Apparently, in 1986 I predicted the future on-screen LGBTQ romance of New Mutants Rahne and Danielle, aka Wolfsbane and Mirage!

Wow, I had completely, completely forgotten these existed!

Holy heck I made so much queer art with the New Mutants!

Thanks to the support of my Patrons on Patreon, I try to do a little archiving of my vast lifelong art archives every month. I hit a goldmine of late-80s and early 90s stuff this week.

Because these drawings, which are all dated May 7- May 12, are on illustration board, they had gotten stored with larger works from a slightly later time.

I believe these were all drawn in May 1986, not long after I first met Chris Claremont, based on the level of my skills.

And also because the love scene is totally inspired by Kory and Karras in one of my very favorite issues of the Titans, New Teen Titans (vol.2) #19 (1986), which was drawn by Eduardo Barreto!

Rahne’s makeover is an echo of the X-Men scene in issue #210, where Rogue goes to Bloomingdales, which is what Chris was writing an outline for in his little stenographer notebook the day I met him.

I haven’t seen any of this artwork in decades!

Literally, the box was packed up when I lived in West Hartford, where I drew my last issue of Star Trek for DC. That was Fall 1995. It traveled all over the US with me, and finally to Berlin, like all the other boxes of art!

 

Obviously, I desperately wanted to show the kids having a good time!

One of the (many) things I was always (fondly) hassling Chris about was the lack of PARTYING in the book. It was the 80s, f’r chrissake! I loved them, I wanted them to be happy for at least a night.

Dani is making a vision bouquet for Rahne! Isn’t that so cute???

I drew Kitty drunkenly phasing through the couch and Sam shrugging and toasting her with his beer!

But like all coming-out stories, this one takes an emotional turn for a while.

Having myself been through the awkward moment when you’re fifteen and you tell your best female friend you have a crush on her, I didn’t imagine it would go perfectly smoothly.

I was optimistic. I believed those mutant girls would get together!

My own girl crush confession had resulted in hot shower sex and waking up in spoons. And my mom took her and I to brunch next morning! So I had a hopeful take on things. I feel like the (sorry it’s so hard to see) text did a pretty good job of mirroring Chris’ style.

Look how happy they are! This drawing totally reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes dancing.

I am truly enormously excited about the New Mutants film, and so excited to see my vision of Rahne and Dani’s love on the big screen.

You can read about how I became a New Mutants fan and my journey to become a comics penciller here, and you can see my Wolfsbane and Mirage custom action figures here!

I am incredibly grateful to my Patreon Patrons, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me to take time to document my art archives.

Until today, no record of these drawings existed – if we had a fire or flood they would just be gone forever.