Saturday, February 27, 2010

Psylocke by Alex Garner

Alex Garner revealed a Psylocke piece he said he drew, "awhile back" and he's using it as the cover for his 2009 Sketchbook.

I love it!

Category: ,

22 comments:

Psychilde said...

Hmmm in her new exiles costume, maybe this was an unused cover for sword of the braddocks???

February 27, 2010 at 8:08 PM
Anonymous said...

this is a new costume? i don't like it. artists cannot get the fact that this woman is ASIAN. if people were drawing STORM looking like the freckle faced red-head mascot for wendy's restaurants, there would be issues everywhere.

February 27, 2010 at 10:54 PM
centurion said...

It's nice, but not captivating.

February 28, 2010 at 2:52 AM
47 said...

Love this draw!!! betsy really looks like a warrior who likes action and stuff. i like the katana here. its the costume from exiles. I kinda like it.

February 28, 2010 at 2:44 PM
Anonymous said...

she's NOT asian. it's cannon that she's supposed to have white features but just is a ninja. like electra.

February 28, 2010 at 11:42 PM
Anonymous said...

she is asian. having white features on an asian body completely disregards the original story arc where she was 'racially converted.' this was acknowledged explicitly in both claremont's story and in jim lee's pencils - there were literally side by side panels with close-ups of her eyelids illustrating the transition from european to asian.

when other writers took over and ditched claremont's original plan of having her 'racial transition' be the result of a combination of mojo's bodyshoppe magic and plastic surgery, they came up with the (less inspired) body-switch idea of placing elizabeth's mind in kwannon's body.

*nowhere* does it ever state that kwannon was a japanese girl with caucasian features. that completely devalues all of psylocke's complicated history and is a complete fabrication.

this is simply the result of disappointing racial profiling expressed by artists preference to draw her as caucasian as possible. there is no more delicate way to put it that i can think of other than racial profiling.

i love this character and i can put up with some racial profiling, but i find it really undermines the character and suggests something about each penciller who gives into this.

i think it's a dynamic picture. i think the costume is ugly but he didn't create it so it's not his fault. her moderately attractive caucasian features is his fault though. not only is she supposed to be asian, she's supposed to be a knockout.

i prefer the psylocke drawn by the guy who draws x-men legacy.

xo

March 1, 2010 at 1:26 AM
Rahsaan said...

Anonymous, you're completely spot-on in your accusation of the various artists.

This whole conundrum could have been avoided if Fraction had just left her in her birth body at the end of the Sisterhood arc and if Yost had not gone on to destroy it. That way, all the body-switch crap that was used to destroy the perfectly sound Acts of Vengence story could've been easily re-retconned away. Sigh.

March 1, 2010 at 11:54 AM
Anonymous said...

@"she's NOT Asian..." Anonymous,
I am not sure what "cannon" you were referring to, but Psylocke is definately suppose to have Asian features. As corrected stated by the poster after you, the original idea (Claremont's) was to have her transformed into an Asian appearing assassin via magic and plastic surgery. In the "Acts of Vengeance" story, Mojo stated that (paraphrasing) "they couldn't have a British/White woman running around the Chinese underground," so he had her transformed by Spiral so that she could blend in.

The Kwannon (poorly researched) Story reconned Psylocke as not merely being physically transformed but having completely switched bodies with that of an Asian/Japanese assassin. (There was some "mingling of DNA" to explain why Wolverine couldn't tell the two apart with his senses, and tried to explain why he somewhat recognized her face in the original "Acts of Vengeance" story. But with her recent return to the main X-universe, both the "Sisterhood" and Psylocke mini stories re-affirmed the reality that Psylocke (Elisabeth Braddock) exists in an Asian body.

To a broader point, however, Psylocke is not Asian/Japanese in the respect that her personality/soul/mind is still very British. Terms have been used incorrectly on this subject. There are, in fact, Asian British and British Asians. The former are those who are ethnically Asian but grew up in Britain (e.g. Chinese descendants who speak, act, and think with a British mindset), and the latter who are descendants of British settlers in Asia (ethnic Brits who grew up in Asia...Hong Kong for example, speaking the language and identifying with the culture).

For better or worse, in the actual published lifetime of the character, Psylocke has existed as a British woman in the body of Asian assassin for much longer that she has been a depicted possessing her original body. This is how many have come to know her as. For many more, this is how they have ever known her as.

The debate about her original body vs. her Asian body is a leftover mostly for those of us who came upon the character in the Outback days (or in my case the Mutant Massacre days). However, my love for the character hasn't waned, and I am glad the debate has been put to rest...

March 1, 2010 at 5:49 PM
Anonymous said...

I think part of the problem with the rendition of Psylocke is not so much the lack of desire to draw Psylocke as Asian, but the inability to. Many comic artists have limited body and facial forms for characters. Often characters are only distinguished by hair styles and uniforms. Jim Lee was a great exception, he could draw a recognizable east Asian...other artists have been less successful.

March 1, 2010 at 6:11 PM
Anonymous said...

I agree I have struggled for many years to draw a Psylocke that looks truly asian, its not something that is easily achieved.

Knowing Marvel the body swap will never be bloody over but I hope it is, i think Betsy has more to offer than this weird story that has been stretched to breaking point. I really hope the limited series has finally ended this all once and for all.

March 1, 2010 at 8:33 PM
Anonymous said...

I hope the whole British vs Asian body debate is settled. It's the most uncreative and tiring plot device that a writer can use to create a Psylocke story.

I think that the X-Men editors only brought it up in the Sisterhood arch so that newbie X-Men readers could get a simplified version of the back story of Psylocke for her relaunch.

March 1, 2010 at 9:40 PM
Anonymous said...

well then MARVEL better get oeveryone on the same F-in page by having a one-shot anmimated or something DAMN when major artists are lazy to authentically draw an asian character what does that say about society today? as before, if storm were drawn as a caucasian, what would the masses think?

why is this still a debate?

who the f is the dumbass who said she isn't asian? lol what kind of psylocke fan are YOU?

March 1, 2010 at 10:09 PM
Anonymous said...

I hate to burst your bubble, but often Storm is drawn as a white woman with brown" skin". When you look at just the pencil work, she's hard to distinguish from Emma.

March 1, 2010 at 10:27 PM
Anonymous said...

I like this picture, because it's a dynamic Psylocke pic, but I've never been a fan of the "power switch". I think that's more disturbing to me than the body switch. Thank goodness there has been a bit of revamping Psylocke's power-set in her return. I'm glad she has her TP back and her TK has been shown as secondary.

March 2, 2010 at 12:37 AM
Anonymous said...

Acts of Vengeance was retconned. Period. Revanche/Kwannon/Body Transfer/Genetic Manipulation is the story that counts. it's the canon. Peirod.

March 2, 2010 at 5:20 AM
J77 said...

While Storm has also suffered from the artists inability to draw people of other ethnicity than white I don't it has been as bad as in Betsy's case.

March 2, 2010 at 9:43 AM
Anonymous said...

Its the same problem though, I honestly dont think its at all a racial predjudice some artists just dont do racial features justice. Alan Davis is one of the only artists I can think of that really made Psylocke look asian and Storm and Bishop look black.

March 2, 2010 at 11:06 AM
FSaker said...

Isn't she supposed to look Eurasian, though? Betsy is supposed to have both Asian and caucasian facial features. Although I agree that her EYES should look Asian.

Anyway, I don't like this art. It's not bad, it's actually quite good, but far from being one of her best renditions.

March 2, 2010 at 2:05 PM
J77 said...

That is a good question FSaker.

I always thought that she should look like an Asian version of her former self. Not 'mixed'. Jim Lee did draw her like her body was 100% Asian.

Btw.
Alan Davis is one of the best ones at drawing Psylocke.
More recently Terry Dodson and Yanick Paquette have also managed quite well.

March 2, 2010 at 3:22 PM
Anonymous said...

anonymous said 'I hate to burst your bubble, but often Storm is drawn as a white woman with brown" skin". When you look at just the pencil work, she's hard to distinguish from Emma.'

b*** this is not about storm and whether she looks black in art. this is about the picture that was posted, and she does not look ASIAN as PSYLOCKE is supposed to look. get back to stuffing your face.

March 2, 2010 at 10:08 PM
Anonymous said...

Well, Storm is supposed to look like a white woman. In fact, she's this weird mix of all races and cat eyes. That's canon. She's not supposed to look like an average black woman.

March 3, 2010 at 1:35 AM
Unknown said...

Hey anonymous guys (or possibly anonymous ladies), as many have said before, this is a friendly forum! We all like Betsy and have our own favorite renditions of her.

As I understand it, Psylocke has a Japanese body and Storm is a black woman whose parents are Kenyan and African American.

Personally I prefer it when Betsy is drawn with the epicanthic fold and slightly darker skin. I'm all for different artists having different interpretations, but a lot of the time this aspect of her is getting totally lost. Pretty disrespectful to a great character and her loyal fans.

March 3, 2010 at 4:45 AM

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