Iconic DC Artist Reveals Unused Cover Art For Nightwing's Ongoing Series (And It's Perfect) (2024)

Nightwing is a founding member of Batman’s extended Bat-Family and has become such a popular DC Comics hero in his own right that fans have been enjoying a near-constant drip of comics featuring Dick Grayson for decades now. Fortunately and unfortunately for fans, DC alum Dustin Nguyen has just released a piece of Nightwing cover art that regrettably never made it onto a physical comic release, and thanks to social media, it can now be appreciated in all of its artistic glory.

A long-contributing member of DC Comics’ crew of creators as well as an independent one, Dustin Nguyen (@duss005) has illustrated several Batman-related books over the years, a few issues of The Authority series, and more recently, has worked on Image Comics’ Little Monsters with writer Jeff Lemire.

Creating fanart separate from his professional work, Dustin has used his signature watercolor art style to draw the King of Monsters, Godzilla, Kaneda from Akira fame, SpongeBob Squarepants, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and even a Moon Knight/Nightwing hybrid character named “Moonwing," all to stunning results.

DC Artist Dustin Nguyen Reveals Incredible Nightwing Cover Art Never Published

Cover Art Design by Dustin Nguyen (@duss005)

Recently hitting his landmark 300th issue, Nightwing is at the peak of his popularity, as not only is his current solo series by Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo finding critical and commercial success, Nightwing now leads the Titans as the premier superteam in the DC Universe after the disbanding of the Justice League. Not specifically stating which issue this art could have potentially been used for, one look at Dustin’s design and it’s clear this would have been a great choice on any Nightwing cover, making Dustin’s sharing of this concept work a treat for fans to see.

Leaning into the blue color of Nightwing’s signature set of spandex, Dustin uses only two other colors — black and white — to complete this piece, utilizing their contrasting hues against an all-blue background to highlight Nightwing’s raised escrima sticks and also make his eyes pop. A simple yet incredibly effective image that at the very least needs a collectible variant cover release, Dustin drawing a determined Nightwing readying himself for a fight is a spot-on way to portray this one-time Boy Wonder, with the purposeful use of blue setting a visual tone that’s immediately eye-catching.

Nightwing's Blue Color Scheme Is Front And Center In Unused Cover Art

It stands to reason that since Nightwing will likely always have some sort of presence on comic store shelves for years to come, Dustin Nguyen (@duss005) may still be able to find a way to get this unused cover art wrapped around a comic and into fans’ hands sooner rather than later. If not, this incredible Nightwing art will go down in DC Comics history as one of the coolest and most perfectly designed pieces of Dick Grayson art that never got the recognition it deserved.

Source: @duss005