Louie del Carmen

It goes without saying that there are a lot of great superhero comics out there, but it's always fun (and a little bit of a bummer) to see the great comics that didn't come out. Not every pitch is accepted, after all, and while a lot of them never leave the planning stages, there a few that make it all the way to being drawn, and sometimes, they are truly fantastic. Case in point: A ten-apage story that animation artist Louie del Carmen and illustrator Bobby Chiu created a few years back for "a proposed Superman anthology" that never saw print. It did, however, make it all the way to roughs, and this week, del Carmen posted them on his website, telling the full story of Superman and Krypto teaming up to bust an illegal interstellar zoo. And it is pretty great.

The official art book of Emerald City Comicon, Monsters & Dames is an annual release that invites a wide spectrum of talent to indulge their artistic idiosyncrasies in the name of charity, with proceeds from sales of the hardcover release and original art auctions having raised over $55,000 for Seattle Children's hospital. Between now and Emerald City's start date of March 27, ComicsAlliance will showcase some of the gorgeous work to be found in the 2014 edition of Monsters & Dames, including exclusive images you'll see here before any where else. Our final preview includes never-before-seen art by David Petersen, Tim Sale, Ken Taya and Rick Schmitz, plus new work by Chrissie Zullo, Louie Del Carmen, Brandon Graham, Simon Roy and Adam Warren.

  We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists or specific bodies of work, as well as the special qualities of comic book storytelling, but because cartoonists, illustrators and their fans share countless numbers of great pinups, fan art and other illustrations on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and seemingly infinite art blogs that we’ve created Best Art E