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Superbaby

"Superbaby" is an original illustration by Dean Trippe, commissioned by us to commemorate the first year of our son Edison's life.



Within minutes of Edison's birth, one of the delivery-room nurses pointed out his 'Superman curl' to us: a floppy long curl planted smack-dab in the middle of his forehead, peeking out from under his little post-op knit cap.

I don't know what became of that curl—it was quickly overwhelmed by the abundant fuzz of his early-babyhood hair. Lost its prominence. But the idea definitely stuck. Edison is, of course, our Superbaby.

I first learned of Dean Trippe through his work on Project Rooftop (credz to Caleb Mozzocco) and was immediately taken with his character designs. I especially like his treatment of kids and, in fact, his anatomical choices in general.

Browse around Dean's portfolio a bit, and you'll see something wholly refreshing in today's comics climate: human-looking heroes. Kids with tummies. Dudes with ever-so-slight paunches and—perhaps most refreshing of all—women with modest... ahem, attributes.

I just knew that Dean would treat this piece—my beloved son— with the respect and craft that he seems to imbue all his work with. I look at this Superbaby and see Edison's pointy little chin, his shock of brown hair and—perhaps most pleasing of all—what his mama calls his 'heart-shaped face.' (I love the footy-jammies costume, too.)

Dean did a wonderful job of paying homage to Edison, capturing his essence but not hewing so close to the photos I shared with him that it wandered anywhere near caricature. (Tho' Dean also does wonderful caricatures—check out the My Name is Earle lineup on his site.)

I love it. I hope you do, too.

Update 1/03: Dean's posted the piece to his Livejournal blog (and there's a bit of discussion going on there, too.)

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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on January 2, 2008 12:29 AM.

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