Does This Trade Dress Make Me Look Phat?

You may know the name Xum Yukinori. A professional artist and regular contributor to CBR’s The Line It Is Drawn feature, he regularly impressed with his imagination, humour, knowledge, graphic design skill and ability to homage pretty much any Silver or Bronze Age artists you care to name.

And here’s an art book collecting contributions Xum made to CBR’s weekly sketch challenge. The beautifully put-together hardback, curated by Xum before he died in 2019 and brought to completion by his friend Adrian Zet, includes more than 250 Line entries, lots of them witty, insightful takes on classic DC covers, but there’s loads more in the near 500 pages lurking behind a DC Archives-style cover.

In particular I love the Xum’s Who entries – sometimes twisted takes on existing pages from Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe, at others entries for characters disgracefully denied a feature due to either editorial forgetfulness, or not meeting the latest criteria, such as Superman and Wonder Woman on Earth 1.

Using a combination of classic comic art, DC stock illustrations – the classic style guides of the great Jose Luis García-López are put to great use – and his own talent, Xum created ‘lost’ entries indistinguishable from those in the classic encyclopaedia series. In a brilliant wheeze, he collected his entries in a limited edition comic book to complement and complete the official Who’s Who (it also contains a few rogue entries – Aquarob and Fireshag as nods to the guys behind the Fire and Water Network, to which Xum contributed the amazing Done-in-One Wonders Podcast Wonder Show – and some guy named Professor Xum…).

There’s also a wonderful section looking at The Xum 52 when, to mark turning 52, our hero managed to not only contribute to The Line it is Drawn every week for a year, but include a cameo of himself. In his commentary, Xum outlines his thinking and process. For example, how does a guy who has trouble seeing red colour his drawings so accurately?

There’s also a fun focus on the time Xum revived the legendary/failed DC Superstars Society to produce Chapter applications for a couple of notables who never received them at the time – Aquaman (undervalued) and Firestorm (uncreated).

Honestly, in a single blog post I can’t get across the scope of this wonderful volume – which features additional captions by Xum’s wife, Namiko Hideaki-Yukinori, and Adrian Zet, and a foreword by The Line It Is Drawn’s Brian Cronin. The images here can’t convey how impressive the pages are. Does This Trade Dress Make Me Look Phat? is a heartwarming love letter to US superhero comics and a great way to remember – or even meet for the first time – Xum Yukinori, a creative genius and lovely guy who was taken far, far too soon.

If you’re interested in getting a copy of Does This Trade Dress Make Me Look Phat? for yourself, email Adrian at xumswho@gmail.com for info on how to order. You’ll be very glad you did!