Gorgeous Gwen Stacy And Mary Jane Watson Pin-Ups By Steve Rude

Longtime readers of ComicsAlliance's weekly pin-up feature Best Art Ever are no doubt familiar with the uniformly excellent work of Steve Rude. The co-creator of '80s indie sensation Nexus and the illustrator of Superman/Batman: World's Finest, The Incredible Hulk/Superman and other beautiful comic books, Rude has largely retired from making comics, pursuing a new career in the fine arts while supplementing his income with eBay auctions of his vast archive of Nexus artwork and a seemingly ceaseless line of private commissions that are almost always among the best superhero and classic "good girl"-style pin-ups we've ever seen.

Among those works, a breathtaking portrait of Spider-Man's original love interest Gwen Stacy that we featured in January. Since then, Rude has completed a companion piece featuring Spider-Man's other famous flame, Mary Jane Watson. Check out the full-size images after the cut.Rude's Mary Jane/Gwen diptych expresses perfectly the personalities, fashions and other idiosyncrasies of each character. They're fantasy-level sexy, no doubt, but with Rude's typically flawless sense of authenticity for action, attitude, emotion and indeed anatomy. The works were commissioned by comics art collector Malcolm Bourne, who we congratulate with no small amount of envy. Indeed, Bourne has amassed a huge collection of Rude originals that you can check out at his (NSFW on account of a nude piece) Comic Art Fans gallery.

For more Steve Rude Gwens and Mary Janes, check out our previous collection of "sketches'' the master. We use quotations around "sketches' because they're basically fully completed illustrations ready to be printed as comic book covers. Really beautiful stuff.

Interested in getting your own Steve Rude original? It's shockingly affordable, as you can see at the artist's official website and Facebook page.