Beatriz da Costa, also known as Green Fury and Green Flame, is surely best remembered for her stint in Justice League International as the hot side of the super-heroine duo "Fire & Ice." That's the role she serves in this commission, a piece filled with "friends of Martian Manhunter" for the Alien Atlas' 60th birthday. I was still learning to what degree I needed to play "art director" on jams, with the correct answer being "75%+" or else you ended up with a collage where no one exists in the same space. In this case, I had a gap between the central figure in the piece, a partial VHS box cover style floating head, and a heroine drawn in full figure. A sort of JLI theme had emerged, and though it amounted to giving them short shrift, head & shoulders shots or Tora & Bea were placed opportunistically.
I had Ice done in 2015, and I kept meaning to add a flying Fire figure in the remaining space, but I kept putting it off. Maybe in the back of my mind I realized that was untenable, and I'm glad painter Lulu Lin had the good sense to better complement the existing Ice Maiden by having her best friend drawn to scale. She's mostly done in pencil with light inks for interior definition and a thicker overall outline. She's in full early '90s rocker mode, headband and all, but I like the delicate line the artist used here. She also shaded Bea's hair entirely in pencil, which unfortunately doesn't come through in this scan. Lin's paintings are very cool, and I hope someday to pick one of them up, but in the meantime urge you to check them out below... Lulu Lin
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