[	Tags	|	grifter, image comics, jeremy dale, jeremy-dale, jim lee, travis charest, wildc.a.t.s, wildcats, wildstorm	]
[	mood	|	thankful	]
[	music	|	Queen - Flash	]

My Favorite Characters: Grifter!

Okay, so I didn't get as much flak over the Spider-Ham as I expected... so I ended up drawing Grifter for today's installment in my "Favorite Characters" sketchseries.

I've found that Grifter is one of those characters that you either love or you hate. Really, it mostly comes down to when you started reading comics. If you started before Grifter arrived, you're more likely to dislike him on grounds of "blaming him as everything that was wrong with comics in the 1990's".

See... the thing is, Grifter is what went RIGHT with the 90's. No no, hold on-- hear me out. Not everything that was published in the 90's was drek... if you honestly believe it was, you're a sad, bitter person, and need to leave us that don't dig all that elitism jive alone.

Sure, Grifter wasn't Watchmen-caliber, but he WAS a lot of fun to read about. When every other book was being crapped out in the 90s, WildC.A.T.s was being rendered by the best of the best in the industry-- Jim Lee (and then Travis Charest a bit later).

He sported one of the more original masks I can think of in the recent past, and was the only (basically) non-powered character in the 'Cats. Grifter was your standard "tough as nails" mercenary but with a slight soft side, hung up over the loss of friends and a broken heart. Sure, it was kitschy, but it wasn't half bad! I really enjoyed it.

And hey-- in the 1990s, there were only a few new independently-owned characters that really rang out as iconic-- Grifter, Fairchild, Badrock, and Spawn. There are others, but those are the four I can point to that honestly captured kids' imaginations and excited them. Invincible is clearly one of this era's standouts, for instance. Anyway, that's not something to just pass over... clearly, a character whose mere appearance would catch your eye regardless of your feelings about it seems to be pretty influential to me.

He and the rest of the WildC.A.T.s' popularity propelled them to a short-lived, mediocre saturday-morning cartoon (check it out here ) opposite the OTHER 90s juggernaut, X-Men. Despite being THE X-Men fan at the time, I watched the 'Cats. It actually wasn't that bad compared to the X-Men 'toon at the time, which had hit a slump of sorts. It was crap, but I still watched it every Saturday with my younger brothers and we agreed-- Grifter was still cool.

For superior tales of Grifter, check out ANY issue of Wildcats-- the Alan Moore issues in volume one (checkitout) were really good, although unbalanced in the art by various fill-ins for Charest... though for my money, check out Charest's BEST works to see the best of Grifter-- WildCats/X-Men: The Golden Age (checkitout) and WildCats volume 2 (checkitout).

So there you are-- for me, Grifter was one of the few comicbook characters in the 1990's that left a lasting impact on me. Toss away most of the decade if you like... I'll be too busy in my studio re-reading my old WildCats to notice your whining.

Oh yeah-- and I dig this piece, by the way. I added more detail than I am used to using, and it turned out pretty well.



- jeremy