UPDATE 1/14/2014 4:25 PM PT: Kris Anka has clarified the nature of the scrapped project on his Tumblr, writing, "The sketches I posted were not for an official project to be published by Marvel. They were for an artists' sketchbook that Kevin Wada and myself were going to pitch to Marvel for approval. Kevin and I decided to pull the plug on this project, not Marvel. We were proud of our work so far, so we wanted to share what we had done."
If you were holding out hopes for a return of the Marvel Swimsuit Specials of the early 1990s, you're about to be disappointed: Artist Kris Anka revealed that while he Kevin Wada were indeed working on a one-shot, that's unfortunately no longer the case.
"I write to you today with the somber news that after a few months back and forth with the powers-that-be, circumstances have arisen that have forced us to stop production on this project," he said on his blog, later adding, "While we are both disappointed that we can no longer work on this, there was no malice behind this decision. It is what it is."
Related: Flipping Through the Weirdly Subversive "Marvel Swimsuit Specials"
Anka shared three illustrations intended for the issue, and in a subsequent post explained, "The swimsuit book would have been a total of 52 illustrations, split evenly amongst male and female characters. We just hadn’t finished any of the women yet. (You can actually dig up a WIP by Kevin of his Storm piece, and I was well on my way with a Carol Danvers and Mystique piece.)"
Released annually from 1991 to 1995, Marvel's Swimsuit Specials included a mix of pinups and tongue-in-cheek articles.
