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Marc Jackson Brings Back Tom Selleck's Magnum PI to Comic Books

Published Tue, 28 Jan 2020 09:00:41 -0600

Marc Jackson writes for Bleeding Cool,

So, towards the end of last year, my comics pal Sean Phillips posted a great image of Tom Selleck as Magnum PI.

What can I say, I'm a sucker for a moustachioed private investigator. I replied back saying it was inspiring me to draw my Magnum comic, what that actually meant or was, I didn't know, but it sounded like fun. With some encouragement from Sean, including a reference for all the amazing John M Burns artwork for the strips he did for Look-In magazine back in the 80's I was inspired even more.

I then went to my go to reference point, old MAD magazines and found the parody issue of the show. Mort Drucker's work has always inspired me right back to the late 80's when I saw his Empire Strikes Back spoof. I was fascinated how a film or TV show could be broken down into its component parts and delivered as a 6 or so page rendition.

Suddenly I found myself drawing Magnum and drawing him and drawing him. I spent some time over Christmas just roughing out some ideas, what would my comic actually be? How could I put my slant on it and it still be familiar? I came up with a fun idea, which was based off me literally thumbnailing the story from page to page and creating it that way, not actually typing up a script which is my usual approach and then I was ready.

After Christmas I got to work, deciding to produce the comic in black and white with only Pantone 'Selleck' Red as a spot colour to highlight Magnum's Hawaiian shirt, the famous Ferrari and some mystery underwear… This gave it a really cool stylised look and allowed me to work fast to get this idea done, plus I got to draw sexy french pants, everyone was winning!

The comic was turned around in just under two weeks, and I've shared lots of process pics along the way. Who knew drawing Tom Selleck would be so much fun? Well, probably me, that's why my 'Magnum comic' actually turned into something. Check my instagram for a look at what went down…

It's also been the first comic of mine that has nearly sold out on pre-orders alone, which is amazing. It's super-limited, so if you would like a copy, then get onto it fast, it seems Thomas Magnum is hot property once again. Tom Selleck, you are welcome!!

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