably why I never pursued it.
Comment from seth hurley
Time: May 16, 2008, 9:44 pm
The Flash drives a car!
The Green Lantern is Steve Austin!
those are fantastic.
Comment from -U!
Time: May 16, 2008, 10:13 pm
Cool and really fun concepts!
I like the way they are both a Japanese JLA and kind of a League Of Extraordinary Getlemen if Alan Moore was a fan of classic anime.
Comment from roborange
Time: May 16, 2008, 11:39 pm
Dayum! You are an ‘effin master of your craft.
Comment from Ben
Time: May 17, 2008, 2:15 am
Wow! Never really a fan of the Marvel Mangaverse anyhow, but you really put them to shame right there. So much so that I may not even have thought of it if you hadn’t brought it up. Awesome stuff!
Comment from mike mcghee
Time: May 17, 2008, 8:53 am
tight designs! does your prowess know no ends?
y’know, most of the major companies over there are so lackadaisical about copyright that if it was published (at least over there), there’s a fair chance that it would go over with zero legal action.
their industry operates alot closer to the way the literary industry does here, what with creators owning primary copyright, or at least a major share.
Comment from License Farm
Time: May 17, 2008, 10:31 am
Holy God, these are fantastic. As a childhood fan of Battle of the Planets (né Science Ninja Team Gatchaman) I especially like the designs for Batman & Robin. It took me a moment to recognize the Captain Harlock ringer as Wonder Woman; is GL based on any specific manga character? This makes me wonder how other heroes and villains would translate into the manga idiom.
Comment from Mike
Time: May 17, 2008, 12:02 pm
Seriously cool stuff. I love it.
Comment from Cliff
Time: May 17, 2008, 12:32 pm
Wow, this is more popular than I’d thought.
Green Lantern is Guy Gardner in “Space Adventure Cobra” drag. If you haven’t seen the cartoon, you might recognize Cobra from an old Matthew Sweet video. Both characters are rogues, so I thought it a good combination.
Wonder Woman as Emeraldas is probably my least favorite, here. If I did it over, she’d be a Robotech/Mospeada mecha-suit girl, with slight hints of Appleseed. Maybe have Black Canary as a Kamen Rider-type. Superman’s nemesis is evil scientist Lex Luthor and his giant robot Metallo (cross Gigantor’s Black Ox with Luthor’s SuperPowers suit). I swear, this stuff writes itself — especially if you’re not a fan of intellectual property law.
I think I might have to do a large image with all these guys.
Comment from Chris Sims
Time: May 17, 2008, 1:21 pm
Flash Go Go Go! is good enough, but the kid who controls Superman with his signal watch just makes it. So rad.
Comment from tommy
Time: May 17, 2008, 6:13 pm
the Roshambo Corps grants the weekly coolness award to Cliff Chiang for providing these cool-arse drawings.
sweet!
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Time: May 17, 2008, 8:22 pm
[…] always awesome Cliff Chang shares with us some old designs he had for creating anime/manga influenced versions of 60’s characters. Even if they are a […]
Comment from Brandon
Time: May 18, 2008, 3:37 pm
Really great. I don’t mind that they’re blatant “homages” at all, they’re quite competent and compelling re-envisionings of the characters. This is how comics are supposed to look, dammit!
It’d be pretty neat if you could magically get the license, or collaborate with the original rights holders on these.
Comment from Dimitri
Time: May 19, 2008, 8:48 am
But why do not I have thought before …
Pingback from Blast-O-Rama » JUSTICE LEAGUE ARE GO!
Time: May 19, 2008, 10:55 am
[…] the What Could’ve Been Department, artist Cliff Chiang reveals these fantastic sketches from a lost pitch for a Japanese influenced Justice League […]
Comment from Douglas
Time: May 19, 2008, 11:46 am
That is SO COOL. And the Superman idea is really, really clever.
Comment from Chris
Time: May 19, 2008, 11:47 am
“Wonder Woman as Emeraldas is probably my least favorite, here…” — I was wondering who the girl with the Phoenix-motif shirt was.
Amazing stuff.
I can’t wait to hear what you’re working on — post GA/BC.
Comment from Chris
Time: May 19, 2008, 12:33 pm
Ooops - I just read about the Greendale graphic novel. Sounds good.
Comment from Keith
Time: May 19, 2008, 12:35 pm
Great stuff. Looks like you’ve got a start for a great Elseworlds story or mini…especially with Batman and Robin as Gatchaman. =)
Comment from Devon
Time: May 19, 2008, 1:23 pm
Just brilliant, brilliant stuff there.
Comment from allaboutduncan
Time: May 19, 2008, 2:17 pm
G-Force (I know it’s Gatchman, but I watched G-Force as a kid) + DC Heroes = Perfect.
DC should do a one shot on this. I know some of its too close to G-Force/Gatchman, but alter it a little and I’d buy 10 copies and pass them to friends.
Comment from Andrew Davis
Time: May 19, 2008, 2:24 pm
I would definitely read the book that could be made out of Superman. The kid with the signal watch has got to be Jimmy Olsen, right?
Pingback from DC Plus G-Force By Cliff Chiang : Superheroes-R-Us
Time: May 19, 2008, 2:39 pm
[…] Just the name sounds cool. More coolness abounds on artist Cliff Chiang’s site. He’s posted a series of 4 concept sketches more than 10 years old that combine his love for DC and G-Force/Gatchman animation. The design of […]
Comment from edc
Time: May 19, 2008, 4:06 pm
I would read the shit outta that!
[though call me odd, but I would’ve loved if ‘big numba 1 supa-jin’ was a shell, with an alien brain inside]
Comment from Brad P. from NJ
Time: May 19, 2008, 4:30 pm
Nice. My favourite has got to be SuperMan, the Man of Steel. I like the literal interpretation of that one. I’m just imagining the ongoing discovery of new shapes and new weapons added to Supe. Rock on.
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Time: May 19, 2008, 6:20 pm
[…] Chiang ha puesto en su web unos dibujos bastante curiosos. Se trata de unas versiones de los personajes más populares de DC que realizo hace 10 años y que nunca fueron a ninguna parte. Lo llamativo de estas versiones es […]
Comment from Mark Clapham
Time: May 19, 2008, 6:47 pm
While some of the others are a bit on the nose, legally speaking, I could see ninja Batman actually working. Regardless, these are lovely sketches, and a large image would be more than welcome!
Comment from Lou
Time: May 19, 2008, 6:53 pm
You have just given DC their Next Big Fifth Week Event!
I’d love to see you do a series of books for them based on these sheets…
Comment from r.pad
Time: May 19, 2008, 7:12 pm
Jokerberg Katse is truly awesome! When are you going to have versions of the Avengers, Titans, and Doom Patrol?
Comment from frank cairo
Time: May 19, 2008, 10:07 pm
Awesome job cliff. you have to give up the story on the aqua man. you gave us a story for everyone else.
Comment from Cliff
Time: May 19, 2008, 10:45 pm
Named by the press, the “Aqua Man” is a silent, mysterious underwater being who fights giant mutated sea monsters off the coast of Japan. He can only breathe air for one hour, signaled by the blinking light on his chest. After victory, he walks back into the ocean until he is needed again.
Comment from mike mcghee
Time: May 19, 2008, 11:02 pm
…ultraman, of course! shoulda seen it in the eyes!
and yeas, I think you might have to do a large image with all these guys. then you could do that cool random-image thing with your banner on refresh.
Comment from Dario
Time: May 20, 2008, 5:03 am
This is very funny, not to mention clever. Being both a DC Comics and ‘60/’70 anime fan, I like it a great deal! Bravo Cliff.
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Time: May 20, 2008, 5:37 am
[…] Racer/Voltron style DC Heroes http://www.cliffchiang.com/archives/245 […]
Comment from Marv
Time: May 20, 2008, 9:16 am
Awesome work, Cliff !
Comment from Sam
Time: May 20, 2008, 10:01 am
Way sweet, I would really like to see more of these guys from you Cliff, time permitting of course.
-Sam-
Comment from Edward
Time: May 20, 2008, 6:38 pm
So what Earth is this on? :P
Comment from Christopher tm
Time: May 20, 2008, 6:54 pm
Total awsomeness. Thanks for sharing these.
Funny that I want to punch Robin in the teeth even more than usual when he’s in G-Force.
Comment from edc
Time: May 20, 2008, 7:08 pm
I went to the city looking for a gatchaman on ultraman statue that I could turn into a chiang batu-man fig
but I couldn’t find any suitable.
ahwell.
Comment from exe
Time: May 20, 2008, 7:34 pm
damn! this is so cool!
Comment from Harold Bareng
Time: May 20, 2008, 8:52 pm
I’d like to see Aquaman with a Ranma 1/2 motif!! Doesn’t really make sense though except for the water thing.
This reminds me of a Batman/Ranma drawing when I was a kid. Catwoman stole something and with Ranma being afraid of cats… Batman steps in and both being fighters… Concept writes itself. :P
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Time: May 21, 2008, 12:41 am
[…] Chiang has posted some of his artwork that he put together as a DC Comics/anime mashup about a decade ago. He does anime versions of Batman and Robin, Harley Quinn and The Joker, Superman, and the Justice […]
Pingback from links for 2008-05-21
Time: May 21, 2008, 1:36 am
[…] Big In Japan Classic DC characters given the vintage manga treatment… Too cool. (tags: comics Batman dc superman manga justiceleague superheroes) […]
Comment from Keith
Time: May 21, 2008, 5:59 pm
“I think I might have to do a large image with all these guys.”
YES. PLEASE.
Pingback from Welcome to the DC Mangaverse That Wasn’t | The Balls Room
Time: May 21, 2008, 11:07 pm
[…] may or not be inspired by Space Adventure Cobra. All very old school anime, and all pretty cool—see more drawings here. Of course, it wouldn’t have sold for shit in 1998, just like Marvel’s Mangaverse sold […]
Comment from Brian
Time: May 22, 2008, 9:47 pm
Mr. Chiang, I’ve only stumbled upon your works today and you’re officially one of my favorite illustrators of all time.
You’ve managed to take these iconic characters and give them an appearance that just makes them more approachable than ever before while retaining everything that’s so cool about them.
DC Comics would be absolutely nuts to take a look at what you’ve done here and not offer you the opportunity to go above and beyond what you’ve showed us.
Comment from Kris Johnson
Time: May 23, 2008, 11:26 am
You’ve managed to make Aquaman cool, and that’s no mean feat. Plus, the name “Science Ninja Batman” is fantastic. Good work!
Pingback from Blog@Newsarama » Flash Go Go Go!
Time: May 23, 2008, 10:18 pm
[…] of Japan, part two … Cliff Chiang shares some 10-year-old artwork for a project that never saw the light of day: I imagined that the DC universe had a band of Japanese superheroes inspired by their original […]
Comment from MuckFarvel
Time: May 24, 2008, 7:33 pm
DC are doing something like this in FC but its veeeery Stereotypical.
Comment from Joshua Dysart
Time: May 30, 2008, 2:38 pm
These are fabulous!!
Comment from Uwi Mathovani
Time: June 7, 2008, 9:19 pm
Love ‘em all… Its so..retro and fresh also!
DC could make a great elseworld story
based on this awesome concept!
Keep up the great work! Go! Go! Go, Flash! Go!
Comment from Harlan Phoenix
Time: June 21, 2008, 6:37 pm
Wow, these are awesome. I would’ve loved to see an imprint at DC with these designs involved.
Too bad. Good work, all the same!
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