If I Ran The Circus

Introducing a (hopefully) continuing feature to Second Printing simply titled, "If I Ran The Circus," where we simply tell you the characters we'd like to see done by some of our favorite creators. In our dream world, where unicorns grow opposable thumbs to fistfight dragons and sales are never a factor, awesome things like these would be happening every day.

LOIS LANE

Written by Kathryn Immonen

Drawn by Chris Samnee

I simply fell in love with Kathryn Immonen's all-too-brief run on Marvel's Runaways. After years of misguided but well-intentioned runs by Strangers In Paradise's Terry Moore and Buffy's Joss Whedon, it very much looked like writer Brian K. Vaughan's Runaways were very much a singular creation, done properly under his guidance. That is until Kathryn Immonen. Under her stewardship, The Runaways were reignited with the righteous indignation that made them fan favorites in the first place. The title looked to be one it's way to its former glory but by then, the damage had been done and Runaways was put on hiatus. Immonen has a brilliant way of just making every word count and frankly, this EXACTLY the thing you'd want from someone writing The DC Universe's greatest reporter, Lois Lane.

I first discovered artist Chris Samnee on writer Greg Rucka's series, Queen & Country. The first thing that struck me was Samnees's brilliant uses of black to set mood. Coming off the somewhat WB Animation-influenced art of past story arcs, Samnee's style seemed to elevate the art more to a level more in tune with the story. More work from Samnee followed including a noir-ish tale featuring Truman Capote. Then, I'd pegged him as the noir guy. That was until I'd viewed his blog where he'd post warm up sketches that showed the man could draw practically anything he damned well pleased. Then in a stroke of brilliance, Marvel assigned him to Thor: The Mighty Avenger where he showcased a a freer, looser line and showed he was also a master of facial expression and page composition. What's more, the true treat of Thor: TMA was his gorgeous rendering of Jane Foster, where she said just as much with her facial expressions and body language as she did in her dialogue. The whole time, making me wish some one would make Samnee's wanting to work on a Lois Lane book, a reality.