When the Canadian Mint came calling, Kingsville comic book artist Jason Fabok knew he could not turn down the opportunity to draw designs for a set of collector coins promoting the new Justice League movie coming out this month.
"It was just too cool a project," he says as hype for the movie begins to build ahead of its November 17 release. "The coins turned out incredible."
Photo courtesy of Jason Fabok.
Fabok designed six coins featuring characters from the movie, including Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.
He says working with his colourist, Brad Anderson in Winnipeg last year, the design work took three weeks. It took the Canadian Mint almost a year to craft the set.
"They had gone through well over 25 different tries where they had to tweak the machine, tweak the printing, tweak the colours trying to get the coins look 100% like the artwork," says Fabok describing the process. "They were really invested in making these things look the best they could possibly look."
Fabok says he's drawn a list of superhero characters for DC Comics for the past seven years and is currently at work on a Swamp Thing passion project.
Having grown up in Harrow, the artist is now living in Kingsville with his wife.
He calls the project with the Canadian Mint one of the most exciting endeavors he has embarked on to date.
Photo courtesy of Jason Fabok.
"We were down in Winnipeg to unveil the coins at the mint, and they gave us a little tour of the facility, and you know, while I was walking around, that's when it kind of really hit me," he says. "My name and my artwork is part of Canadian coin history now, and it made me really proud."
He thinks both coin collectors and superhero fans will really enjoy the coins. He says a lot of work went into making each coin unique.
"There's a Superman, and a Cyborg coin and Cyborg, his laser beam and Superman's logo actually glow in the dark," he says.