CSBG Archive
365 Reasons to Love Comics #57
With three days remaining in Black History Month, we shine the spotlight on an excellent artist who you probably didn’t even know was black. I didn’t.
2/26/07
57. Brian Stelfreeze
(click to magnify, along with a few others in this post)
Brian Stelfreeze is an amazing artist. He’s mostly done cover work, though he does have several interior credits to his name. You’ve seen his work on the covers of Batman: Shadow of the Bat, Doc Savage, Fallen Angel, Firestorm, and others, and in the pages of Domino, the Matador, and more.
He can do gorgeous paintings, art that looks like stained glass, or the best animation cels you’ve ever seen. Let the pictures speak for themselves:
To see more of his art, check out the Gaijin Studios website. And for something cool and humorous, check out Paul Jenkins’ latest Flogging a Dead Horse column over at Newsarama to see Brian stop by and contribute to a blisteringly insane song you can then listen to.
I think The ‘Freeze is fantastic. How about you?
11 Comments
Ian
February 26, 2007 at 1:18 pm
He made Domino interesting. I think that speaks volumes.
He is one of those artists who has a style all is own that is just so vibrant and wonderful. We need to see even more out of him.
Ye Olde Iowa
February 26, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Stelfreeze is such a great artist with a really wide range. Like Ian said, I just hope we get to see more of his work, as everything I’ve seen thus far has been incredible.
AFKAP
February 26, 2007 at 3:49 pm
you’re right… i did not know he was Black.
i knew he was amazingly awesome, though.
NecroVMX
February 26, 2007 at 4:12 pm
You need to do one on Darryl Banks
Ian Astheimer
February 26, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Gaijin Studios has always been synonymous with quality, and, with Stelfreeze and Hamner as the group’s backbone, it’s easy to see why. Both of those cats are top notch, and each should be doing more work.
stealthwise
February 26, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Never heard of him or saw his work before just now, but those are purty covers. Has he done any actual sequential work?
DanCJ
February 27, 2007 at 1:49 am
Hmmm…. there are some artists who seem to paint at every opportunity, but (in my opinion) do much better work when they use pencil and ink. Brian Stelfreeze is definitely one of those.
Paul
February 27, 2007 at 11:29 am
Stelfreeze is a genius. I also love Hamner and most of the rest at Gaijin.
Kim Wong
February 27, 2007 at 3:48 pm
I met him (and Cully Hamner) at the last Heroes Con, and they are great guys. Someone gave Brian a GI Joe figure who looked exactly like him (bald head and all). Of course, he refuses to draw Firestorm unless he’s paid to, but considering how many Firestorm covers he had to draw, I don’t hold it against him.
The Kirbydotter
March 10, 2007 at 3:58 pm
I didn’t know he was black either.
I always thought his Gaijin buddy Cully Hamner was black, but I have no idea why… Is he?
Back to Steelfreeze, he is a very good artist. I prefer his all too rares interiors to his covers. How come we don’t see more of him? Or any of the Gaijin studio bunch of guys for that matter?
Twin Tiger
February 6, 2009 at 5:49 pm
I always liked Brian’s art; especially his Batman. He tends to make Batman’s costume with a lot of black (I never did like the blue and gray). Then I actually got to meet him about 8 years ago at a convention and I was like, “He’s a brotha!” That earned extra props. The other members of Gaijin were there too (Adam Hughes, Cully Hamner, and Georges Jeanty) and they were all real cool. They’re based here in Atlanta.
I commented to Brian about his Batman and he was like “Oh definitely… I try to make his costume as black as possible!”