Ah, yes. The double cover from hell.

Or rather the double cover that may or may not be a Guiness Book record holder. (More on that in a moment.)

This, my highest profile, credited comic book work to date, was the cover to Devil's Due Comics' 25th issue of their G.I. Joe: America's Elite series.

Adding to its signficance was that it was released on the 25 year anniversary of G.I. Joe. This meant that they had to do something special to celebrate.

What did they do? They drew every single character who was ever a member of the team -- 236 to be exact, all with his/her distinct costume.

It took me about two weeks to color. And about a week after that, I got an e-mail from my editor saying they had forgotten four people!

Also included in the e-mail was line art for a patch that I needed to apply to the artwork.

Of course, by this point I had forgotten how I had achieved some of the rendering effects. It took a bit of trial and error to get it to look like the four had been there all along.

Jim Steranko, a noted Silver Age comic book artist, took one look at this cover in my portfolio. His exact words when he saw it were, "You've gotta be f--king kidding me."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

So, about that Guiness Book record...

A couple of weeks ago, Marvel Comics came out with Deadpool #27, a comic book that touted the Guiness Book of World Records seal. Apparently the Deadpool cover contained 232 characters, of which 224 qualified as publicly recognizable.

Since the G.I. Joe cover was not put up for consideration when it was published, the jury is still out as to whether all 236 are recognizable enough to qualify.

Either way I am enjoying the added attention to my coloring work.