Alright, alright alright— it’s another week, after one heck of a weekend out in the real world. (But aren’t they all?) I hope it was a happy Easter for all who celebrate, a happy April 20th for all who celebrate, and a happy Monday to everyone out there, getting this bread for yet another week. ‘I can’t believe it’s April,’ you might say. And let me tell you, bud— me neither.
Anyway. Forecast time? Forecast time.
04/22
Spotlights!
Artists (in order): Envar Studio, Sean Galloway, In-Hyuk Lee
Source: Spotlight Cache
The end of Spotlights is fast approaching, friends! We’ve got our penultimate spotlight triptych here, headlined by Envar’s take on Doctor Strange Supreme. Like the rest, this variant provides an alternate art a little closer to the style of the What If…? show. Here, the star is Strange Supreme’s extra-deep orange hue wreathing his hands, really pumping up the vibrance from the much duller-by-comparison base piece, with red eyes and a looming shadow in the background to boot in case you weren’t sure this isn’t the Stephen we’re familiar with. Sean Galloway’s Speed is the apple of my personal eye this cache, though, with that exaggerated, stylized lanky runner’s musculature really bringing the character to life. I love the colors, I love Galloway’s vibe, and I love how the whole piece communicates a specific physicality. In-Hyuk Lee is wrapping this week’s spotlight too, giving us a more anime-stylized USAgent that captures the character’s darker tone with that dulled palette and smoky background. I enjoy the costuming here— USAgent feels like a much better fit for the more overtly militaristic flourishes that you sometimes see misguidedly given to Cap, and the folded corner on his chest feels like a great ‘icon’ to draw your eye. Great set of variants, here!
What If…? Black Panther Bundle
Artist: Envar Studio
Source: Bundle
Envar’s continuing, of course, with the What If…? themed variants, giving us a whole bundle for T’Challa as Star-Lord from the show. (Funny enough, it feels like some kind of revelation for shared-alias characters that this is a Black Panther card, and not a Star-Lord card.) But it’s precisely what it says on the tin: a variant styled after the show’s look, depicting the devil-may-care version of T’Challa exploring the cosmos with those trusty element guns by his side. It’s got personality and some solid color work going on, and so fans of the show, T’Challa, or Star-Lord might all find their interest piqued in this bundle.
Akram’s Kate Bishop Bundle
Artist: Akram
Source: Bundle
Akram is a new face that seems to be landing in SNAP on the Bundle end of things, giving us a style that evokes Japanese folklore, with those thick, heavy inks helping bring all of the piece into sharp relief. The architecture in the background and petals in the foreground help cement the ‘place’ of the piece, and seeing our favorite Marvel archer rock a different outfit to suit that place feels genuinely cool. I like this piece a lot, and I imagine Akram’s style becomes a big Bundle favorite down the line, not unlike Justin Fields: no spoilers, but it’ll be bundles at the very least for every single one of their current datamined pieces.
Megan Lara’s Femme-Loki
Artist: Megan Lara
Source: General Pool (Rare)
Megan Lara’s another new face and style coming up, and she’s got an Art Nouveau flair that she’s debuting with this terrific Loki variant. The character of Loki gives artists even more leeway than usual to explore things in fun, interesting ways like gender-fluidity that also hammer home the character’s trickster nature, and Lara takes the visual premise of Loki’s female side and makes sure the character’s core smugness shines through regardless. Lara’s a great new artist to have around, and the Art Nouveau portraiture is also an exciting potential new template to see more characters in down the line. More Megan Lara sooner than later, please Second Dinner!
04/23
Akram’s Colleen Wing Bundle
Artist: Akram
Source: Bundle
Akram’s a two-parter this week, with Colleen Wing lining up even more neatly with the Japanese-folklore inspired style. That sword in its hilt and the rope around her waist make sure Akram’s inspiration is clear, and the white and red in the character’s natural palette is a great complement to those dramatic inks, heightening all the contrast. On the costuming side, I really love how the character’s base white jumpsuit transitions so naturally to the more traditional looking darker outerwear. It all comes together to make for a great piece, which makes another little gut punch that it’s a bundle. I’ll see all you proper buyers in the Vault!
Lemon Art’s Strange Supreme
Artist: Lemon Art
Source: General Pool (Rare)
Lemon Art’s no stranger to SNAP, but we are getting the first piece from them outside of their fashion magazine series, giving us a more traditional alternate art type variant for Strange Supreme. Just like the Envar Studio piece, Strange is rocking that vibrant-orange magic on this one, and Lemon Art is even throwing in some more overt, stylized Kirby Krackle to accentuate that, making for some really sweet, molten-looking forbidden magic. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it makes for a second solid piece that fans of Strange Supreme can snag in the shop— there’s certainly not really any existing covers for him!
04/24
Alex Maleev’s Thor
Artist: Alex Maleev
Source: General Pool (Rare)
Alex Maleev’s one of the bigger comic art names that SNAP has managed to get commissioned work from, and we really are just all the better for it. He’s got one of those slightly more impressionistic painted styles that has more than just strict realism going for it, and his work feels all the more human for it. This Thor feels grand and at the same time much more distinct than many more bombastic, stylized takes we’ve seen on the God of Thunder. I’m super excited at the prospect of Maleev commissions in SNAP— here’s hoping for more.
PANDART Angela
Artist: PANDART Studio
Source: Bundle
Dare I say… we haven’t seen PANDART in a while? With all these upstart studios flooding the place, it’s easy to forget the OG trendsetter that set the precedent for “damn, these guys make a lot of variants.” And while I’ve always been quick to point out that I’m a skeptic, this Angela does feel like a really strong return for the veteran studio, drawing on the more dynamic, Kim Jacinto-esque dynamic style that they’ve done before, but (in my opinion) much stronger than previous variants in that same vein. I love the way the darkened edges of the piece heighten the energy of the piece and contrast well with Angela’s red hair, and the overall scrappy tone of the whole piece is winning me over. So a PANDART is a bona fide highlight of the week for me— worth celebrating! Check this bundle out if you feel the same.
04/25
Creative House Pocket’s Bruce Banner
Artist: Creative House Pocket
Source: General Pool (Rare)
I know this one has turned heads, at least in the various comments and Discord chatter I’ve been privy to hearing— and I get it! Seeing Bruce Banner rendered in edgy, silhouetted anime-moodiness (complete with hand-to-face) is a fun novelty that’s right up Creative House Pocket’s alley. It’s not necessarily quite my speed, but I can appreciate the composition, with the Hulk looming in the background amidst all of that neon-green lighting. Tapping into the more horror-tinted dread of Bruce as a character is sometimes something that’s lost on just how popular the character is, so I can dig a variant that leans into it 100%. For all the folks who are much more into the anime-style? 700 gold is going to feel like a steal.
04/26
Ben Harvey’s Cyclops!
Artist: Ben Harvey
Source: General Pool (Super Rare)
Ben Harvey is one of my favorite artists that I’ve seen slowly rise up in comics— he’s got such lovely washed-out colors in his work, with so much life in all of it. This piece not excepted, of course— I love the colors on all that blue on Scott’s suit, and the obvious eye-catcher (ha) is going to obviously be his optic beam, which Harvey takes the opportunity to use for some cool lighting bouncing off that costume. It’s tied together by Scott’s lead-from-the-front battlecry, and that that’s exactly the sort of life and personality I love to see from Harvey’ work. This is the second direct commission from Harvey I’ve seen from SNAP, and I’m seriously hopeful we’ve got lots more in the pipeline.
04/27
David Mack’s America Chavez!
Artist: David Mack
Source: General Pool (Super Rare)
David Mack is going to be our last standalone artist for the week, but he’s a consistent favorite that draws as much attention as SNAP’s other really popular heavy hitters in the game like Artgerm or Viktor Farro. And for good reason! He’s one of the first really big, noticeable comic artists that’s taken on direct commissions from Second Dinner, and it pays off to get his talent applied to characters he might not otherwise draw or paint. This America Chavez I’ve spoken briefly about before, but I love how much of it is just a well-done portrait in profile, with just a hint at Chavez’s superhero side in those stripes draped over her shoulder. It’s a level of subtlety and humanity you don’t see every day in a battling card game like SNAP, and it’s another reason why it’s a total treasure to get David Mack making art directly for this game. Looking forward to more!
04/28
Creative Plus’ Chibi Diamondback
Artist: Creative Plus
Source: General Pool (Rare)
Nope, reread it! This is a brand new studio release— not Creative House Pocket, but, uh, Creative Plus. And they’ve only got one variant datamined so far, with this Chibi Diamondback lashing out at the viewer with a sweeping arc of pink diamonds (as she does). The Chibi style is one we’ve seen multiple artists and studios adopt for variants here and there, but that this one is particularly reminiscent of the G-Angle Chibis of old. It’s possible that, with G-Angle likely not making more variants for Second Dinner, studios like Creative Plus will steadily rise up to fill a similar niche in a broad-appeal recognizable style. I know some Chibi collectors that will absolutely snatch this up— it might not be my thing, but for anyone who enjoys them, this is hitting that wonderful 700 gold price bracket to take it easy on your wallets.
Creative House Pocket’s Galacta
Artist: Creative House Pocket
Source: General Pool (Super Rare)
Lastly, Creative House Pocket (yeah, the guys we’ve know for a while) are coming at us with a Galacta variant that leans into the cute-anime-girl vibe that the core character from the comics already drew so heavily on (which is an interesting sort of faithfulness). But it’s, over anything else, faithful to the hugely popular new Galacta design in RIVALS, and it provides poor Galacta with another variant for her starved catalogue, even as often as she is played now. I like that RIVALS stark bright yellow background, and the colors and effects help make that majority-purple composition pop, as opposed to overpowering everything. It certainly falls on the side of solid anime-style art for me, and so even if I might not pull the trigger on purchasing it, I certainly wouldn’t be mad about it falling into my collection.
Wrapping Up
We really are almost done with this month, which might feel long thanks to the 5-week season, but there’s a lot of new things to look forward to very soon— whether that’s the new acquisition system, the new patch, or just the prospect of even more cool art coming down the line. But, hey, one step at a time— what’d you think of this batch? Do you disagree vigorously and vehemently? Do you agree but with a similar amount of hostility? Let me know down below! I love to read it all. And, without further yadda yadda, see y’all next week!