This Artist Is Good - George Gozum

In the early 80s, in the pages of Uncanny X-Men, the call went out to fans to send in their designs for a new costume for Kitty Pryde. One reply, published in the pages of Uncanny X-Men #168, came from a young(ish) lad from the Phillippines, George Gozum, who also supplied Kitty's thoughts about the costume,

'Think I'll design a costume--something new...different. I know--ASYMETRICS! I'll start with my hair (it gets in the way sometimes). I'd better add a mask to protect my secret identity. My code name's SPRITE and that's a water pixie. I know! I'll make the costume elf-like, starting with shoes that won't hinder my natural grace. I am a dancer! I'll base the colors on water sprites, too, and add a snazzy new 'X' symbol and VOILA...the all-new Sprite!'

To see the costume design, and see more about why George is such a good artist, click on read more.

Here's the costume design George made back then (pic courtesy of The Catbox)



Well, the years have passed, but George is still drawing X-ladies.









As you can see, unlike most of the other artists I feature in this shtick of mine, George has a bit more of a mainstream appeal to him, as the Marc Silvestri influence is clear, but I think there is also a lot of Steve Lightle mixed in there, which I think humanizes the pieces beyond just T & A.

Speaking of Lightle, who was a longtime Legion artist, check out George's Legion of Superheroes pieces (based on the Grell Legion era)...








Finally, how freaking awesome is this Phantom Girl?



George doesn't currently work in comics, using his artistic talents on web design work (you can check out his website here to see some of his awesome webpage designs), so I do not have any sequential samples to show you folks, which would have been nice, but a guy's got to make a living, so I know he doesn't have the time to get any sequential stuff out there (We're lucky enough to have this pin-ups!).

Totally the comic world's loss.

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