A wise man once told me “Daniel Warren should write a Contest of Champions type of book but instead, all of the fighting should be done in a wrestling ring”, and if you’re as big of a fan of DWJ as most of us at GCC are then you know how freaking awesome that book would be and look. Ever since I first read his Extremity series DWJ quickly became my favorite artist of today’s day, and I check out ANYTHING his art is on, so I decided to list characters or teams I’d love DWJ to get his hands on at some point with some officially licensed and printed comic books. So I’m calling Daniel Warren Johnson out! You hear me DWJ? Your fans and I hope your listening cause… sorry this is a blog post, not a wrestling promo; let’s get back to the point. Just about all the art you see here was shared on Daniel’s Instagram page or Twitter so give him a follow and spice up your IG feed @danielwarrenart Here goes!
What makes for a great DWJ story is the gruesome action scenes he can display in his art yet his story telling and dialogue is great at bringing out a lot of emotion for the reader and what better character for that than Vader. We could amazing action sequences like the one above that would make the Rogue One scene look like child’s play while also having moments showcasing Vader’s pain and sadness he feels in his existence (plot twist, DWJ is also a fantastic writer). If you see the image above and don’t want more of that then I don’t want to be friends with you, yeah I said it. If you scroll his IG page you’ll see no one draws a Star Wars space battle like DWJ as well.
If you don’t already know, DWJ does a really good job at display something being destroyed in his art, and who doesn’t cause more destruction than our famous big lizard friend, Godzilla. For this one I wouldn’t even need a story, a silent issue with no dialogue of Godzilla battling another kaiju and wrecking a city while at it would be, in fact, the bee’s knees. Big landscapes, civilians running for safety, jets and tanks defending what they can, and tons of explosions would be a sight to see done by DWJ. Give DWJ the keys to the Toho-verse and I’d feel like a kid discovering the awesome sight of King Ghidorah all over again.
Another thing I find DWJ does well with his art is body horror and monsters, and I feel he would nail a Hellboy series of Hellboy having to deal with some mutated army of the undead or something like it. I know Mingnola doesn’t hand over Hellboy to any artist, so hopefully the Hellboy creator feels the same way as me about DWJ and we get a mini-series one day. I truly feel like DWJ and Hellboy would be a match made in heaven…. er…. I mean, Hell.
This is one where I feel like if it were to happen I’d be going into the series excited for the art alone and then put the last issue down with a big serving of feelings and touching moments. Not only would DWJ crush the art here but I feel his writing talent would shine as well. If up to the task I bet DWJ would make my favorite Superman villain feel less like a villain and more like a lovable monster type of character, which I know others have done in the past but, THEY WEREN”T DRAWN BY DWJ !
In 2019 and again in 2021 during the Month of October I was obsessively following DWJ, a lot of artists like to take part in a hashtag called “Inktober” and they post awesome inked sketches of different characters and sometimes they add themes to it. DWJ did a ton of wrestling sketches, dubbed it “Wrestletober” and lucky for me, he printed the sketches in a book that he sold! Before I knew about the book I would just wait for his next post each day to see what wrestler he decided to sketch and then I’d share the post with all of my wrestling buddies and just verbally drool over how awesome I thought the art was and how I hope we get to see a DWJ wrestling themed book. Whether it be an original story with creator owned characters or something pertaining to an actual wrestling promotion, honestly nothing would make me happier right now in comics than a DWJ series about adults play fighting in spandex. If you know me, you already know this, and if you didn’t know that about me you do now.
My honorable mention and I couldn’t find if DWJ has done a commission of this or posted any art related to this but, being one of my favorite properties, I would love for DWJ to draw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As mentioned plenty of times already, DWJ draws monsters like no other, and I think of no better artist that hasn’t gotten to draw the turtles than DWJ. Imagine mutanimals, utroms, triceratons, or Shredder with an army of foot soldiers behind him drawn by DWJ(currently drooling while typing this). For any friends and family who may be reading this, I’d happily take a commission from Daniel Warren Johnson of the 4 turtles as a wedding gift (sorry for the personal plug).
So there you go, that’s my list. For those who may be unfamiliar with DWJ’s work, check out Extremity and Murder Falcon from Image comics, Wonder Woman Dead Earth from DC, Beta Ray Bill from Marvel, and Space Mullet from Darkhorse! And if DWJ is reading this, keep up the amazing work!