April showers (part two of four)

As noted last week, April is Storm Month here on Comic Art Friday.

Apparently, it's working, because it's been rainy here for the past several days.



Today's paean to the mighty Ororo — Queen of Wakanda and most powerful of the legendary X-Men — leaps from the pencil of Edgar Tadeo, a talented artist from the Philippines. Ed is perfectly suited to render our weather-warping heroine, given that his most recent comics assignment was inking Marvel's X-Men: Worlds Apart (over the pencil art of Diogenes Neves), a miniseries starring the scintillating Storm herself.

Ed's take on Ororo synthesizes the work of the two artists most closely associated with Storm: the late, great Dave Cockrum, who co-created the character (as well as several other 1970s-vintage X-Men) with writer Len Wein; and John Byrne, the Canadian superstar who first came to prominence when he followed Cockrum as the regular artist on X-Men.

Tadeo blends these influences through the filter of the storied Filipino comics (or komiks, as they spell it in the P.I.) tradition, and comes up with a beautiful style uniquely his own. Although Ed is best known on these shores as an inker, I admire his pencil work very much. You'll be seeing his addition to my Common Elements gallery one of these Fridays soon.

Speaking of Storm's co-creator Len Wein: Len and his wife, photographer Chris Valada, lost their home, their beloved dog Sheba, and many of their possessions in a house fire earlier this week. Our thoughts are with Len and Chris for a speedy return to normality.

More Storm in seven.

And that's your Comic Art Friday.