SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud

I’ll be honest — sometimes, the only reason for a new Common Elements commission is that the idea made me grin from ear to ear when I thought of it.

Well, not literally from ear to ear in that Julia Roberts / Cameron Diaz sort of way. My mouth is not that enormous. More like from mid-cheek to mid-cheek.

First, the art. (As always, you can click the image for a better view.)

Comics veteran Mike DeCarlo, who has drawn and/or inked everything from Spider-Man to The Simpsons during his quarter-century-plus in the industry, teams Sabrina, the Teenage Witch — star of comics, animation, and live-action TV, and responsible for extending the acting career of Melissa Joan Hart well beyond her teens (and, some might opine, beyond the limits of her talent) — with Caitlin Fairchild, leader of the youthful superhero team Gen13, who’s often known simply by her surname.

Next, the concept.

As an aficionado of old-school Hollywood, one of my favorite classic films is Sabrina. (That’s Billy Wilder’s 1954 original, starring Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, and a luminous Audrey Hepburn in the title role, not the tepid 1995 remake with Harrison Ford, Greg Kinnear, and Julia Ormond, directed by Sydney Pollack.)

Bogie and Holden portray two wealthy brothers — David, a good-for-nothing playboy (Holden), and Linus, who’s older and more serious (Bogart) — competing for the affections of a young woman (Hepburn) who happens to be the daughter of their family’s chauffeur. It’s sort of a reverse spin on Cyrano de Bergerac, with Linus working to sabotage the budding romance between his brother and the chauffeur’s daughter in order to score a huge business deal with the family of another woman, to whom David is engaged. And of course, Linus ends up falling in love with the girl himself. (Who wouldn’t? It’s Audrey Hepburn, for crying out loud.)

Okay, you’re thinking — that explains Sabrina. But what’s the Fairchild connection? If you’ve seen the movie, you know: the character Sabrina’s last name is Fairchild.

That makes me smile. Doesn’t it you?

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

This entry was posted on March 4, 2011 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Celebritiana, Cinemania, Comic Art Friday, Teleholics Anonymous. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.