They started their lives on label stickers, to spread messages of thanks, to our Postal Service folk out there for working hard to keep us connected, and then someone asked if I could do them on a sketch cover.

That’s it.

Long journey, right? It’s been a little longer than that. Each one of these covers has their own story, at least one.

In the case of “Avengers Retreat!”, it’s the first of these stories and it started with a client who liked those postal stickers arriving on his sketch cover packages. He reached out and asked me if I’d be interested in doing a whole cover full of those mini characters from the stickers and a Venompool cover I’d just finished for him.

Knull and the King in Black event was just starting to gather real steam among Marvel Symbiote storyline fans and Skottie Young released his own cover for the event. It featured Knull, in his signature style on top of a pile of fallen heroes. This cover image, combined with the mini characters I’d done for the client, inspired him to reach out and ask about the possibility of mashing these two ideas up on a cover.

The idea was mini Knull would be chasing a whole crowd of characters running in fear from him. I thought, okay, we can fit maybe a half-dozen of these characters on there with Knull. My postal sticker minis are usually 2″-3″ tall and that’s a tight squeeze as it is. How was I going to fit a whole bunch on a cover, when even Skottie Young starts off with an 11″ x 17″ comic board to work on? I was frustrated. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea.

The client, who had already commissioned several pieces from me, said he had faith I could do it. He didn’t give up and pushed me to figure it out.

I’m glad he did.

I started by sketching up Knull and Venom. I had this idea of him standing triumphant over the defeated Lethal Protector. and then I got to wondering how the other villains would react to such a defeat. They’d probably act the way bullies do when they meet a seemingly superior bully. The first sketch was still too big and they lost some of their mini qualities. Back to the clipboard I went, shrinking them and giving them a more playful look, keeping that squared head look that started with the shape of the postal stickers. I also added in some personality traits.

Thanos may give Knull a thumbs up, but he’d do so grudgingly. Demogoblin would relish the mayhem. I was pretty sure Red Skull would require some convincing, lol.

The heroes seeing this — all their worst enemies (or just the coolest) practically on bended knee to this new guy with a funky sword — Avengers retreat! of course. I mean, they escape mostly unscathed, except Vision who always gets sacrificed in these situations.

While I was drawing these little people in their costumes, I could hear them reacting to the situation. Working on sketch covers this happens a lot. I’m not drawing a static image of some character in a power pose no one in real life would ever do in the middle of a battle (those are cool too). I’m making up stories.

“Hey, Bub!” said Wolverine. “Now that’s a knife.”

Ant-Man is about to collide with Spider-Ham because they are both too busy paying attention to the man god with the purple eyeshadow. Even Darkhawk will need a dry cleaning done on his suit.

I spend a lot of hours with these characters and it seems the most natural thing to go on the journey with them.

Take care, folks!

Fox