Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: emma frost, immoral x-men, mark brooks, marvel, x-men

Mark Brooks, Immoral X-Men And That Emma Frost Cover

When is a cover late? Well, that all depends. As Mark Brooks' creation process for this Immoral X-Men #1 cover is playing out across the industry.

Mark Brooks is a longstanding X-Men cover artist, including for the Emma Frost cover to Immoral X-Men #1, listed below. But on Facebook, he wrote about how it all came together at the last minute.

I'm painting the cover traditionally and want it to be perfect. I've gotten a due date of Friday the 13th. I had a feeling this wasn't the true date and knew Monday was MLK day meaning Marvel was closed. My publishing math told me Wednesday (the 18th) was the actual deadline. Little did I know that this was one of the 5% that doesn't go with the norm.

I'm halfway through the cover on Tuesday morning knowing I'm going to have to grind it out for the next 24 hours to make the Wed morning deadline when I get a call from editor extraordinaire Lauren who says that Friday was the actual drop dead and my cover was the last thing holding up the publication of Immoral X-Men #1. The cover had to be in by 5pm or the book would have to be pushed which can't be done with an event book.

I now had 5 hours to finish the last half of the cover. A cover that I had put more than 30 hours into the first half. This cover HAD to be done, I had no choice. Publish or perish as they say. I gave myself 10 minutes to freak out.

I quickly scanned the cover into photoshop and spent 4 hours trying to digitally paint the rest of the cover in such a way that you can't tell what was done with marker, paint, and pencil and what was done with a stylus and Cintiq. I'm also glancing at the clock every 5 minutes to see how much time I have left.

It's these times that I realize why I love this job. I'm sitting here running off pure adrenaline knowing an entire book is waiting on me. I'm the problem child and here's where I not only make it right but I produce something under the clock that will still impress the reader. I keep saying to myself "this is comics" and I love it.

The cover got done and turned in a mere 10 minutes after 4pm. By 6pm Marvel had published the cover to the various news sites. I was seeing the work I had just killed myself to finish all over online before I had a chance to fully exhale. I was exhausted but the adrenaline kicked in again because I knew this cover was only half finished in my eyes. Would people notice? Did I miss anything?

Am I going to be fired?

Not for this one, it seems… you're just not immoral enough, Mark.

IMMORAL X-MEN #1 (OF 3) BROOKS VAR
MARVEL COMICS
DEC220736
(W) Kieron Gillen (A) Paco Medina (CA) Mark Brooks
They said the mutants were humanity's future. It's 10 years later and they were proven to be right. The X-Men exist in a world that adores and respects them…so why are they sworn to crush it?! But while they do, Emma can take a few minutes out to crush Mister Sinister. Rated T+In Shops: Feb 22, 2023 SRP: $4.99

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