Color Phil Jimenez Zoo Crew picture FOUND!

A few months back, on November 2, 2012, I posted a blog entry entitled Captain Carrot Fan Art: Artist Unknown. It featured an awesome piece of Zoo Crew art, and I really wanted to know who the artist was.

Well, it turns out it wasn't a piece of fan art, but a professional piece done by comic artist Phil Jimenez (Wonder Woman, Infinite Crisis, New X-Men, amongst others) for an issue of the now defunct Wizard magazine. I talked briefly with Phil on facebook, and he told me it was done up as part of an April Fool's Day issue. He also told me that there was a COLOR version of the picture that had been done for the magazine, but he unfortunately didn't have a copy of it for me.

Of course, I now needed to track this down.

For once, luck was with me. I didn't have to look far. In the comments section of the same blog entry, a CCB fan calling himself Monitor_ep told me to contact him, as he had the color version to send me.

I immediately...forgot all about this.

Yes, somehow I forgot about it. Monitor_ep left his comment back at the beginning of January 2013. I read it. And forgot about it. Bad, Sean. BAD!

But then...I remembered! And sent off an e-mail to Monitor_ep asking if he still had it. And he did! So here it is for your viewing pleasure!

I didn't think it was possible for this picture to look any better, but...well, there you go!

So a huge Captain Carrot THANK YOU going out to Monitor_ep for sending me the pic. And hey, check out his DeviantART page if you have the time. Monitor_ep has a TON of awesome custom DC action figures pictured there, and they look fantastic. Definitely worth a peek. You can find his page HERE.

Captain Carrot joins the Invasion! Sort of...

Earlier today, I posted a plea for help over on the Captain Carrot's Burrow facebook page, asking fans if they knew of a Captain Carrot strip that may or may not have appeared in DC's Invasion! Daily Planet Special Edition. I had remembered that a year or so back, over on the Comic Book Resources DC forums, somebody had mentioned the possibility of such a strip existing.

Well, I managed to find a copy of it online.

But first, a little backstory (although I'm sure it isn't necessary for any long-time readers of DC Comics.)

Invasion! was a three issue mini-series and crossover event that started in late 1988 and continued into early 1989. I remember it well. Even though I was pretty much only reading Marvel Comics by this point, I did actually pick up this mini, as well as a few of the tie-in issues. The reasons behind why I did, unfortunately, are lost to the sands of time.

Anyway, the series itself was plotted by Keith Giffen (Threshold, where Captain K'Rot is soon to make his debut) and scripted by the ever-awesome Bill Mantlo, in his first work for DC after a years-long career over at Marvel Comics. Come to think of it, being a huge fan of Mantlo's work on Marvel's Micronauts and ROM: Spaceknight series may actually have been what got me to pick up Invasion! in the first place. But like I said, the sands of time.

I don't want to get into too much detail about Invasion! itself, as that isn't the main focus of this article. If you would like to know more about it, you can follow this link to the Wikipedia page. Just clickety-click (Barba-trick) on Invasion! Wikipedia. Most, if not all, of the info on the wiki page is dead-on. At least as far as I can see.

Now that you've read all about the Invasion! crossover, you're almost ready for the Captain Carrot strip itself. As a special little extra to go with the main crossover, DC realeased the 16-page afore-mentioned Invasion! Daily Planet Special Edition. The cover boldly states "EARTH TO INVADERS: DROP DEAD!" and contains many fun Invasion! related articles, all written from an in-universe point of view. The Daily Planet released this Special Edition Friday, November 4, 1988, and there is even an editorial on Page 9 written by Perry White himself, and a Metro Report (on the same page) by Clark Kent, whoever that is.


Here's the cover:

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, the Captain Carrot strip itself. Found on page 13 of the Special Edition, along with other such well-known strips as Out of the Tar Pits, Doonesfield and Baitman
(along with a couple of others, but I'm too lazy to type out the names), Captain Carrot is the second strip from the top. Without further adieu, here it is:

You may want to click on the image to make it a bit easier to read. I chuckled a little when I read it, but at the same time, I had been hoping for a Scott Shaw! piece.

Oh well, you can't win them all.

If anyone has any fun (or even not so fun) recollections of this crossover, feel free to share. I have to admit to not knowing if the Invasion! series was well recieved or not. Like I said, not much of a DCer at this point in time. Fill me in!