Shaolin Ninja: Geof Darrow’s Wolverine #300 Cover

If you’re not an old school comics fan going back to the 80’s or into more indie stuff, you might not know who Geof Darrow is, since he’s done most of his work for the movies and TV. He started out in animation doing character designs for the Pac-Man Saturday morning cartoon, so you know he must smoke pot. Then he did the concept art for Neo’s biopod in The Matrix, so you know he must smoke laced pot.

Comics-wise, he wrote and drew Shaolin Cowboy, which has been out of print for years.  He drew The Big Guy and Rusty The Robot and Hard Boiled, both written by Frank Miller. And at the 2009 Boston ComicCon, he grabbed my 1990 first print copy of Hard Boiled #2 and used it to give some kid who he was talking to when I shuffled up an impromptu art lesson without my having to ask or buy something or shoot his loved ones in the face.

In short, Geof Darrow is a cool motherfucker. He draws widescreen, large-scale, heavily detailed urban sci-fi action scenes that are unparalleled, indicating either a baffling attention to detail or a crippling case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Kinda like this (Click to enlarge it. Trust me: you’ll want to… although take a look around you before you do it at work):

Darrow doesn’t do nearly as many comics as I’d like, possibly because he has a morbid fear of losing his drawing hand to crippling arthritic carpal tunnel syndrome. Which is why I was psyched to hear that he’s doing the wraparound variant cover – possibly the first variant cover I will ever request from my local comic store owner, who knows me by name and asks me to stop making my own “variant covers” on books I haven’t bought – for Wolverine #300.

The anniversary book is written by Jason Aaron with internal art by Adam Kubert, features Wolverine’s return to Tokyo to battle the Silver Samurai and a bunch of other guys. Hmmm… Tokyo… Wolverine… multiple combatants… Think that’s something Darrow might be able to do?

Man, I can’t wait to see that cover. What? You want it now? Okay, but only because I like you… and I figure if you’re anything like me, your next negotiation move involves shooting my loved ones in the face.

Wolverine #300 drops next month.

(via Comics Alliance. Hard Boiled scan (My scanner was too small to do the spread justice) via Mindspill)