PJ Interactivity Thread

[Bruce Lee]

Just to do something a little different than the "Dr. Stupid Jr" thread, I thought I'd start a thread where I talk about myself a little, then ask you guys questions about YOUR experiences and feelings on certain matters. I'm hoping to promote some interaction so that I can get to know you guys a little better. Let me start off by throwing out a little personal history:


I began drawing and reading comics about the same time. I was 4 years old, and my father handed me a copy of BATMAN featuring Batman taking on the Penguin. I had no idea who BATMAN was, but I instantly knew that I liked him. He was so cool! The mask with the pointed ears, the fringed cape, the pointed books, and scalloped gloves, and the most awesome belt in history! And he had a bat on his chest, just to top it all off. I was hooked. I began to draw the character on the backs of envelopes and on notebook paper. My parents noticed that I was very enthusiastic about the character, and my dad continued to supply me with comic books for many years. Back in those days (the 1970s) you most likely got comics from a spinner rack at a grocery store or pharmacy drugstore, and you got whatever comics were currently available. If Batman was sold out, my dad would bring me something else--INCREDIBLE HULK, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, SUPERMAN, BUGS BUNNY, CASPER, ARCHIE--you name it. I had all sorts of comics growing up. I read a diverse lot of comics. Everything from SAD SACK to CONAN THE BARBARIAN found their way into my hands. And I learned to draw all sorts of characters at the same time. For me, collecting comics and drawing has always been connected. I always knew I wanted to draw comics for a living, and BATMAN in particular. The diversity of subject matter that I read in comics played into my artwork today. I can draw all sorts of different styles and methods today, and I think that has a lot to do with having a broad interest in different comics as a kid. For 36 years I've been a fan of comics, and I've been drawing just as long. Comics were only 25 cent when I got into the game. You could get four comics for $1.03 back then. Heh. I miss those days! Things sure have changed.

My questions to you guys:

-How long have you been drawing?

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

Please feel free to ask me similar questions right back!The goal of this thread is for me to get to know you guys a little better, and vice versa. :)

[Ugga Bugga]

I have been drawing for as long as I can remember. Only beginning to improve recently, by going outside of my comfort zone (to an extent).

Mad Magazine probably had more of an influence with respect to my love of drawing.

I haven't always wanted to draw comic characters. I've always wanted to do cartooning.

Probably Don Martin, Picasso, and Basil Wolverton have had more of an impact on the way that I draw now than comics do.

Bone, is a fantastic story, and very solid art. I particularly enjoyed the Peter David and Larry Stroman run of X-Factor back in the 90s. I loved how they took off-shoots and also rans, and made them into characters that I deeply cared about, in a humorous way that did not in any way take itself seriously.

It was such a nice change of pace from the X-men angst.

[The P.R. Man]

I've been drawing since I was at least 3, Mom dug out some old stuff last time I was home and there in giant scribbles it's got my name and age, My Parents traveled all year by truck, so it was either sit and stare, or draw (seriously, only home for 2 months a year. MADDENING!)

not at first, but once I turned 10 or so I started making my own superhero charecters, usually they were cunning photocopies of wolverine. now though I enjoy drawing fictitional charecters far more than real life ones.

not always, but since I was 12 they definitly did. Adventures of Superman 501 was the first comic I really looked at and had the "Holy Crap" moment. as much shit as people talk about 90's era superboy, when I first saw it I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen, (which says so much about my style choices therealfter) I had read archie and Disney comics before them, and thought x men were cool before then, but that got me really wound up about how freaking cool these charecters and stories were "ohmygod, superman just DIED! but now he's back and he's young like me and he listens to headphones and has an awesome jacket!"


oh yeah. from 12 to 15 I was trying to ape Tom Grummet as much as possible, then I started to get into Manga, and became a real fan of Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the shell) and lOcke from http://damaged.anime.net/ alfter I moved out of my parents I really started to like Steve Dillon I guess I'm trying to mash all those styles together.

Preacher, I loved the western aspect of it, and when I first read it I was starting to really question my views on religion and life in general. I loved the Buddy Dynamic between Jesse and Cassidy, and his relationship with Tulip. plus, that you never had any freaking clue what would happen next. Tulip may have her head blown off, or you might find a midget screwing a giant pile of beef. also, Garth Ennis and I seem to have the same sense of humor.

[oqnet]

I started drawing before I started reading comic books. I had a friend who was obsessed with drawing comic book characters all the time. We were best friends so he would sit me down with a piece of paper and a pencil and we would draw. Never collaberated he was always that much better than me. Then when I was about 6 I started reading archie comics. I read those for awhile then I started reading spider-man and x-men. I loved x-men a lot back in those days, the stories seemed a little simpler no house of M or civil war scale stuff. At least it seemed like it. Then my friend who sat me down to draw(who had been collecting comics from as far back as I can remember), got hooked on this series called Gen-13. The I was in love with the art, and possibly the boobs on the female characters. From then on I started picking up drawing on my own not just at my buddies. I started trying to emulate J. Scott Campbell. Even my original characters were emulated after his style. I started collecting comics around that time and reading anything I could get my hands on, image comics had just started and I was into spawn and savage dragon. I was also a big fan of Jim Lee's stuff and for awhile thought I should change my last name to Lee because anyone with the last name Lee is god.

In the end I hit highschool and stopped collecting, I drew all through highschool and actually got quite good using my spare(which would have been art but I dropped it because it was crap) to draw and did some of my best work then. Then I went to collage and kind of got out of it for about 2-3 years until I met a new friend who was into drawing. He did more manga style characters and real life stuff. That got me going again, now it seems like I go in spurts. I kind of wish I had kept up with it from highschool because it feels like I'm starting out from scratch again.

But that's how I got inspired, a good friend and some good comic books. Though looking back at Gen-13 I have a hard time reading it, too much 90's pop culture.

[Popninja]

I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. My mother tells me that my sister would try and bust me for "drawing boobs," but I don't remember that, so I'm sure I've been drawing since I was at least 5.

Comics played a huge role in my love of drawing, but not until later in my childhood. Initially, it was all about Star Wars, Buck Rogers, Six Million Dollar Man and Battlestar Galactica. Comic book TV shows played a huge role, too, but I wasn't huge on comics until I was about 11 or 12.

The day I knew I wanted to draw comic characters was the day I saw Fantastic Four #243 on the comic rack. Drawn by my now favorite sequential artist, it knocked me on my ass. I had never seen anything like it, and once I saw it, I knew that was what I wanted to do. On the same day, I bought Uncanny X-Men #157, drawn by Dave Cockrum. It didn't blow me away like Byrne's FF did, but in a few months, a man named Paul Smith would take over the book and make me fall in love with the Uncanny X-Men.

Comics played a huge role in how I draw today, and as much as I try and discourage it from young artists now, I used comics to learn how to draw. Not intentionally, as if I had that in my head as how I wanted to learn, but I aped styles constantly, from Byrne to Frank Miller; JRJr. to Art Adams, I soaked it all in and used it to make myself the artist I am today. I also would draw so much that my mother literally thought something was wrong with me. I just teased her about it last month, how she would discourage me from sitting in my room the whole day drawing. But that's just the way I was. It's all that I would do, and I got really good at it. My dream was to write and draw X-Men comics. I used to fold copy paper in half and make X-Men comics, and one of the coolest part was writing the credits. "Written and Drawn by Norman Hardy."

The reason I loved the X-Men so much was because every artist that worked on that book was incredible to me. They didn't throw just anybody on UXM as regular artist. Some of my absolute favorite artists today worked on that comic when I was a kid. It was the comic I HAD TO BUY every month. Of course, over the last decade, that has changed and it has made me really sad, and kinda pissed. But I have my memories. My dream to one day write and draw X-Men died a long time ago. But my dream to one day launch my own comic book is still alive.

[Bruce Lee]

I have been drawing for as long as I can remember. Only beginning to improve recently, by going outside of my comfort zone (to an extent).

Mad Magazine probably had more of an influence with respect to my love of drawing.

I haven't always wanted to draw comic characters. I've always wanted to do cartooning.

Probably Don Martin, Picasso, and Basil Wolverton have had more of an impact on the way that I draw now than comics do.

Bone, is a fantastic story, and very solid art. I particularly enjoyed the Peter David and Larry Stroman run of X-Factor back in the 90s. I loved how they took off-shoots and also rans, and made them into characters that I deeply cared about, in a humorous way that did not in any way take itself seriously.

It was such a nice change of pace from the X-men angst.

So do you still read comics? Which Wolverton stories did you enjoy the most, Steve?

Here's one of my favorite Wolverton stories, THE BRAIN BATS OF VENUS from 1952. I found links to the story here:

http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2007/10/brain-bats-of-venus.html

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS73XMLgTI/AAAAAAAABuQ/NGJ1-u_Ss-U/s1600-h/POST103+page1.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS6QnMLgSI/AAAAAAAABuI/n_QoHl-peVE/s1600-h/POST103+page2.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS6H3MLgRI/AAAAAAAABuA/MhzkvfAz_pQ/s1600-h/POST103+page3.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS513MLgQI/AAAAAAAABt4/JFLhS9kS6wY/s1600-h/POST103+page4.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS5xHMLgPI/AAAAAAAABtw/jvFWI0Nlsm0/s1600-h/POST103+page5.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS5sHMLgOI/AAAAAAAABto/skYcWpPhDgc/s1600-h/POST103+page6.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS5jnMLgNI/AAAAAAAABtg/yXC22H5TNwg/s1600-h/POST103+page7.jpg

[MilkManX]

-How long have you been drawing?

Since I can remember. There are stories of a 2 or 3 year old me using Crayons on the walls of the house much to my parents dismay.



-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?


They sure did.

First it was Dinosaurs and then Muscle Cars. I got into comics right around 8 or 9 and then got into drawing the characters from them. Batman,X-Men,Conan,and G.I Joe/Transformers were my favorites as a kid. I remember that besides the spinners the Toy stores would have a grab bag of like 5-10 comics repackaged cheap. I would get alot of comics that way.



-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Yeah I think so. The Kirby and Toth influence is hard to rub off once it gets into you..


]-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

I liked alot of comics growing up but I seem to remember really liking Batman/Detective Comics and X-Men the most. I really loved that Clairemont/Byrne/Austin run.I liked the dynamics that the characters had. Batman was always just cool looking. Marshall Rogers and Walt Simonson on Batman was awesome.

In my teens I would really get into X-Men as it related to me more and the stories were really great.
I also would buy Savage Sword of Conan since I loved Conan as a kid and the B&W magazine offered more bang for the buck.

[Bruce Lee]

I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. My mother tells me that my sister would try and bust me for "drawing boobs," but I don't remember that, so I'm sure I've been drawing since I was at least 5.

Comics played a huge role in my love of drawing, but not until later in my childhood. Initially, it was all about Star Wars, Buck Rogers, Six Million Dollar Man and Battlestar Galactica. Comic book TV shows played a huge role, too, but I wasn't huge on comics until I was about 11 or 12.

Heh. Those movies and tv shows likewise had a similar impact on me. I remember drawing Buck, Wilma and Twiki the "ambuquad" robot a lot when I was 10 or 11. I haven't drawn those characters in a long time, but I drew Twiki on a posted note back around 2000:
http://www.lostonwallace.com/twikki.jpg

I loved the Six Million Dollar Man tv show too. "Steve Austin" was my hero when I was 6 or 7. I used to call myself "Steve Loston" when I was little, whenever my brothers and I would pretend to be tv heroes.


The day I knew I wanted to draw comic characters was the day I saw Fantastic Four #243 on the comic rack. Drawn by my now favorite sequential artist, it knocked me on my ass. I had never seen anything like it, and once I saw it, I knew that was what I wanted to do. On the same day, I bought Uncanny X-Men #157, drawn by Dave Cockrum. It didn't blow me away like Byrne's FF did, but in a few months, a man named Paul Smith would take over the book and make me fall in love with the Uncanny X-Men.

I had (and still have) all the Byrne FF comics. I remember getting that issue where Franky Ray first gets her Human Torch-like abilities, and I just loved it! I had many of the Claremont/Byrne era UNCANNY X-MEN issues too. I remember buying my copy of UNCANNY X-MEN 137 off the shelf at the D&S Supermarket in town one evening. I didn't read it immediately--I saved it until the next day. My 6th grade class was going on a field trip to the Natural Tunnel in Virginia, and I took that issue to read on the bus on the way. Wow! It blew my mind. The X-Men fought and lost a huge battle on the Moon! The most important battle ever, and they LOST! And Jean Grey DIED! Holy--! It really floored me. I read through it about 4 or 5 times on the way back. What an amazing comic. It was ground breaking stuff back then, to kill a character. Today, character deaths have almost zero impact, and are kind of pointless, IMO, but back then...Wow!


Comics played a huge role in how I draw today, and as much as I try and discourage it from young artists now, I used comics to learn how to draw. Not intentionally, as if I had that in my head as how I wanted to learn, but I aped styles constantly, from Byrne to Frank Miller; JRJr. to Art Adams, I soaked it all in and used it to make myself the artist I am today. I also would draw so much that my mother literally thought something was wrong with me. I just teased her about it last month, how she would discourage me from sitting in my room the whole day drawing. But that's just the way I was. It's all that I would do, and I got really good at it. My dream was to write and draw X-Men comics. I used to fold copy paper in half and make X-Men comics, and one of the coolest part was writing the credits. "Written and Drawn by Norman Hardy."

The reason I loved the X-Men so much was because every artist that worked on that book was incredible to me. They didn't throw just anybody on UXM as regular artist. Some of my absolute favorite artists today worked on that comic when I was a kid. It was the comic I HAD TO BUY every month. Of course, over the last decade, that has changed and it has made me really sad, and kinda pissed. But I have my memories. My dream to one day write and draw X-Men died a long time ago. But my dream to one day launch my own comic book is still alive.

The X-MEN was once a truly great comic before it became such a commercial phenomenon. I really don't care that much about the X-MEN these days, but I still treasure the books from the days I collected the title. I loved the Byrne/Austin -era artwork, and I have a particular fondness for the era of Paul Smith's run on the title. I liked some of John Romita Jr's stuff too, but somewhere after about issue 200-something, I began to lose a lot of interest in the X-MEN stuff. I came back for the Jim Lee-era books, and that was interesting for a little while. Haven't really followed the X-MEN in years, but every now and then I read someplace that another member has been killed off, or has been reborn, or something like that. I couldn't tell you which characters are still alive, at this point. lol.

It's good that you haven't given up on your dream to launch your own comic book, Norm. You can still do that, if you set you mind to it. You just need to get motivated and get started on it, mister! :D

[Bruce Lee]

not always, but since I was 12 they definitly did. Adventures of Superman 501 was the first comic I really looked at and had the "Holy Crap" moment. as much shit as people talk about 90's era superboy, when I first saw it I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen, (which says so much about my style choices therealfter) I had read archie and Disney comics before them, and thought x men were cool before then, but that got me really wound up about how freaking cool these charecters and stories were "ohmygod, superman just DIED! but now he's back and he's young like me and he listens to headphones and has an awesome jacket!"

Did you think that the reboot of Superman was going to last back then? I think a lot of people thought that they'd never bring Superman back. I knew better, but I was surprised at how long it took DC to bring him back. It's weird to me that Marvel did the same sort of stunt with Captain America. I always think of Marvel Comics as being the innovator somehow, but with the death of Captain America, it was a bit of the same thing: Kill off the hero. World without said hero. Replacement hero. Return of the original hero. Same Superman death formula, pretty much. heh.



oh yeah. from 12 to 15 I was trying to ape Tom Grummet as much as possible, then I started to get into Manga, and became a real fan of Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the shell) and lOcke from http://damaged.anime.net/ alfter I moved out of my parents I really started to like Steve Dillon I guess I'm trying to mash all those styles together.

That's some crazy meshing there, PR! Did you read ROBIN back in the day? TEEN TITANS? What did you think of the NIGHTWING series that came along in the '90s? I liked Scott McDaniel's artwork a lot back then--mostly because of the dynamic poses and energy. The storytelling was sometimes a little manic, but the layouts were never boring!


Preacher, I loved the western aspect of it, and when I first read it I was starting to really question my views on religion and life in general. I loved the Buddy Dynamic between Jesse and Cassidy, and his relationship with Tulip. plus, that you never had any freaking clue what would happen next. Tulip may have her head blown off, or you might find a midget screwing a giant pile of beef. also, Garth Ennis and I seem to have the same sense of humor.

Ah. I've never really been a fan of PREACHER, Steve Dillon or Garth Ennis, to be honest. That book was not my thing I guess. I probably wasn't interested in it back in the '90s because I was providing a lot of illustrations at that time for DEADLANDS: WEIRD WEST, a western-horror roleplaying at that time, and I was having my fill of the western stuff. I drew Deadlands for many years, and PREACHER was a hit during those same years in the late '90s. Gunfighter and gore overload for me, back then.

[Ugga Bugga]

So do you still read comics? Which Wolverton stories did you enjoy the most, Steve?

Here's one of my favorite Wolverton stories, THE BRAIN BATS OF VENUS from 1952. I found links to the story here:

http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2007/10/brain-bats-of-venus.html

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS73XMLgTI/AAAAAAAABuQ/NGJ1-u_Ss-U/s1600-h/POST103+page1.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS6QnMLgSI/AAAAAAAABuI/n_QoHl-peVE/s1600-h/POST103+page2.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS6H3MLgRI/AAAAAAAABuA/MhzkvfAz_pQ/s1600-h/POST103+page3.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS513MLgQI/AAAAAAAABt4/JFLhS9kS6wY/s1600-h/POST103+page4.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS5xHMLgPI/AAAAAAAABtw/jvFWI0Nlsm0/s1600-h/POST103+page5.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS5sHMLgOI/AAAAAAAABto/skYcWpPhDgc/s1600-h/POST103+page6.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ja0u9vcxkW0/RxS5jnMLgNI/AAAAAAAABtg/yXC22H5TNwg/s1600-h/POST103+page7.jpg


That is great stuff.

I've been getting alot of compilations lately. I got the complete Don Martin, which has kept me going for a while.

I am working my way through the Preacher series, which seems to be a ton of fun.

I just started reading walking dead, because I need to support a PJ member.


As far as wolverton stories, I'm really not too familiar to be honest. I just google his drawings, and and look at them for long periods of time. I need to read more of his complete stories.

I like picking up the Essential marvel series at times, to read through some old stuff that I missed.

[kae_ae]

-How long have you been drawing?
since i was a wee lil boy. i'd go thru exercise books like a fat kid thru cake.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
yup. and cartoons. 80s rule when it came to these things.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?
mostly. but i've expanded to movie related stuff, movies being another interest.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
pretty much. when i started to recognize specific artist copied guys like mcf, jim lee, adam huges, basically the rising stars between i was 10 and 14.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?
punisher war journal. jim lee. when i learnt that comic had adult themes.

[Hawkswift]

-How long have you been drawing?
Forever, it seems like. Since I was very young.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
Eventually. I think I was around 10 when an uncle gave me one of those random assortments of Marvel comics that (I think) they used to sell at places like Costco - which was pretty much my first exposure to comic books. After that I was copying things from inside those books.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?
Nope. Storytelling though - I've always liked art that tells a story. Even if it's a single image rather than sequentials.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
Very much so.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?
I have a hard time choosing a single favorite title... There are a couple of issues that had a big impact - Conan the Barbarian 231 was in that assortment, I think. I liked the cover (which had nothing to do with the interior) and the story was complete - well, the end of the story was, and the beginning was summed up well enough. Neat story too. Marvel's Godzilla issue 2 (which I must have gotten from my parents... otherwise I don't know where it came from) in which Godzilla attacks Seattle and is driven off by SHIELD. Mostly because Godzilla attacks my home town. And the Incredible Hulk 217 - another one from before my time that I'm not sure how I got. The story was great and complete in a single issue.

[The P.R. Man]

Did you think that the reboot of Superman was going to last back then? I think a lot of people thought that they'd never bring Superman back. I knew better, but I was surprised at how long it took DC to bring him back. It's weird to me that Marvel did the same sort of stunt with Captain America. I always think of Marvel Comics as being the innovator somehow, but with the death of Captain America, it was a bit of the same thing: Kill off the hero. World without said hero. Replacement hero. Return of the original hero. Same Superman death formula, pretty much. heh.


even at 12 I knew it was a matter of time before they brought him back, but I was convinced it was going to turn out to be either the Eradicator or the Cyborg. when Henshaw turned out to be evil it completely blew my mind. the whole death/breaking of the spine thing-then return got old for me really quick. I was kind of pissed that They did it with Batman, "C'mon guys, get a new idea, or at least wait more than a year to rehash it." they even threw in a sketchy replacement ala Azrael.

To be honest I didn't even know Captain america died, I wasn't really as heavy a Marvel reader as I was D.C. until I was a teenager Dad bought most of my comics for me, and he was from waaay back before them, he still thought Flash was Jay Garrick and was into the justice society and shit. he just didn't know the charecters, so they didn't get brought home. it wasn't till I was old enough to drive that I discovered that there were actual comic book Stores someone could go to and spend their entire college fund in the span of one summer then explain to dad that all those copies of post crisis Creen lantern Corps was an investment.



That's some crazy meshing there, PR! Did you read ROBIN back in the day? TEEN TITANS? What did you think of the NIGHTWING series that came along in the '90s? I liked Scott McDaniel's artwork a lot back then--mostly because of the dynamic poses and energy. The storytelling was sometimes a little manic, but the layouts were never boring!



I read Robin a little, but I mostly got Superman, Flash and Green Lantern. but around 96- or so I had a job to support the habit. a lot of Gen 13, Robin, Green Lantern, Strangers in Paridise, Superboy, ah hell, it's hard to remember my pull list from back then. I never read Titans unless Superboy or someone guest starred in it. never was into the Ray Palmer bunch. I'm a HUGE Scott Mcdaniel fan! I've got his entire nightwing run! I really enjoyed what they were trying to do with BludHaven and him being a cop and all. really bummed me out when they seemed to do away with it all. I ought to go back and look through them. Mcdaniel could really make Dick bouncing down an alleyway seem believeable. he's actually one of the first artists who's website I visited I think. they had a big article on websites in Wizard. BACK WHEN IT WAS GOOD.

on a side note, I've always been a fan the superdetailed backgrounds from Ghost in the shell and the whole Blade Runner type future stories. thats what got me away from american comics and into the whole manga and anime thing for a couple years.




Ah. I've never really been a fan of PREACHER, Steve Dillon or Garth Ennis, to be honest. That book was not my thing I guess. I probably wasn't interested in it back in the '90s because I was providing a lot of illustrations at that time for DEADLANDS: WEIRD WEST, a western-horror roleplaying at that time, and I was having my fill of the western stuff. I drew Deadlands for many years, and PREACHER was a hit during those same years in the late '90s. Gunfighter and gore overload for me, back then.

yeah, Preacher's humor isn't for everyone, but I'm an odd duck. I grew up in a rodeo/ranching area though, so the western elements from it really appealed to me. y'know, now that I think of it,I guess I saw a lot of my life paralelled by Preacher. my Dad was a lot like Jesse's dad, same obsession with John Wayne movies, Viet Nam Vet, and left a pretty screwed up family, except he's actually the preacher, not me. Assemblies of God Missionary Chaplain. we traveled constantly a lot like the storyline. I didn't read it when it first came out though, I ended up camping out at a barnes and noble for a couple of days and went through all the TPB's several times. then I went home and told my dad that organized religion was a corrupt scam and I wasn't going anymore. which went over about as well as you can imagine. I actually managed to accomplish it when I moved out, now though, 10 years later I'm going to one again, but now it's Southern Baptist. HAW!

I never got into deadlands, it looked cool, but I was impeded by my Rural Geography. lol.

[Bruce Lee]

I started drawing before I started reading comic books. I had a friend who was obsessed with drawing comic book characters all the time. We were best friends so he would sit me down with a piece of paper and a pencil and we would draw. Never collaberated he was always that much better than me. Then when I was about 6 I started reading archie comics. I read those for awhile then I started reading spider-man and x-men. I loved x-men a lot back in those days, the stories seemed a little simpler no house of M or civil war scale stuff. At least it seemed like it. Then my friend who sat me down to draw(who had been collecting comics from as far back as I can remember), got hooked on this series called Gen-13. The I was in love with the art, and possibly the boobs on the female characters. From then on I started picking up drawing on my own not just at my buddies. I started trying to emulate J. Scott Campbell. Even my original characters were emulated after his style. I started collecting comics around that time and reading anything I could get my hands on, image comics had just started and I was into spawn and savage dragon. I was also a big fan of Jim Lee's stuff and for awhile thought I should change my last name to Lee because anyone with the last name Lee is god.

I remember going to a comic shop back in 1991. There were a number of kids in the shop who were convinced that Jim Lee was Stan Lee's son. lol. That rumor continued for a number of years afterwards. I remember one fan at Dragon Con asking me about whether or not Jim and Stan were kin only a few years ago! I set him straight, explaining to him that "Stan Lee" was really Stanley Lieber, a Jewish-American, and Jim Lee was actually a Korean-American of no relation. He had no idea that "Stan Lee" was a pseudonym.


In the end I hit highschool and stopped collecting, I drew all through highschool and actually got quite good using my spare(which would have been art but I dropped it because it was crap) to draw and did some of my best work then. Then I went to collage and kind of got out of it for about 2-3 years until I met a new friend who was into drawing. He did more manga style characters and real life stuff. That got me going again, now it seems like I go in spurts. I kind of wish I had kept up with it from highschool because it feels like I'm starting out from scratch again.

In high school I created comics on notebook paper with three of my best friends. We created our own little superhero universe, complete with a handbook of characters. One would write, I would draw, another would color, and another would archive and organize things. It was a lot of fun. We did a couple of comics too, but most of those were lost in a house fire. :( That experience of collaborating with my friends was very instrumental in getting me interested in becoming a professional artist.

What inspires you now? Do you draw on a regular basis, or just on and off?



But that's how I got inspired, a good friend and some good comic books. Though looking back at Gen-13 I have a hard time reading it, too much 90's pop culture.[/QUOTE]

[Bruce Lee]

-How long have you been drawing?
since i was a wee lil boy. i'd go thru exercise books like a fat kid thru cake.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
yup. and cartoons. 80s rule when it came to these things.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?
mostly. but i've expanded to movie related stuff, movies being another interest.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
pretty much. when i started to recognize specific artist copied guys like mcf, jim lee, adam huges, basically the rising stars between i was 10 and 14.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?
punisher war journal. jim lee. when i learnt that comic had adult themes.

Jim Lee and Dale Keown's artwork got me back into reading comics. I stopped collecting around 1986 or so, but hopped back into comics when Keown was drawing the INCREDIBLE HULK, and Lee was drawing the UNCANNY X-MEN. Those two artists were the shot in the arm that superhero comics had needed for some time, and I wasn't about to miss out on their work! I'm glad I didn't. Love or hate the era of Image Comics in its infancy, you have to give props to all of those guys for making a huge impact on comics. For better or worse, they helped change the industry, and how the industry does business. Who'd have thought a handful of guys could have done all that?

[Keith]

-Well I started drawing when I was 4, and never really stopped, so about 20 years? saying that makes me feel old. It sounds hard to believe, but it's pretty much all I've ever wanted to do growing up. I would take my copy of "How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way" with me all the time, and really just try to emulate the marks and pencil effects Buscema used in the book.

-Comics were inspiring to me, but I didn't have a stable comic shop around my area and I had about 20-40 titles for a bit, I would say I paid more attention to cartoons more than anything else growing up. Once I stopped watching those I got back into books.

-I always wanted to draw certain characters over others (the usual suspects, Spidey, Batman, X-Men, Conan, etc.) at this point in my life, I'd take anything in a major imprint and run with it.

-I'd say so, besides Buscema, my biggest influence was during high school, a friend of mine also into comics who drew much better than me. I wanted to emulate how he did clean lines and in my eyes, "perfect" work.

-I never had a favorite growing up, I infrequently had comics from time to time. I would always read this mini-series called "Wolverine vs The Punsiher" penciled by Gary Erskine, I liked his realistic style on how he captured people, especially Wolverine. Pitt #1 was also an eye opener when I was about 8 years old, the same can be said of most of Keown's work for me. Nowadays, I'd say Nextwave, I was sad when it ended.

[Morganza]

-How long have you been drawing?

Always.


-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Yes. it went deeper when the Marvel Universe came out and I could see the inner workings of a character and props, it blew my mind and I wanted to draw characters in my own universe with that kind of depth.


-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

Yes, Since I was young, but not so much anymore.


-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

They do inspire me at times, especially the older comics.


-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)

Fantastic Four and Alpha Flight when Byrne was creating those books, Byrne was my first influence artwise and could tell a great story too.

[NickRocks]

My questions to you guys:

-How long have you been drawing?

as long as i can remember. this is the first time in my life where i have not been drawing SOME kind of comic


-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

absolutely. as a kid, you like that stuff anyways, but what solidified it for me was my step-dad coming home from work one da with a copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.


-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

yes, which is why im probably burned out on them now lol


-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

definitely, comics were the first and most prevalent impact on my art style. anime hit me big in 6th grade with Dragonball Z. I saw the Galic Jr movie and was blown away. I'd never seen a cartoon move like that. but then when DK2 came out I started reading western comics again and it all meshed into the crap i draw now.


-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?


hmmm, growing up i didnt have a "favorite title". I would devour comics just for being comics. I had favorite artists, which is why im more of a "ill read whatever JRJr/Miller/whoever does" guy than a character guy.

I loved Sal Buscema on Spider-Man, I loved John Buscema in HtDCtMW, but as a kid i couldnt recognize him when he was inked because i was so used to his pencils. I LOVED Todd McF, Torment was legendary. I liked the people who made comics LOOK exciting and over the top, people who drew "The Marvel Way". So when Joe Mad left comics, I was heartbroken. Thank God for Ultimates 3.

[Popninja]

Fantastic Four and Alpha Flight when Byrne was creating those books, Byrne was my first influence artwise and could tell a great story too.

Indeed. I remember those comics in particular being the first time that I can recall comics sparking genuine emotion from me. Guardian's death in AF #12, Sue losing her baby in FF #267. I remember being very affected by those two stories and I was only 14 or 15. That was when I realized how powerful comics are.

[ekotek]

Indeed. I remember those comics in particular being the first time that I can recall comics sparking genuine emotion from me. Guardian's death in AF #12, Sue losing her baby in FF #267. I remember being very affected by those two stories and I was only 14 or 15. That was when I realized how powerful comics are.

I'm in this same boat -- I believe that alot more people were influenced by Byrne than are willing to admit it...I will always list him as my number one inspiration in art...in fact, I believe he played a larger role in the stories that were told by Claremont in their X-men run together than people realize as well -- I base this solely on the fact that I continue to love stories written by Byrne, and I don't find myself loving stories that Claremont did without Byrne (I'm probably going to catch he!! for that statement - but it's true)

My first comic that I can recall clearly falling in love with was X-men 112 - the Magneto vs. X-men storyline - simply beautiful!, then the Savage Land, Hellfire club, etc...all culminating in the first story that stirred deep emotions within me - the Death of Phoenix! -- Jean Grey/Phoenix should have been left dead -- Marvel truly destroyed an epic story by bringing her back.

[Bruce Lee]

-How long have you been drawing?[/B]

Since I can remember. There are stories of a 2 or 3 year old me using Crayons on the walls of the house much to my parents dismay.

That's going back a little ways, Milk!




-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?


They sure did.

First it was Dinosaurs and then Muscle Cars. I got into comics right around 8 or 9 and then got into drawing the characters from them. Batman,X-Men,Conan,and G.I Joe/Transformers were my favorites as a kid. I remember that besides the spinners the Toy stores would have a grab bag of like 5-10 comics repackaged cheap. I would get alot of comics that way.

I remember buying my little brother the A-TEAM comics in a three-pack (or possibly a four-pack) at a local toy store. He was into GIJOE, Transformers, Thunder Cats and SilverHawks, so I tried hard to get him to also read comics at that time. He liked the Secret Wars toys a lot, but I don't think he developed a love for comics in a big way.

I was the dinosaur lover in my family. I still have all of my Marx dinosaur figures, and I occasionally still buy dino toys.



-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Yeah I think so. The Kirby and Toth influence is hard to rub off once it gets into you..

Two very strong influences, indeed. I think Kirby probably influenced more people in comicdom than any other single creator. Even industry mega-stars like Neal Adams, John Buscema, Gil Kane, and John Romita Sr claim Kirby as a primary influence. Kirby certainly continues to influence creators. Alex Toth's influence is pretty broad too. I know Michael Lark's work has some Toth influence, as does the works of Steve Rude (who's also influenced by Jack Kirby and Andrew Loomis, among others).


-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

I liked alot of comics growing up but I seem to remember really liking Batman/Detective Comics and X-Men the most. I really loved that Clairemont/Byrne/Austin run.I liked the dynamics that the characters had. Batman was always just cool looking. Marshall Rogers and Walt Simonson on Batman was awesome.

In my teens I would really get into X-Men as it related to me more and the stories were really great.
I also would buy Savage Sword of Conan since I loved Conan as a kid and the B&W magazine offered more bang for the buck.

As a kid I loved the O'Neil/Adams BATMAN comics. I also loved the Don Newton-era BATMAN books. Not enough fans and pros know about that era of Batman because CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS sort of eradicated all of that era from continuity, and then the Frank Miller BATMAN stuff sort of overshadowed it all. It's too bad, because that's my favorite era of BATMAN ever. The drawing was never better, and the stories were never greater, IMO. I know Frank Cho and several other creators have sited Don Newton as an artistic influence on their own art. I would have to say so as well.

I loved CONAN THE BARBARIAN and THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN. I couldn't get enough of those books growing up! Conan dealt out justice with a sword in a way that know superhero could or ever would. Conan was a real manly comic. I enjoyed the hell out those mags!

Marshall Rogers died too young. He was a great creator. Know one drew better capes than Rogers, and I think McFarlane's SPAWN cloak owed a lot to Rogers' work. Rogers did some great BATMAN stories. I like that there was usually those big typewriters and giant props in the stories he drew with writer, Steve Englehart.

[Bruce Lee]

-How long have you been drawing?
Forever, it seems like. Since I was very young.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
Eventually. I think I was around 10 when an uncle gave me one of those random assortments of Marvel comics that (I think) they used to sell at places like Costco - which was pretty much my first exposure to comic books. After that I was copying things from inside those books.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?
Nope. Storytelling though - I've always liked art that tells a story. Even if it's a single image rather than sequentials.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
Very much so.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?
I have a hard time choosing a single favorite title... There are a couple of issues that had a big impact - Conan the Barbarian 231 was in that assortment, I think. I liked the cover (which had nothing to do with the interior) and the story was complete - well, the end of the story was, and the beginning was summed up well enough. Neat story too. Marvel's Godzilla issue 2 (which I must have gotten from my parents... otherwise I don't know where it came from) in which Godzilla attacks Seattle and is driven off by SHIELD. Mostly because Godzilla attacks my home town. And the Incredible Hulk 217 - another one from before my time that I'm not sure how I got. The story was great and complete in a single issue.

Would you consider yourself to be a moderate comic book fan then? You mentioned that you liked storytelling--are you more interested in illustration than sequential art, Hawk?

[Bruce Lee]

-Well I started drawing when I was 4, and never really stopped, so about 20 years? saying that makes me feel old. It sounds hard to believe, but it's pretty much all I've ever wanted to do growing up. I would take my copy of "How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way" with me all the time, and really just try to emulate the marks and pencil effects Buscema used in the book.

-Comics were inspiring to me, but I didn't have a stable comic shop around my area and I had about 20-40 titles for a bit, I would say I paid more attention to cartoons more than anything else growing up. Once I stopped watching those I got back into books.

-I always wanted to draw certain characters over others (the usual suspects, Spidey, Batman, X-Men, Conan, etc.) at this point in my life, I'd take anything in a major imprint and run with it.

-I'd say so, besides Buscema, my biggest influence was during high school, a friend of mine also into comics who drew much better than me. I wanted to emulate how he did clean lines and in my eyes, "perfect" work.

-I never had a favorite growing up, I infrequently had comics from time to time. I would always read this mini-series called "Wolverine vs The Punsiher" penciled by Gary Erskine, I liked his realistic style on how he captured people, especially Wolverine. Pitt #1 was also an eye opener when I was about 8 years old, the same can be said of most of Keown's work for me. Nowadays, I'd say Nextwave, I was sad when it ended.

So what sort of cartoons did you watch, Keith? What were your biggest 'toon inspirations?

[Bruce Lee]

-How long have you been drawing?

Always.


-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Yes. it went deeper when the Marvel Universe came out and I could see the inner workings of a character and props, it blew my mind and I wanted to draw characters in my own universe with that kind of depth.


-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

Yes, Since I was young, but not so much anymore.


-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

They do inspire me at times, especially the older comics.


-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)

Fantastic Four and Alpha Flight when Byrne was creating those books, Byrne was my first influence artwise and could tell a great story too.

I can certainly see the John Byrne influence in your work. Your recent Thing illustration is testament to that! I was once very much into John Byrne's stuff, and I still treasure much of the Byrne books in my collection. I still have some of his first Charlton Comics like WHEELIE AND THE CHOPPER BUNCH and DOOMSDAY +1. My favorite run of Byrnes is a no-brainer. He really stood out drawing the FANTASTIC FOUR. Byrne brought the FF back to the fun times of the Lee/Kirby-era, building on a lot of the original plot threads, bringing back classic villains, and so forth. But JB found a way to do it in his own way. He also restored Doctor Doom to his former glory as the big Marvel heavy, IMO. Was great stuff!

I think the Michelinie/Byrne run of the Avengers (issues 181-191) is very underrated. I enjoyed every issue of that all too brief run!

[Bruce Lee]

as long as i can remember. this is the first time in my life where i have not been drawing SOME kind of comic



absolutely. as a kid, you like that stuff anyways, but what solidified it for me was my step-dad coming home from work one da with a copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.



yes, which is why im probably burned out on them now lol



definitely, comics were the first and most prevalent impact on my art style. anime hit me big in 6th grade with Dragonball Z. I saw the Galic Jr movie and was blown away. I'd never seen a cartoon move like that. but then when DK2 came out I started reading western comics again and it all meshed into the crap i draw now.



hmmm, growing up i didnt have a "favorite title". I would devour comics just for being comics. I had favorite artists, which is why im more of a "ill read whatever JRJr/Miller/whoever does" guy than a character guy.

I loved Sal Buscema on Spider-Man, I loved John Buscema in HtDCtMW, but as a kid i couldnt recognize him when he was inked because i was so used to his pencils. I LOVED Todd McF, Torment was legendary. I liked the people who made comics LOOK exciting and over the top, people who drew "The Marvel Way". So when Joe Mad left comics, I was heartbroken. Thank God for Ultimates 3.

So you're burned out for now....but if you could draw any comic currently being published, Nick, what title would it be?

[Keith]

GI Joe, TMNT and Real Ghostbusters were staples of my childhood. I thought the X-Men cartoon was pretty great, it packed a lot of arcs effortlessly into 1 season that would've taken most other shows a few years to do. Batman TAS is a given, but I thought Batman Beyond was a gem of a show, it had a style and vibe that was way ahead of its time. Pirates of Dark Water, Exo Squad, Gargoyles were pretty top action shows as well. On the comedy side Animaniacs would probably top the list, it was a pretty clever and hilarious show.

[Popninja]

I think the Michelinie/Byrne run of the Avengers (issues 181-191) is very underrated. I enjoyed every issue of that all too brief run!

The summer of '84, I was staying with an aunt who had sent for me to spend the summer with her in North Carolina. At least twice a week while I was there, she took me to this comic book store called "Heroes Aren't Hard To Find." It was there, with money that my aunt felt compelled to just give me, that I bought all kinds of Byrne back issues, including this Avengers run. I loved it. And yes it is very underrated.

[NickRocks]

So you're burned out for now....but if you could draw any comic currently being published, Nick, what title would it be?

easily ASBAR, followed by THOR.

Batman being the most fun superhero to draw IMO, and thor because i dont think ive ever done sequentials of him (not counting fusion jam)

[Ian Miller]

Great thread idea, Loston!

I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. At the age of 3 or 4 I was drawing Batman and Superman and Ninja Turtles, and from there on drawing just became my favorite hobby. I can't say if drawing was something I picked up, or if it came to me naturally. Both of my mother's parents were artists, and my grandfather especially had a huge influence on me growing up. My grandfather's name is Jerry Smath and he illustrates children's books and when I was younger he was doing illustrations for Sesame Street magazine. He gave me some watercolors and some colored pencils and really encouraged me to pursue art. To this day he's one of my biggest influences, and we get together about once or twice a month to check out what the other is working on, and talk shop or just do some sketching.

Comics were always a part of my life, and were probably another inspiration for me wanting to pursue art. I can't explain why I like comics. Something about them just resonates within me. I've dabbled in many different forms of art, but I always end up coming back to comics. I had a few comics when I was younger, but the first that really struck a chord with me was X-Men Classic #54, which was a reprint of Uncanny X-Men #150, a story titled "I, Magneto!". These characters were just WEIRD. Superman and Batman were still cool by me, but they were just guys in suits. The X-Men were something else. Nightcrawler looked like a villain, and he was always an outsider because of his blue skin and pointy tail. Colossus turned into metal. Storm had white hair and could fly and could make it rain or create lightning. Wolverine had claws in his hands and he had this whacky pointy hair that I had never seen on a person before. And lastly there was Cyclops, who was the weirdest character to me - He had a power he couldn't turn off! These were some really flawed characters, and unlike Superman who was great because he was perfect, these characters were great because they were just so messed up! I picked up any X-book I could, and I'd venture a guess that 1/4 of my comic collection is X-Men related. However, in recent years there's really been something missing from the books, and I haven't picked up an X-title in about 6 years. Even so, the stories just weren't the same after Claremont left, and the only times I really really REALLY enjoy new issues are if he writes them.

When most kids were in Kindergarten they wanted to be police officers or firefighters or astronauts. I wanted to draw comics. And a majority of what I drew were superheroes, or funny gag strips. I was always considered the best drawer in all my classes, and that encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing, since I wasn't really that good at anything else. In middle school and high school there were times where I kind of forgot about comics, but then something would come along and get me inspired to draw again. Oddly enough, there was a period of about 3 years when I stopped drawing for fun, but I was inspired to get back on the horse by seeing the Daredevil movie. Yes. The Daredevil movie.

College was weird for me in regards to comics and drawing. I studied fine art at SUNY Oswego, and from the get-go I was kind of ostracized because I liked comics. I took a 2-D design class freshman year, and I asked the professor what he though about comics. He thought they were trash, and from that point on, he never gave me good grades because he thought I was some kind of punk. The thing is comics are filled with design principles, and our textbook even devoted a few pages to talking about comics (Which he happened to skip over when we had to do readings). So I got into drawing and painting, and I was always told to add some energy into my work by getting influences from "Those comics you read". It wasn't until junior year when I was able to embrace my love of comics. I took an advanced illustration class, and the professor, who I got along with well, allowed me to make up my own cirriculum and projects, and she encouraged me to draw a comic. So I wrote and drew a 10-page humor comic that I was really proud of (I'd post it, but the drawings are pretty crude and the writing is a bit iffy), and I got an A+ on it. Around this time comics were looked down upon, but "graphic novels" were being praised by everyone, so all I had to do was say I drew "graphic novels" and people accepted me. I'd show my work to professors or students, and if I said I drew comics, they would dismiss me. If I said I drew graphic novels they would allow me to be amongst them. It was odd. But my college eventually started a class which dissected comic books and we got to make our own short comics, and it was the best class I had in those 4 years. The professor even got Art Spiegelman to come to the school and give a speech and then meet the class afterwards.

So, the cliffnotes - Yes, comics have influenced me in so many ways, and right now at the age of 24 I'm working as a full-time comic artist and loving every minute of it. I've been told that it's not a wise decision to be a freelance artist, but it's all I've wanted to do, and it's what I'm happy doing. Before I left my last job I was looking for new positions in sales. And I hate sales. I'd rather do what I love than get a job I hate because it pays well. And I'm hoping this will all pay off one day!

[scmarooney]

-How long have you been drawing?
Ever since grade school. I have some memories of trying to draw Snoopy and the Peanuts crew early on in grade-school. Of course I was one of those kids bored with school and sat there drawing things and making my own sound effects, and getting in quite a bit of trouble because of it.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
Yep. Loved me some comics as a kid. I was a Marvel Kid growing up and would breathlessly trek down to the local 7-11 to get the latest issue of Hulk or Avengers or the FF from the spinner rack, and a slurpee to go with my comics.
-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?
Not always. There was a point when I wanted to do political cartoons, and then humor-cartoons, but was never quite funny enough to think I had the chops for Mad or Cracked magazines.
-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
Yup. I ruined quiet a few comics as a kid tracing over the characters with ball point pens, trying to figure out how they were drawn so well. Later on I tried to devour every bit of Buscema's lessons in How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Wore the cover off of at least 2 copies of that book.
-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?
Like a lot of guys have mentioned, I loved John Byrne's run on the Fantastic Four. I think one of the first comics I can really vividly remember was that giant-sized FF he did where Doom kidnapped the FF, and put them into that small town without powers, and they were like mini-versions of themselves...? LOVED that comic so much as a kid I probably read it a thousand times, and was super disappointed when he left the FF. Byrne probably isn't the kind of guy I'd want to sit down and have a beer with, but I love his work from the 80s and the early 90s.

[Bruce Lee]

GI Joe, TMNT and Real Ghostbusters were staples of my childhood. I thought the X-Men cartoon was pretty great, it packed a lot of arcs effortlessly into 1 season that would've taken most other shows a few years to do. Batman TAS is a given, but I thought Batman Beyond was a gem of a show, it had a style and vibe that was way ahead of its time. Pirates of Dark Water, Exo Squad, Gargoyles were pretty top action shows as well. On the comedy side Animaniacs would probably top the list, it was a pretty clever and hilarious show.

I watched all of those shows, Keith! I was at the Kubert School when EXO SQUAD and GARGOYLES were on the air (1994). I remember having some of the EXO SQUAD toys. The mecha toy with Commander Marsh was very cool--they had working plastic pieces that moved like hydrolics, and I remember that the missiles fired from one of the toys traveled about 15-20 feet!
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/36/92345909_0b3bb94e6a.jpg

I used to watch EXO SQUAD and MIGHTY MAX before heading into school each morning with fellow PJer, Matt Plog, and some of the other guys from the Mansion (the Kubert School main dorm). My favorite character on MIGHTY MAX was Norman the warrior :

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zfN19QhhKtM/0.jpg

[The P.R. Man]

Exo Squad rocks!!! I has the green one!

[Hawkswift]

Would you consider yourself to be a moderate comic book fan then?

I definitely don't have the passion for reading and owning comics that most fans seem to...


You mentioned that you liked storytelling--are you more interested in illustration than sequential art, Hawk?

Both are interesting, of course :D I tend to feel like I can get away with being caught up in the details more with illustration than I can in sequentials but I'm working on limiting the amount of detail in general.

I was never very interested in drawing existing characters - even when I was copying stuff out of comic books as a kid it was poses and anatomy that I would turn into my own characters.

Now I think I need to practice drawing existing characters more - learn what sort of details I need to keep in mind to keep a character recognizable without ending up with stiff poses.

[Bruce Lee]

-How long have you been drawing?
Ever since grade school. I have some memories of trying to draw Snoopy and the Peanuts crew early on in grade-school. Of course I was one of those kids bored with school and sat there drawing things and making my own sound effects, and getting in quite a bit of trouble because of it.

I got in trouble for drawing a picture of Conan hacking off a warrior's head back in the fourth grade. Conan was riddled with arrows and was standing in a stream of water, and there were all these dead warriors floating around him--lots of blood in the water. I think my fourth grade teacher probably thought I was a devil-child or something. Heh. She took the drawing away and I learned later on that she threw it in the trash. A few years later, I had a teacher take away an issue of SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN that I was reading in class. I'd finished my test early, so I figured I was entitled the opportunity to flip through my comic. My teacher had other ideas though...;)


-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
Yep. Loved me some comics as a kid. I was a Marvel Kid growing up and would breathlessly trek down to the local 7-11 to get the latest issue of Hulk or Avengers or the FF from the spinner rack, and a slurpee to go with my comics.

Man, that was the life back then! The last time I bought a comic from a 7-11 was in 1991, when I was living in Annandale. I picked up an EXCALIBUR annual and a copy of Liefeld's X-FORCE #1 in the polybag. Inside the polybag was two X-Force cards (instead of just one). I got Cable and Domino, as I recall. Got myself a Big Gulp soda and walked home thinking that Liefeld was drawing some funky legs on Cable. Heh.


-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?
Not always. There was a point when I wanted to do political cartoons, and then humor-cartoons, but was never quite funny enough to think I had the chops for Mad or Cracked magazines.

Were you good with likenesses and caricature? What inspired your interest in political cartoons?


-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
Yup. I ruined quiet a few comics as a kid tracing over the characters with ball point pens, trying to figure out how they were drawn so well. Later on I tried to devour every bit of Buscema's lessons in How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Wore the cover off of at least 2 copies of that book.

That book really was a godsend, wasn't it, Sean? For years and years it was the only comic book art book on the market, and it's still the one that leads the pack, and every new book gets compared too. I had that book for a long time now. I have an original first printing hardback edition that I wouldn't trade for anything. It's a wonder that it's still in such great condition, all things considered. HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE MARVEL WAY and Jack Hamm's DRAWING THE HEAD & FIGURE were the only art books I owned growing up, and I can't say enough good things about them.


-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?
Like a lot of guys have mentioned, I loved John Byrne's run on the Fantastic Four. I think one of the first comics I can really vividly remember was that giant-sized FF he did where Doom kidnapped the FF, and put them into that small town without powers, and they were like mini-versions of themselves...? LOVED that comic so much as a kid I probably read it a thousand times, and was super disappointed when he left the FF. Byrne probably isn't the kind of guy I'd want to sit down and have a beer with, but I love his work from the 80s and the early 90s.

Ah yes--"THE TERROR IN TINY TOWN" story. That was a good one, done for the FF's 20th anniversary issue. That's one of my favorites from the Byrne FF run. I also like the issue where the FF helps the Inhumans relocate their city to the Blue Area of the Moon, and the Trial of Galactus issues. The issues with the FF journeying in the Negative Zone are also pretty great. Gotta love the build up to the Annihilus battle. That was classic!

[brokenhill]

crap! say's i gota spread rep around before giveing you some,Great idea Loston!

[Juggertha]

I've been drawing since I was a kid. Initially, trees were my main obsession - the old, gnarly type. But soon enough, I moved on to drawing comicbook characters.

I was lucky to have a number of kids in my school who were interested in drawing, and we ended up making our own little hero universe. I was always a fan of The Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe, and I spent hours designing and giving history to my creations.
http://juggertha.deviantart.com/art/CCCP-old-126328456

I stopped drawing all though high school (girls), but picked it up again in my last year. I thought for sure that I was going to get a job at Marvel and I'd be able to work along my idols.
http://juggertha.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d1eqdbi

But once again girls got in the way, and more hormones pointed me in different directions. I got into bodybuilding and working in the clubs, and nearly forgot about my nerdy interests.

Once I got married though, my 'interests' calmed and I was able to settle down with one wonderful girl. She was so wonderful in fact, she bought me my first tablet. That purchase inspired me to get drawing again. And that's where I'm at.

I know I lack a lot of fundamentals, and I have errors out the wazoo, but I have fun with what I do, and I can see progress - so I'm happy.

My biggest influences would be McFarlane, Leonardi, Lee, Silvestri, and more recently, Jeff Cruz.
And, like so many here, X-men in the 100s really got to me. The first comic I remember buying on my own was Uncanny 183.


Loston; what characters inspire you now?

[Bruce Lee]

I've been drawing since I was a kid. Initially, trees were my main obsession - the old, gnarly type. But soon enough, I moved on to drawing comicbook characters.

I've always loved drawing trees as well. I think it's because of where I grew up in Virginia. The trees there are some of the most beautiful in the world--old, gnarled, and the mountainous forests are dense with them.


I was lucky to have a number of kids in my school who were interested in drawing, and we ended up making our own little hero universe. I was always a fan of The Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe, and I spent hours designing and giving history to my creations.
http://juggertha.deviantart.com/art/CCCP-old-126328456

I did this too. I think my friends and I created something like 1300 superheroes and villains together. We made our own little universe, complete with our own official handbooks on blue-lined notebook paper. That was fun!


I stopped drawing all though high school (girls), but picked it up again in my last year. I thought for sure that I was going to get a job at Marvel and I'd be able to work along my idols.
http://juggertha.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d1eqdbi

I got out of comics towards the end of high school, but I picked collecting back up around 1990. I never really stopped drawing, but I stopped drawing superheroes around the mid '80s and started drawing a lot more fantasy stuff. I was heavy into roleplaying games like ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS back then, and I enjoyed designing my own characters. I remember drawing a lot of my friends characters too. I started going to sci-fi and fantasy conventions when I was 18, and I must have hit 10 or more a year for many years. After the Kubert School in the mid '90s, I wound up doing professional illustrations for roleplaying games for 4 or 5 years while the comic book industry was tanking.



I know I lack a lot of fundamentals, and I have errors out the wazoo, but I have fun with what I do, and I can see progress - so I'm happy.

It's great to be happy, Ed! As far as the fundamentals though, my advice is to seek out some life drawing classes, and get some schooling if that's possible. If not, read as many good art books as you can, and keep drawing and posting on PJ. You take critiques very well, and that's an asset. Many artists refuse to listen to critiques, because they let things like their own egos stand in the way of becoming a better artist. Don't let that happen to you. Listen to advice given about your work, and do what you can to improve with every drawing you do. Draw often. Draw as often as you can, and try to push yourself to do better work every time you draw. With more experience comes more wisdom and skill.

Another thing I recommend is to start figuring out where your artistic shortcomings are. If you don't draw arms well, for instance, then that's a shortcoming. Once you realize that it's a weakness, you can begin to turn things around. Work on drawing better arms or whatever the weakness might be. One step at a time, but one step forward. Always. That's how to handle that sort of thing.


My biggest influences would be McFarlane, Leonardi, Lee, Silvestri, and more recently, Jeff Cruz.
And, like so many here, X-men in the 100s really got to me. The first comic I remember buying on my own was Uncanny 183.

Those guys did some great work back in the late '80s and early '90s. McFarlane's strength, in my opinion, was his ability to layout and design a page. I wasn't big into his figures--the anatomy or the poses--but I recognized his ability to make a comic page look exciting. He had that down. That was his biggest gift, IMO.



Loston; what characters inspire you now?

That's a very good question, Ed. I'd have to say that Batman and Conan still inspire me the most. I like Batman the dark detective, not the psycho version that he's evolved into in recent years. I'm not big on that version of the character. I think the Dini/Timm Batman was just about the right mix for me. I've always liked Conan because he's a strong masculine hero-type. He uses his wits, speed, and brute strength to see his way through any situation. He's a survivor and a conqueror, always coming out on top in the end, because at the end of the day, his will cannot be matched. He's a force of nature, and I dig that. He also has a code of ethics that prevents him from being a total savage, and this code eventually leads him to becoming more civilized. As a King, he's even scholarly! Conan is a character who isn't flat. He changes all through his life, with each chapter being greater than the last.

I love drawing certain comic characters--Hulk, the Thing, Spider-Man. I can draw these characters all day long, and I never seem to grow tired of them--but I feel like I have a special connection with characters like Batman and Conan. I identify with them, I guess. I've been reading Batman comics for over 35 years, and Conan books for about 29, so I have a pretty good understanding of these heroes. I'm very much aware of where they've been and who they are. The feel like old friends, in a way. I think Spider-Man is the easiest character in the world to relate to. Anyone can jump on board his fan club. It's easy to relate to Peter Parker the high schooler, college student, etc. I think most people see themselves to be similar to Pete/Spidey. None of us are perfect, and we all have our problems--but I think most people feel like they have potential to do good things with their lives. I think we'd all like to think we could make a difference in the lives of others too, and in those ways, I think we all want to be Spider-Man.

It's harder for me to find a lot of inspiration in comic characters today because the superhero comic industry seems to be more about providing Hollywood with fresh fruit for the picking, and less about telling inspirational stories of valor. The bottom line can sometimes seem to be more about characters as a commodity--a motion picture deal and selling merchandise--and less about heroic storytelling and promoting heroic ideas. Every now and then though, the comic book industry can still surprise me. Who knew that, DC:FINAL FRONTIER or WEDNESDAY'S COMICS would be so incredibly good? Talk about your pleasant surprises! I'm not much for the big summer gimmicks and events that Marvel and DC pull out every year to shock and amaze their hardcore, specialized readership, but I'll always appreciate quality comics. They existed yesterday, and they exist today. Hopefully they will continue to exist for years to come. :)

[basil81]

1. Been drawing for as long as I can remember, scribbling on everything, notebooks, textbooks, cardboard, kleenex, the wall...I always preferred to draw than to go out and play with the other kids.

2. Comics did certainly impact the way I drew once upon a time, though now I think I try expand my range of influences. Like many other dudes my age I fell in with the whole Image Comics bonanza and for a time that whole period greatly informed my artwork (if it could even have been called art at this point...). Before then it was the staples, Superman, Batman, Spiderman and...well a bunch of Othermen...

3. I enjoyed making up my own characters mostly, but drawing comic book characters I think did indeed take up a majority of my amateur portfolio. There was a period however when I almost exclusively drew naked women...with very large breasts...

4. This may sound incredibly cliche now but I really dug Spawn (I ate the stuff up, being a skinny pimpled teen with no game) and followed the story arc for a time. Before that I was really into the short newspaper dailies of The Phantom, and I really dug his costume back in the day!

[basil81]

Question for Loston:

This being the dawn of the digital age of comics, where do you see the medium heading in the next few years?

[scmarooney]

A few years later, I had a teacher take away an issue of SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN that I was reading in class. I'd finished my test early, so I figured I was entitled the opportunity to flip through my comic. My teacher had other ideas though...;)

Were you good with likenesses and caricature? What inspired your interest in political cartoons?


Ah, yeah, I remember a friend who was a Conan addict and I was amazed by the black and white Joe Jusko (think it was his art, too lazy to check, but it wasn't Buscema) Art on that book. Never really got into the Conan comics that much as a kid, but loved the R.E. Howard books and read most of them in one big bunch in High School.

I was pretty good at likenesses, and could do a fair Ronald Reagan, George Bush, etc. I was interested, back then, in changing people's minds, politically and socially, and saw Political cartoons as a way to help do that. Guess I finally came around to the idea that you don't argue religion and politics :). People have to make up their own minds. Of course the fact that it is about 100 times harder to be a professional political cartoonist these days than a comic book artist might have had something to do with it, especially given the problems that todays newspapers are having staying afloat.

Question for you Loston: Was there ever a different kind of artist you wanted to be, besides a comic book artist, or dealing with those sorts of characters? Did you ever want to be the next Frazetta or Boris, and do book covers? How about commercial art? Seems like those guys can really make the big bucks?

[Bruce Lee]

Question for Loston:

This being the dawn of the digital age of comics, where do you see the medium heading in the next few years?

It's really hard to know. My guess is that the internet will be a big part of comicdom's future, one way or another. That just seems to make sense. My hope is that comics on paper will continue to exist, but with paper prices what they are, and the comic book audience being a specialized market, it's tough to say. The direct market may very well have saved the comics industry from folding after the '90s disaster, but it hasn't really done much to reach new audiences. Direct market inability to do that has many worried about the long term future of comics. Only a few titles every month make it past the 100,000 copies mark, and it's been that way for many years now. Some months only one or two titles break past that barrier. It's a little discouraging to see that as 2011 fast approaches. I'd love to see the comic book industry leaders stop playing it safe, and take a risk to reach broader audiences by widening distribution. Until they do, it's all about staying afloat and feeding Hollywood from their table I guess. Maybe Marvel or DC will make a dramatic move someday and will try to buck the direct market system, but I've seen little sign of that.

But the direct market hasn't been all bad. It's given a lot of companies and creators a tremendous amount of opportunity that didn't exist before. Like with any other change, there's good alongside the bad. I wonder if a company like Image Comics could survive without the direct market? I'm certainly glad they're around to give creators chances that the big companies won't.

It'll be interesting to see if the comic book market grows, evolves, or looks much the same in the next 5-10 years. Right now, if there's any strong signs of change, it's with the digital comics that can be downloaded. In the age of the Ipad, that seems like the next trend, anyway.

[Bruce Lee]

Question for you Loston: Was there ever a different kind of artist you wanted to be, besides a comic book artist, or dealing with those sorts of characters? Did you ever want to be the next Frazetta or Boris, and do book covers? How about commercial art? Seems like those guys can really make the big bucks?

Oh sure. I wanted to be a book cover illustrator. I wanted to paint covers for science fiction and fantasy novels. I loved Keith Parkinson's paintings, and most of the other D&D painters like Larry Elmore, Clyde Caldwell, and Jeff Easley. Michael Wheelan, Jeff Jones, Ken Kelly, and naturally Frank Frazetta. N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle have always been favorites of mine. One of my favorite cover artists is Frank R. Paul, the father of science fiction art.

If I could make a living doing interior illustrations for novels, I think I'd be a very happy guy! Sadly, I don't think there's a big market for that sort of thing anymore. Virgil Finlay drew fabulous illustrations for decades, and I get excited seeing any of his illustrations in any publication. Roy G. Krenkel is another artists whose work I enjoy. Mark Schultz recently provided illustrations for THE COMPLETE CONAN OF CIMMERIA, and that was a real treat!

When I worked in the role playing game business back in the late '90s, I got to do a lot of b&w illustrations, and I enjoyed that a lot! It felt good to do that kind of work. Telling a story with a single illustration is harder than you might think. Unfortunately b&w illustration for rpgs just doesn't pay well. If you want to make money doing rpg artwork, then you have to do color work, which pays 10 times better! It's just too hard to make it as a b&w artist, because the wages are just way too low. Many of the companies that I worked for were very slow with pay turnaround time also An artist just can't make a living working like that, so I had to change course and do something else. Now I do a lot of illustration for childrens books. :)

[Bruce Lee]

crap! say's i gota spread rep around before giveing you some,Great idea Loston!

Thanks for the thought anyway, Steve. :)

[hadesillustrations]

I've been meaning to post here since Loston brought this thread to my attention, so here' goes.

How long have you been drawing?

I started drawing at a very young age. I remember winning my first art award at age 6 for a dinosaur drawing. My dad was an artist and he was a huge influence on me from my wee years and on.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Yes. Comics gave me purpose at age 11. They made me realize what I really wanted to do with my art ability.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

Yeah, pretty much. Existing characters or my own - I think I just loved the format.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Yes they did. I'm not a fine artist. I think very scientifically about my art. I have trouble with some aspects of art because I worked for so long at being a pencilelr and nothing more. In a big way, I pigeon-holed myself. I'm working my way out of that now.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

I loved Spider-Man. Partially because I loved the old 60's (?) cartoon where he'd make a swamp boat with a working motor out of his webbing. I loved the story of Spider-Man and the fact that he had normal problems. I also started collecting at ish 269, where he fights Firelord. Ish 270 has him beating Firelord and not even Spidey believes he beat him. He was a powerful character that didn't act powerful. He was modest, even ignorant about how powerful he was, and that appealed to me - the fact that he was respected by other uber-heroes like Hercules, but he was still just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. The writing during that time was especially sharp. Also, it was the hey-day of the black and white vs red and blue union suits and I loved the black and white suit. Then there was ish 267, "When Commeth The Commuter". That sealed the deal. It is my favorite comic book of all time. I have a copy signed by Bob McLeod, the artist of that issue (I met VFIKS at the same time as McLeod - they were friends - he passed away shortly thereafter) and even McLeod loved the issue, remembering having a great time drawing it. "The Amazing Spider-Man" was really my book of choice, but I also collected Web and PPTSSM.

So, that's my story...so far. :)

[Juggertha]

When I worked in the role playing game business back in the late '90s, I got to do a lot of b&w illustrations, and I enjoyed that a lot! It felt good to do that kind of work. Telling a story with a single illustration is harder than you might think. Unfortunately b&w illustration for rpgs just doesn't pay well. If you want to make money doing rpg artwork, then you have to do color work, which pays 10 times better!

i wonder if you could liken it to game concept work now. In the 80s, it was RPG stuff. Nowadays, perhaps the artistic $$ have shifted towards games.

[Bruce Lee]

I've been meaning to post here since Loston brought this thread to my attention, so here' goes.

How long have you been drawing?

I started drawing at a very young age. I remember winning my first art award at age 6 for a dinosaur drawing. My dad was an artist and he was a huge influence on me from my wee years and on.

Cool to have a father who is an artist! I'm not surprised that you were into dinosaurs either. Gotta love dinos!


-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Yes. Comics gave me purpose at age 11. They made me realize what I really wanted to do with my art ability.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

Yeah, pretty much. Existing characters or my own - I think I just loved the format.

There's something great about drawing things that are larger than life. It's exciting to draw and exciting to look at when you've finished. There's a special joy that comes from drawing superheroes because of that.


-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Yes they did. I'm not a fine artist. I think very scientifically about my art. I have trouble with some aspects of art because I worked for so long at being a pencilelr and nothing more. In a big way, I pigeon-holed myself. I'm working my way out of that now.

You've come a long way in a short time, Alex. Your inking skills continue to improve. You're far less likely to ruin Moon Knight art now. heh. ;) Just remember that inking takes time to master, but the only way you can get better at it is to put in the hours doing it. It's easy to see that you've been putting in more time with inking. Keep that up, man!


-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

I loved Spider-Man. Partially because I loved the old 60's (?) cartoon where he'd make a swamp boat with a working motor out of his webbing. I loved the story of Spider-Man and the fact that he had normal problems. I also started collecting at ish 269, where he fights Firelord. Ish 270 has him beating Firelord and not even Spidey believes he beat him. He was a powerful character that didn't act powerful. He was modest, even ignorant about how powerful he was, and that appealed to me - the fact that he was respected by other uber-heroes like Hercules, but he was still just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. The writing during that time was especially sharp. Also, it was the hey-day of the black and white vs red and blue union suits and I loved the black and white suit. Then there was ish 267, "When Commeth The Commuter". That sealed the deal. It is my favorite comic book of all time. I have a copy signed by Bob McLeod, the artist of that issue (I met VFIKS at the same time as McLeod - they were friends - he passed away shortly thereafter) and even McLeod loved the issue, remembering having a great time drawing it. "The Amazing Spider-Man" was really my book of choice, but I also collected Web and PPTSSM.

So, that's my story...so far. :)

Man, I never met Vlad, but he and I got along on PJ very well. He and I exchanged emails and PMs for many years, as well as PJ posts. Like me, he was a fan of artists like Wally Wood, Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, John Buscema, and Neal Adams, and it often showed in his work. He was a talented guy, and I was stunned to hear that he'd passed away. :( I wish I could have known him better.

My second or third ELVIRA, MISTRESS OF THE DARK sequential job was inked by Bob McLeod, and that was a real treat for me. Bob did an excellent job inking my pencils! He truly is an awesome inker. He did everything I could have asked for. It looked like my artwork, but he did make changes where he felt it was necessary. He didn't make a lot of changes, but he wasn't a slave to might tight pencil line work. I felt like he and I made for a great team-up! I was very pleased with the job he did. Bob Wiacek inked my first ELVIRA story, and I felt like he and I were also on the same page! Bob's another legendary inker that lives up to the hype. I'd love to work with those guys again!

As far as AMAZING SPIDER-MAN goes, I love that mag! I had many, many issues as a kid, and I have a lot more now. My favorite era is probably the '60s Lee/Romita-era, but I'm also very fond of John Romita Jr's run on Spider-Man--especially the Roger Stern written issues. Stern also wrote the best run of CAPTAIN AMERICA with John Byrne on art chores. The early 80s was a great time for comics! Frank Miller on DAREDEVIL, Simonson on THOR, Paul Smith on X-MEN, Perez on NEW TEEN TITANS, Don Newton drawing BATMAN with Gene Colan drawing DETECTIVE--the list of awesomeness goes on and on!

[oqnet]

What inspires you now? Do you draw on a regular basis, or just on and off?


I try to draw in my sketch book at least a few times a week even if it's a little doodle I try to get down and do some nice stuff on bristol as often as I can but I always end up too busy to grab it. Lately I've taken to leaving my sketch book on the coffee table to entice me to do more sketching. Having it sit there really irritates me if I'm not using it. Like it glares at me calling me. Anyways what inspires me now is pretty much comic books. I'll pick a comic where I like the art, I also listen to music a lot and I'll get a vision of some sequence I want to do and end up drawing something based on that. I've been really trying to work on pulling that stuff out of my head onto paper, where as before it was all me taking a picture and trying to replicate it with my own artistic style. But I've been getting more joy out of taking something out of my head and trying to find a few references to use to make that pose and recreating my own brain children.

Also I'm addicted to drawing supplies I have a real problem.

[Bruce Lee]

I try to draw in my sketch book at least a few times a week even if it's a little doodle I try to get down and do some nice stuff on bristol as often as I can but I always end up too busy to grab it. Lately I've taken to leaving my sketch book on the coffee table to entice me to do more sketching. Having it sit there really irritates me if I'm not using it. Like it glares at me calling me. Anyways what inspires me now is pretty much comic books. I'll pick a comic where I like the art, I also listen to music a lot and I'll get a vision of some sequence I want to do and end up drawing something based on that. I've been really trying to work on pulling that stuff out of my head onto paper, where as before it was all me taking a picture and trying to replicate it with my own artistic style. But I've been getting more joy out of taking something out of my head and trying to find a few references to use to make that pose and recreating my own brain children.

Also I'm addicted to drawing supplies I have a real problem.

One thing you should consider doing when drawing is using photo reference in a different way than you may have previously been using it. Remember that reference should assist your drawing, not dominate it. I think it's always wise to use your imagination when drawing. I think having a good imagination is critical to producing artwork that has an impact. If you're drawing a crouching figure, and you're having trouble getting the knees right, seek out some reference of a figure in a similar crouching pose and extrapolate from that the information you need to finish your drawing. That's the way to do it. The way NOT to do it, IMO: find a photo with the exact pose you need; copy it. That's the pathway to doing static, lifeless work. It's also the slippery slope to becoming photo dependent.

Like you, I find myself addicted to collecting art supplies. :D I have enough drawing supplies to last me for about 5 or 10 years, and I still wonder if I have enough sometimes. Heh.

[Popninja]

As far as AMAZING SPIDER-MAN goes, I love that mag! I had many, many issues as a kid, and I have a lot more now. My favorite era is probably the '60s Lee/Romita-era, but I'm also very fond of John Romita Jr's run on Spider-Man--especially the Roger Stern written issues. Stern also wrote the best run of CAPTAIN AMERICA with John Byrne on art chores. The early 80s was a great time for comics! Frank Miller on DAREDEVIL, Simonson on THOR, Paul Smith on X-MEN, Perez on NEW TEEN TITANS, Don Newton drawing BATMAN with Gene Colan drawing DETECTIVE--the list of awesomeness goes on and on!

The first Spider-Man comic I bought at an LCS was ASM #229, written by Stern and drawn by JRJr. I was hooked from that day on. Of course, eventually ASM ended up having more lows than highs, IMO, and I gave the book up a long time ago, but again, I have my memories.

But yeah, the early 80's were great great times. Claremont/Sienkiewicz on NEW MUTANTS, Byrne on FF and ALPHA FLIGHT, a new talent named Art Adams doing a book called LONGSHOT... So much awesomeness!

[oqnet]

One thing you should consider doing when drawing is using photo reference in a different way than you may have previously been using it. Remember that reference should assist your drawing, not dominate it. I think it's always wise to use your imagination when drawing. I think having a good imagination is critical to producing artwork that has an impact. If you're drawing a crouching figure, and you're having trouble getting the knees right, seek out some reference of a figure in a similar crouching pose and extrapolate from that the information you need to finish your drawing. That's the way to do it. The way NOT to do it, IMO: find a photo with the exact pose you need; copy it. That's the pathway to doing static, lifeless work. It's also the slippery slope to becoming photo dependent.

Like you, I find myself addicted to collecting art supplies. :D I have enough drawing supplies to last me for about 5 or 10 years, and I still wonder if I have enough sometimes. Heh.

That's exactly what I was doing for awhile. I've started studying more anatomy and trying to do the majority on my own. I think the problem I was having was that I was able to look at a photograph and make my pictures look good. I think it was more of a fear of failing to make something that might look like junk. Then I figured out a method I like. I sit at my sketch book for awhile figuring it out the way I want pull out the odd refrence only when they are needed then when I want to make a good one I use that sketch to replicate on my bristol board. I've only started producing stuff I'm happy with this way but it makes me feel way better in the end about it. I think going through anatomy has been the biggest thing, I hope in the future to translate my ideas better to paper and go right to bristol.

[fatmancomics]

-How long have you been drawing?

The furthest back that I can remember drawing is age 4, in kindergarten.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Absolutely. Even before I realized that they were comic related, I loved the original Marvel hour and the 60s Spider-Man show from Hanna-Barbera. I watched them in the early 80s on a small black and white TV in El Salvador. There was only one thing I loved more than those two shows and that was Mazinger Z. My first drawing that had anything to do with those shows was an evil mecha designed to destroy Mazinger. He was unbeatable by the bad guys all the way up to the end of the series so I thought I'd give Dr. Hell a little help.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

No. When I was a little boy I wanted to be an astronaut. The only other thing that I wanted to do was be a teacher until I hit my teens and actually started collecting comics. I read through all of my cousin's collection before buying my own and actually wrote a sci-fi roller derby death race type story in junior high (I didn't really start collecting until I was 16). My friend and I were going to draw the pages but he got into graffitti art instead and, once he moved, there was no hope of the project going forward. I revamped that story three times since but only those first three panels that my friend did when we were 15 have ever been finished.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Of course. I used to mimic the artists whose books I read and collected and couldn't help but notice similarities between the old masters and comic book artists when I took formal classes in community college.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

When I first started collecting it was all about the X-Men. I collected every single X-Title because, as far as I was concerned, Jim Lee was Jesus Christ himself (while Marc Silvestri was god).

My question to you, Loston, is the same one that I ask myself whenever I see your incredible art: Why is it that we haven't seen any mainstream comics with your art in them? Is doing licensed work and commissions really that much more lucrative than drawing pages?

[Bruce Lee]

-How long have you been drawing?

The furthest back that I can remember drawing is age 4, in kindergarten.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Absolutely. Even before I realized that they were comic related, I loved the original Marvel hour and the 60s Spider-Man show from Hanna-Barbera. I watched them in the early 80s on a small black and white TV in El Salvador. There was only one thing I loved more than those two shows and that was Mazinger Z. My first drawing that had anything to do with those shows was an evil mecha designed to destroy Mazinger. He was unbeatable by the bad guys all the way up to the end of the series so I thought I'd give Dr. Hell a little help.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

No. When I was a little boy I wanted to be an astronaut. The only other thing that I wanted to do was be a teacher until I hit my teens and actually started collecting comics. I read through all of my cousin's collection before buying my own and actually wrote a sci-fi roller derby death race type story in junior high (I didn't really start collecting until I was 16). My friend and I were going to draw the pages but he got into graffitti art instead and, once he moved, there was no hope of the project going forward. I revamped that story three times since but only those first three panels that my friend did when we were 15 have ever been finished.

To this day I still want to go to the Moon! I think every little boy must dream about that at some time or another, but it's still something I'd love to do. :D


-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Of course. I used to mimic the artists whose books I read and collected and couldn't help but notice similarities between the old masters and comic book artists when I took formal classes in community college.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

When I first started collecting it was all about the X-Men. I collected every single X-Title because, as far as I was concerned, Jim Lee was Jesus Christ himself (while Marc Silvestri was god).

How do you feel about Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri today? Do you think their work on X-MEN, etc still holds up?


My question to you, Loston, is the same one that I ask myself whenever I see your incredible art: Why is it that we haven't seen any mainstream comics with your art in them? Is doing licensed work and commissions really that much more lucrative than drawing pages?

Licensing art can be very lucrative, often paying better than comics work. But the real reason you haven't seen me in a lot of mainstream comics is a combination of bad timing and me being rather eccentric. I entered the Kubert School during the salad days of the '90s comic boom. During my second year of school comic books went down the tubes. Marvel filed chapter 11. For many years thereafter comicdom was an industry in trouble, and it was very, very tough for any new talent to break in. That was the situation of the comic inudustry when I entered into becoming a pro freelancer in 1996. I worked for a few years as an illustrator for roleplaying games because there weren't any comic jobs available. Veterans that had been in the business for decades were out of work. In 1998 I took some art into show some DC editors. The comic editors liked what they saw, but they just weren't hiring. Fortunately for me, the licensing department was. They put me to work on BATMAN THE ANIMATED series books for kids, and over the years I've done too many books with DC's licensing to count. Every few years I've taken in samples to show comic editors, and the results have always been the same: The editors love what they see, but they don't have any work for me. The same story about there being a limited number of titles to work on, and they all have regular artists already, etc. In the meantime DC's licensing has kept me fairly busy for the last decade or so, and in recent years I've drawn many comic book movie adaptation books for them like the SUPERMAN RETURNS: THANK, YOU SUPERMAN and the BATMAN: RACE AGAINST CRIME storybooks. That sort of work pays well, and I've been content with that.

Every now and then though, I get the itch to draw comics. I pencilled a 40-page CAVEWOMAN comic back in 2001 called KLYDE & MERIEM, and I pencilled some ELVIRA, MISTRESS OF THE DARK stories for Claypool Comics before they went under. This March I have a comic coming out through Image Comics called LORNA RELIC WRANGLER that may become a regular series. I have another Image Comics project also brewing for later next year, so I'm keeping busy. Whether or not you'll ever see me drawing AMAZING SPIDER-MAN or BATMAN someday--well, one never knows. There's always a chance, and I'm not counting it out. Stranger things have happen in life.

As I mentioned, I'm pretty damn stubborn. I do things to the beat of my own drum. I know what I'm looking for out of life, and being hailed as a comic book (minor) celebrity isn't something that I've ever strived for. I have always wanted to draw comics though, and I think I could learn to love drawing sequential art on a daily basis. I enjoy the challenge of it. But there is the other side of the coin to think about to. It takes a lot of dedication to be a comic artist. You wind up at a desk all day long, every day. It's a young man's game to pull the kind of hours necessary to keep on the ball and make the deadlines, etc.

If I died tomorrow, I'd have a lot to be proud of with what I've accomplished in my career. I've been paid to draw Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, the Justice League, Super Friends, and even to draw a FLASH GORDON sunday for King Features! The thing I'm most proud of though is that I've actually made some positive impact on the lives of others. I'll take that over being a comic book superstar every day of the week.

[brokenhill]

I really Dig the way you think Loston.very insightful thread.

[fatmancomics]

Jim Lee is fun to go back to every once in a great while but his stuff is very stagnant. He talks about having a different style but it's really just the same style with different mediums. Marc Silvestri has completely lost it in my opinion. He's tried to tighten up his style but it was the looseness that he had when he was doing Uncanny that made him great. I remember the issue with Master Mold (247) in which the sentinel kept putting himself back together with scraps from a construction site. Man, his art was dynamic back then. Once he got to Image he started trying to make his art look more polished and it started ending up like a Jim Lee or Dale Keown clone had made it.

I can't wait to see your comic, man. Keep us posted so I can get to my LCS as soon as it comes out.

I was in Target the other week buying Transformers season 1 (love it) and I saw one of your children's books. I wanted to have someone there to say, "I know the guy who drew this!" to but there was nobody there.

[Bruce Lee]

Jim Lee is fun to go back to every once in a great while but his stuff is very stagnant. He talks about having a different style but it's really just the same style with different mediums. Marc Silvestri has completely lost it in my opinion. He's tried to tighten up his style but it was the looseness that he had when he was doing Uncanny that made him great. I remember the issue with Master Mold (247) in which the sentinel kept putting himself back together with scraps from a construction site. Man, his art was dynamic back then. Once he got to Image he started trying to make his art look more polished and it started ending up like a Jim Lee or Dale Keown clone had made it.

I can't wait to see your comic, man. Keep us posted so I can get to my LCS as soon as it comes out.

I was in Target the other week buying Transformers season 1 (love it) and I saw one of your children's books. I wanted to have someone there to say, "I know the guy who drew this!" to but there was nobody there.

LORNA RELIC WRANGLER will be out on the shelves in March, under the Image Comics banner! Keep your eyes peeled for the 4-page sneak peek ad in Previews in January!

It's great that the children's books I've illustrated are so readily available. I've seen them at Walmart, Target, Barnes & Noble, Borders, comic shops, libraries--you name it! It's great knowing that my work is being seen and enjoyed by kids in America, and a few selected foreign countries. It makes a guy proud. :)

[Beastie]

How long have you been drawing?

I had a chalkboard that I used to scribble on when I was 3 years old - and things progressed from there. In infant and junior school I was frequently called upon to show my work during morning assembly - and it kinda gave me the idea that art was 'my thing'. I carried on drawing and painting my way through school and, although I had Batman, Superman, Hulk and Spiderman annuals bought for me, I didn't get my first floppy comic book until I was 15 years old (21 years ago). A friend had stolen 2 or 3 comics from a shop in town and, fearing he would get caught, gave them to me in exchange for some coke. I remember there being a New Mutants comic and a Hawk & Dove - but the 3rd comic obviously had little impact on me because I can't remember what it was. Anyway, I loved them immediately and started collecting. At the same time, I started drawing superheroes non-stop. Having said that, 90% of what I drew was a direct COPY of someone elses work. I used to copy Rob Liefeld pics, Jim Lee, Todd MacFarlane.... I remember taking a panel from Jim Lee's X-Men comic (it was of Magneto standing with his arm outstretched) and copying it as a 3' high painting in black and red acrylics. It was hung in the school's reception hall for months. A big painted swipe.

Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

They were always present - but, for me, they probably ran alongside UK comics like the Beano and Dandy when I was younger. It was only as I got older that US comics took centre stage.

Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

I enjoy drawing comic book characters more than I enjoy drawing anything else -- but i'm very aware that its just a tiny market - and I need to be able to apply my style to a wide range of other subjects.

Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

When I went back to college I was drawing a lot of comic book stuff - but they didn't approve of that kind of thing - so I stopped. That was the best thing that they could have done though - because it opened me up to a whole new world of illustration. I looked at loads of other kinds of work - and that has helped me to develop my own style.

What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

I loved New Mutants, X-Force and X Factor years ago - and was a massive fan of Larry Stroman (I'm useless at remembering artist's names - but always remember his). The art on all 3 of those titles was just what I wanted at that stage in my life - and the multitude of characters helped my own imagination go into overdrive.

My question for Loston:

To what extent do you feel that other art mediums and genres can affect your style as a comic book artist?

[Bruce Lee]

Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

They were always present - but, for me, they probably ran alongside UK comics like the Beano and Dandy when I was younger. It was only as I got older that US comics took centre stage.

I'm aware of BEANO and DANDY, but I've never actually read any of those. Are they anything like Hans and Fritz from KATZENJAMMER KIDS, Dean?


Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

I enjoy drawing comic book characters more than I enjoy drawing anything else -- but i'm very aware that its just a tiny market - and I need to be able to apply my style to a wide range of other subjects.

You're style of drawing isn't a typical style, Dean. It's very unique--which is both good and bad--depending on how you want to look at it. From a "good" standpoint, your work is always going to stand out in a crowd. It's radically different than most artist's work. This is often a very good thing, as it means people will give your work special notice. We all want that, eh? The "bad" part of the equation is that your own uniqueness might also be something of a hinderance when it comes to marketability. A radical approach isn't always as sellable as one might think. There is a limited demand for radical approaches when it comes to drawing mainstream comics in America, in particular. Illustrating periodicals though, is another matter. It seems like many non-comic book related magazines actually seek out very stylized illustrators to work for them in order to allow their publications to have a unique vision or edge. That's something to think about.


Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

When I went back to college I was drawing a lot of comic book stuff - but they didn't approve of that kind of thing - so I stopped. That was the best thing that they could have done though - because it opened me up to a whole new world of illustration. I looked at loads of other kinds of work - and that has helped me to develop my own style.

Right. And it's a very interesting style too, man! It's great that you don't have tunnel vision, and that you're open to doing illustration work--not just limiting yourself to comic book type work.


What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

I loved New Mutants, X-Force and X Factor years ago - and was a massive fan of Larry Stroman (I'm useless at remembering artist's names - but always remember his). The art on all 3 of those titles was just what I wanted at that stage in my life - and the multitude of characters helped my own imagination go into overdrive.

I know Stroman's work from his ALIEN LEGION days with Epic Comics. I found his TRIBE comic sequential art to to be difficult to follow, but I enjoyed the style he was working in. It was something different. I just wish I could have made heads or tales as to what was going on in that book. LOL. Loved ALIEN LEGION though. That was great stuff!

My question for Loston:


To what extent do you feel that other art mediums and genres can affect your style as a comic book artist?

Can you ask this question in a different way, Dean? I just want to make sure I fully understand what you're asking me.

Thanks!

[Beastie]

Hmmm. Do you feel that your status as a comic book artist in any way 'limits' the way in which you draw things?

Like, once you've got your comic book style - there's not much scope for further stylistic experimentation because you're 'doing comics' and they 'must' look a certain way.

Or do you think that a comic book artist can still produce work that has clearly been influenced by artists from other art fields (eg Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha etc).

Sorry if that still sounds a bit ramble-ish - it's midnight over here and I'm on the verge of sleep......zzzzzzzzz...

[Bruce Lee]

Hmmm. Do you feel that your status as a comic book artist in any way 'limits' the way in which you draw things?

Like, once you've got your comic book style - there's not much scope for further stylistic experimentation because you're 'doing comics' and they 'must' look a certain way.

Or do you think that a comic book artist can still produce work that has clearly been influenced by artists from other art fields (eg Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha etc).

Sorry if that still sounds a bit ramble-ish - it's midnight over here and I'm on the verge of sleep......zzzzzzzzz...

Thanks for clarifying things, Dean! It's been my experience that every single art gig I've had the pleasure to work on has had certain artistic restrictions. I think that's just the nature of working for any client. They're going to dictate what you draw, and often how you draw it, and things like deadlines are always going to factor as well. As a licensing artist, the style is often dictated to me by the client. That's pretty much standard procedure, because licensing is all about maintaining branding of a product, but with the comic book work, I've actually found that the style I work in has mostly been left up to me to decide.

As far as comic artist being able to utilize illustrative influences...well, yes and no. Obviously covers are single illustrations, so comic cover artists might be more inclined to produce images that favor approaches that Mucha or other classic illustrators might use, but I think it's pretty clear that some drawing approaches seem better suited for sequential work than others. I mean, I love the illustrative look of Franklin Booth's woodcut imitation renderings, but that approach doesn't make a whole lot of sense to use on a full-size superhero comic story, does it? Superhero comics are supposed to be about larger than life characters of action. A lot of rendering would tend to get in the way sometimes, lessening the impact of the dynamic drawing, bogging down action scenes--leaving them a little static. A more simplistic approach to drawing is almost certainly going to work better towards getting the message across more clearly, with more impact. Y

Also certain genres will dictate style. Some styles by their very nature work best for certain genres of storytelling. I have a difficult time conceiving that a very humorous cartoon style like that of Sergio Aragones would work on a serious horror book like WALKING DEAD. The style of drawing would always be undermining the serious aspects of the storytelling, so it just wouldn't work at all. A more realistic-end approach to drawing is necessary to get across the shock, horror and jeopardy across to readers. An artist like Berni Wrightson did well with horror books because he often drew people as caricatures, with more realistic-end lighting, wrinkles and drapery, etc, allowing him to stay visually dynamic, and to go over the top when it was necessary, without his style becoming too distracting to the story being told. That's a tough juggling act to do, but Wrightson always managed to make things work.

One of the reasons I try not to lock myself into doing just one stylistic approach is that I really enjoy doing different things with drawing. I truly believe that the nature of certain comic stories have to dictate the drawing style to some degree. The WATCHMEN might very well have worked in some anime-type of style, but the more-reastic approach that Dave Gibbons provided added a lot of credibility and reality to that story, making that setting much more believable. The violence was more intense, and the characters seemed more plausible as a result. BLACKSAD is so effective as a Noir story because artist Juanjo Guarnido's approach to the drawing has strong elements of realism that helps give the stories some weight and seriousness. If it were drawn more in a more traditional manner of cartooning, I don't think it would work nearly as well. The balance of realism and caricature-like cartooning holds things together, allowing the realistic, gritty film noir trappings to work. It'd be very difficult to have the same kind of story impact if Guarnido had used a straight-up Disney cartoon approach, because the cartooning would soften things too much. DICK TRACY and THE SPIRIT are two crime strips that had cartoon stylings, that worked pretty well, but again, there was enough realism injected into the style of drawing to make the setting and characters credible. Without that sort of realism being in those strips, they wouldn't have worked as well as they did.

Speaking for myself, Dean, I don't think that working in any one particular style has ever hindered me as an artist in the long run--in fact, I'd say that working in different styles has actually been very beneficial to me as an artist. It's opened my mind up to other possibilities of drawing. I feel like I can switch gears when necessary without too much worry. There's a certain amount of comfort that comes out of that, but I find that there's always something new to learn at every turn. It keeps me interested in drawing, as I love a good challenge.

[amadarwin]

Now that this thread is dead, it's my turn!

-How long have you been drawing?
Forever. My recollection goes back to grade school, but I imagine I was throwing crayons against construction paper with some vigor prior. In about the 3rd grade (this old mind doesn't let me go further for some reason) I recall learning that tracing pictures made me look awesome, so I did that for awhile, tracing Peanuts and Garfield characters to show off to friends. Unfortunately, I had a heavy hand, and an artist 'friend' outed me as a tracer, which forced me to learn how to really draw. I ended up being fairly good with Garfield and Odie likenesses, but forever had trouble with Snoopy's lopsided head. Surprisingly, tracing helped me with drawing, giving me a pretty decent eye for spotting proportion errors (which I commit a lot of). I imagine that started me down the road to slavery. To this day, I find myself a slave to reference, and it's a damn hard habit to break.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
Yes, but it started with an obsession with Garfield, Peanuts and Archie. I owned about 6 or 7 wide format Garfield books that magically disappeared, which didn't bother me too badly, for then I moved onto collecting Groo by Sergio Aragones and reading my friend's copies of Mad Magazine. I loved drawing Groo and Ruferto. They were surprisingly fun to draw.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?
Wow, this is a difficult question. I can't recall the urge to draw comic book characters beyond my garfield days. While I enjoy drawing, and making stories, I've never developed the ability to "work beyond my urges," meaning I'm a slave to my whim. Sadly, my whim strikes less and less these days...

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
No, but they had a huge impact on the way I drew when I was younger. Jim Lee reigned supreme back then, so a lot of my work had his flavor, but the Lee/Williams crosshatching technique was a thing I would never be able to grasp. I came off looking more like an Art Thibert clone, dancing in Jim Lee's shadow's shadow so to speak. Now, I'm just looking for my comfort zone, which turns out to be quite unlike Jim Lee so far. I'm now drawn to more organic lines that are a little more fluid, which I find more in animation style art.

The marriage of fine art and comic art has not been a seamless one for me. Most times things get lost in the translation and I find myself doing more when it should be less and not doing enough when there should be more. That great balance that many awesome artists have found forever eludes me.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?
Currently? Invincible and Walking Dead. Invincible has always been a fun title, and though his work was a little shaky at first, Wya keeps knocking the pages out of the stratosphere. The Walking Dead is the only book where I don't care for the art too much. I love the story and you never know what to expect from Kirkman or what he is willing to put his characters through. Now if Tony would just come back to make it pretty again. My favorites growing up varied for whatever reason. The first title I loved was Groo the Wanderer. It took my young brain almost forever to link Aragones to Mad Magazine. Mind you, until I was in highschool, I was completely oblivious to creative teams, so I never followed anyone religiously.

Groo was great. Who, besides Kobra Kai, doesn't love an idiot that can kick ass? At a friend's suggestion, I almost moved onto X-Men in the 80's but they were too 'serious' for my adolescent brain and I passed, which means I missed out on the Dark Phoenix Saga and (I believe) John Byrne's run. Instead, I moved onto Marvel Team-up & Secret Wars, enjoying Spidey so much I started getting into Amazing Spiderman itself. To this day, I prefer the black suit to the red and blue. I also followed Hawkeye from the Secret Wars books to his own team title, West Coast Avengers, and enjoyed that run until Byrne ruined it with Vision Quest. Come to think of it, I got off the Avengers when Byrne ruined them, too. Damn that Byrne. By this time, Jim Lee and Claremont hooked me good onto X-Men, I even bought the Silvestri back issues, which prompted me to join him on Wolverine... Thankfully Byrne didn't get a chance to ruin it for me that time, as I ran off with the Image boys, and have enjoyed books and series ala carte since then.

As a sidenote, I recently picked up a spidey book collecting some of the Lee/Ditko era and I have to say, the writing was horrendous. While I respect the man for his contributions to one of my favorite mediums, I couldn't help but notice how often he over-narrated darn near every page, relaying the very thing Ditko was already showing us...It was surprisingly disappointing to say the least.

[g0b1in]

How long have you been drawing?

Like many others here, for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest visual memories are of my mother’s paintings. They were abstract, unlike anything you’ll see me do. I used to draw on them. She’d also have sketchbooks that I’d scribble in. I’d also draw on the walls in crayon and on her blank canvases. Growing up, anyone who wanted to get me a gift knew to get me a sketchpad.

I stopped drawing in the middle of high school, as I decided to engage in the more practical pursuit of becoming an engineer. Though I was always artistic, I also had a high aptitude for the sciences and math and was, perhaps, equally as interested in such. An unusual thing for most artists I know. It wasn’t until after graduating and becoming a government engineer in training that my artistic urges returned with a vengeance. I’d sketch at my desk and search online for works of my favorite childhood artists, comic related or otherwise. A nostalgic experience for me.

Though I had always been relatively ‘good’ at drawing, once I reengaged myself, I saw a tremendous leap in my abilities. Things I never thought I’d be able to accomplish and only admire in others, were suddenly issuing from me. This fueled the fire for my current pursuit of the arts.

It was during this reconnection that I first started posting sketches online. I began at the Straight To Hell Hellblazer forum under the name goblin. It was through friends there that I discovered deviantART, which eventually led me here to PencilJack.

Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Not at its inception. I simply never saw one at the time I started drawing. I’m sure I’d be drawing regardless, but comics have had a tremendous impact on how I draw today. I remember being interested in my mother’s works, classical painters, cartoons, and anything illustrated in grade school children’s books. Comic books didn’t enter the picture till about the third grade. But by then I was already known for my love of drawing.

Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

I can say for certain that is not the case. I started drawing well before I’d seen a comic book. Cartoons were my main source of childhood inspiration. Funnily enough, even then, I didn’t draw the characters themselves. I started drawing airplanes after seeing one in the opening sequence of the Woody Woodpecker cartoon where he falls out of a trapdoor of an airplane (if memory serves me correctly). It’s funny the things that fascinate you. Later, I’d draw characters from He-Man and Thundercats obsessively. I used the toys as references.

I didn’t draw comic characters until I connected with an actual favorite. My first favorites were Nightcrawler and Storm, the most unusual looking of the X-Men at the time.

Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Absolutely, yes. It was only when I saw my first comic book that I realized you could tell stories with still pictures in succession. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. A discovery that has fascinated me ever since.

During the summer after second grade, I’d have to travel with my father who was a computer repairman for the military. He’d go into classified military bases in Hawaii and bought me comics to keep me occupied when I was with him. One of the first comics I ever got was from a 7-Eleven store and it was the West Coast Avengers #42 with art by John Byrne. Shortly after that I got some issues he did on X-Men. For me, his work was the standard imprinted on my mind. It was all I ever saw for a while and I absolutely wore it out assimilating the artwork. A habit I have kept with comic issues. My collection is absolutely worthless given the condition of my favorite issues. Later, I discovered various artists but it wasn’t until the work of Jim Lee on Uncanny X-Men that I was deeply inspired and thought, “I want to draw like THAT!”

I simultaneously developed a particular interest in classical artists like Carrovagio, whose dramatic and vibrant contrasts I’ve adapted heavily to my own work. I have a particular affinity for Leonardo Da Vinci, as he was both scientist and artist. As my social circle now consists of engineers and professionals in the sciences without an artist in the bunch (professional or otherwise), it helps me to remember that one can indeed be one in the same.

What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

Certainly. Uncanny X-Men. However, I think I owe it to the selection at my local 7-Eleven store in the 80s. They carried the re-release of the X-Men Dark Phoenix Saga with new covers in the late 80s. Anyone remember them? Later, the X-Men showcased artists that would forever influence me, including the ever-popular and widely influential Jim Lee. I won’t say my early influences are at all original.

Currently, I buy comics only for their art. I fancy myself an assimilator of techniques and am constantly on the quest for new methods (or old ones that I’ve just discovered), gaining in confidence but enjoying being the humble student. I will buy anything by Carlos Pacheco (whose elegant style makes even the most mundane poses look dramatic), Frank Quitely (whose darkly quirky, dramatic compositions are something I cannot replicate but enjoy immensely), Olivier Coipel (who uses what I interpret to be an attractive shorthand/animation style). I’ve recently discovered Simone Bianchi, whose work has become a minor obsession.

These days, my focus is less on comic art, per se. It seems I’m taking my comics based style into more of an illustrator’s realm…like one who’d do children’s books with a darker edge to them. I like to twist ideas and blend genres. Because I received no training in the arts, I’m curious what can be learned from more classical artists. So I’m investigating them, as well.

[ArmstrongArts]

Holy %&$% goblin that could be my post. The only major difference is that my dad is the artist not my mom.

[D.C.]

-How long have you been drawing?
Since I was a wee lad. Stopped during high school when I succumbed to video games. Even played my game boy during art classes and when I did draw it was all abstract.


-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
Nope. At first I was influenced mostly from TMNT toys trying to design my own. Then Disney movies, comic strips like Garfield (for the art) and The Far Side (for the humor), and Warner Bros. cartoons. I read comics for a good year when I was nine while there was a comic book shop on my block. Then it closed down and I didn't read a single comic again until I was in college.


-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?
No again. When I was in middle school I wanted to draw comic strips and then during high school I focused on my academics. I was all set to become a biologist. Then I got back into drawing my first year at a state college, found deviantart, noticed the best artists were comic book artists, and transferred to an art school majoring in cartooning without knowing a damn thing about comic books. Only started to draw superheroes after I graduated and I never really drew DC or Marvel characters until after I joined PJ a little over a year ago I think.


-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
Big time. Well, mostly for how to best simplify anatomy and handle action scenes, pacing, etc. Looking more at animation now for inspiration.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?
With out a doubt Invincible. I'm obsessed with the art in that book. And I really like simple way the panels are laid out as well. Learned more about how to create a comic book from reading that than I did from school.

[Bruce Lee]

I'm diggin' learning a few things about you guys! Keep posting, PJers!

[ArmstrongArts]

How long have you been drawing?
I have been drawing as long as I can remember. It has always been natural for me. My father and grandmother are artists. My favorite thing was to go to my grandmothers house and use her set of 48 artist markers and colored pencils. It was a dream world of hues in my techno-colored young life. The first things I started drawing with regularity were planes, possibly due to my father having been in the Air Force, even though he was not still in the air force when I was born. I would redraw pictures out of the encyclopedia Britannica. After my parents divorce when I was nine I had mostly moved on to other pursuits. Not having access to a parent that cared about the arts moved me away from the field. I concentrated on sciences, since my mother was in the medical field.

Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
Originally no, I was introduced to art in a more formal manor. I only had a limited exposure to comic books when I was young. The ones I did see I didn’t read so much as guess what was going on because of the pictures. A teenage neighbor had a collection and only begrudgingly let me see a few. The first one I remember “reading”had this quarkie little character in it that I called the claw, he was fighting a huge green guy that looked very angry. For years I looked for the character “the claw” any chance I got. I finally thought I found someone that knew what I was talking about when they said “oh ya, I know the claw.” and reached into a box and pulled out a book with some weird character that defiantly was not my “claw”. I logged the claw into the back banks of memory and moved on with my life. Until one day, a few years later I was walking by a comic book spin wrack and there he was, snarling from the cover of a book. Claws glistening on the bright new cover. Oddly, the title of the comic wasn’t “The Claw” it was the Uncanny X-Men. It turns out, as I am sure you have surmised, the character I had been looking for was wolverine. The first comic I “read” was the incredible Hulk 181, and although he was in the X-Men the next year, he really wasn’t all that popular early on.

I didn’t get immersed in the world of comic books until very late. I was late in the 16th year when I started really buying and reading them when most people were moving on to other things like girls. Since I found girls first, I guess I needed to get away from the problems of real life, and the issues of having gone to 12 schools in my 13 years of school. It is always fun to have to make new friends every year.

Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?
Not always no, like I said before I was not “in” to comics at an early age. I read odd things like the dictionary and encyclopedias, so I was more familiar with the works of DaVinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo and Rodin.

Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
At first I dabbled with drawing the comic books basically just repeating the contour drawing. I thought I was getting pretty good. I was always good at repeating what I saw, even though I didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing. In college I took drawing 1 and 2 to go along with my business finance classes. (I was told you could never make any money in art)(or computer science for that matter) The drawing classes taught me the foundations of what I was doing and opened my eyes as to why things needed to be done certain ways. After college I got a real job and married I didn’t draw for a while. When I picked up the pencil after some years off, it was like all the things I learned sunk in and I was better then I ever thought. When I looked at my old work I cringed. Then we had three children and I started working 70 hours a week and I stopped drawing. I bought a comic book store in 1999 and figured I could draw to my heart’s desire behind the counter. That didn’t work, my ability and experience in business overwhelmed drawing. I was able to get the sales to 5 times what they were when I bought the store and was able to buy 3 more stores. That pretty much dropped the drawing to a minimum. Once I had more time to draw again the same thing happened again, the learned and experienced things seemed to make my skill leave leap forward. Needless to say I had a more through knowledge of comic book at this point and they had taken over my drawing. Now i study film more that comic book to see how they handle the storytelling, lighting and dramatic impact. I try to pull out the scenes that you would draw to make a coming book. I look at the essentuals and how you can strip them down or build them up to create and interesting panel and tell the best story.

What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why please)?
Batman at first, because he was on TV and easiest to get in the small town I was from. X-men when I started buying them myself later in high school. The angst filled stories drew me in. After college the JLA because it was funny and a tad more ...realistic in there problems. Once I really started to follow art I liked to find anything Neil Adams worked on. I got to the point, when I owned my stores, that I could look at a page of art and tell you who drew it, for probably 300 or so artist. If I didn’t know what artist drew it I could tell you who their influences were.

[g0b1in]

Holy %&$% goblin that could be my post. The only major difference is that my dad is the artist not my mom.

Wow, you weren't kidding. We follow basically the same trend down to the airplanes. Interesting.

[CyberWyld]

I know I'm still really new here, but this thread really intrigued me so I thought I'd share my little tale.

I started drawing when I was 7 years old, we were stationed in Hawaii and I remember the 1st picture I ever drew was of a clown out of a coloring book my mother had given me. I drew it on the bus on the way to school and I remember thinking how much more I enjoyed creating the picture rather than just filling it in with color. Neither of my parents were artists, so I didn't get a lot of questions answered, I did however, get a lot of support. My Dad's kid sister was murdered when she was 17, and she was a pretty incredible artist for her short life. She had just gotten some fashion drawings into JC Penny Magazine back when she was killed in 1977. She won tons of awards and stuff as well. I never got to meet her as I wasn't born until 1980, but my Dad saw that interest in me, and I think it reminded him of Velda (his sis) and I was fed a constant supply of pencils, sketchbooks and pens/crayons/colored pencils.

It's hard to answer whether or not comics played a huge role in my love for drawing, the answer is that they didn't until I discovered comics. Initially I was all about cartoons. I desperately wanted to be a cartoonist when I was a kid, I worshiped Bill Watterson, Jim Davis and Mike Peters, I even went on to copyright my own comic strip character when I was 14. I pulled the records off the library of congress site the other day just to see if it was still there. :) Sure enough it was. When I did discover comics it was immediate attraction however. I started with a web of spiderman comic and went through them as fast as I could get them from then on. I was really into comics when they were really going crazy in the 90's. But my interest in comics was almost (still is a pretty much) purely artistic. Of all the comics I own, I'd wager that I've only read (shamefully) 25% of them. The rest were just awesome art I liked. This also made for a pretty diverse collection of comics. Art was always the determining factor with my purchase. If I liked the art, I bought the book, and that was the only factor that got that thing out the door with me. I hadn't read certain classics like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns until I was much, much older.

I've always wanted to draw comics since I discovered them. More-so just comic book characters. I had planned in HS to attend JK after graduation and joined the Air Force instead. I met a pretty girl, and we started having babies. 7 years later (most of that spent NOT DRAWING AT ALL) I found I couldn't put that desire to rest. So after 8 years active duty we got out and I went back to school for art and animation (which I'm really loving, I have one year left) and I haven't looked back since. We have 4 sons now and have been married 10 years at this point, I'm a lucky, lucky guy. I wasn't a big fan of the military, and more-over my job in the military, I built bombs the entire time I was active duty, a far cry from anything artistic. I'm thrilled everyday I wake up to be working toward a career I LOVE and living a life I love, it's pretty incredible.

My greatest frustration comes from the fact that growing up I didn't have anyone to show me anything about art, and we lived in little military towns with little opportunity. I drew what I could see from comics and TV, anyone remember this guy? I watched him every Sunday! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Igf5O6Bfg) I won lots of awards in school and even had some stuff win on a state level in competitions, but I skipped over a LOT of basic fundamentals that I thought I was "above" back then. I was more concerned about developing a style and making my art look "cool". This has come back to kick my ass every single day in a major, major way, but I'm working through it. My degree is in game art and animation and I hope to eventually land a concept artist job for a video game company.

My favorite comic book title is by far (cliche as this is) SPAWN. I remember the first time I saw McFarlane's Spawn...I thought it was something from another planet. His style floored me and I loved this character. Was he a bad guy? Was he a good guy? Why are there all these lines everywhere Todd!?!? Jim Lee and McFarlane taught me to cross-hatch the shit of everything and put dark blotches wherever they will fit. :)

[Dann]

Hmmm....I'll get in on this...

How long have you been drawing?

I've been drawing for as long as I can remember....The first thing I remember drawing is a bust of Batman. My mom was freaking out, telling all her friends..."Look he can draw!". That must've disappointed my parents completely..."You mean....he's not gonna work on the highway directing traffic?? Where did we go wrong?"
Despite all that, I never quit. I didn't know of any real artists, so I did what I could with whatever was available. I was always the "go to" guy if someone in school needed a picture drawn or set designs for Theater class...that sort of thing. Plus, for some weird reason...the girls dug it! Easy in!

Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Completely. when I was a kid (and I'm guessing I'm the same age as Loston) my parents would go to the grocery store and I'd always stay by the section that carried the comics. I lived for it. Some of the earliest comics I can remember where Justice League and Brave and the Bold.
There were 2 different JLA's on the stands once...#122 and 124 I think....One had Aquaman's tombstone on the cover, and the other was the JLA/JSA crossver with Earth Prime .

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081227181239/marvel_dc/images/thumb/8/89/JLA_v.1_122.jpg/300px-JLA_v.1_122.jpg
http://images.wikia.com/marvel_dc/images/a/a1/Justice_League_of_America_Vol_1_124.jpg

I could only but one so the Aquaman one was it for me. Another comic I remember getting was Brave and Bold #120...Batman with Kamandi! I loved everything Jim Aparo did. I didn't really care about the actual names of the artists yet...but his style was so distinctive I always knew it was him. I wanted to be as good as Aparo. That was my goal.

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081223140018/marvel_dc/images/d/d3/Brave_and_the_Bold_v.1_120.jpg


Then I started noticing George Perez over on the Avengers....totally blew me away! I'd swipe him every chance I had drawing my own comics as a kid on lined paper. Later on, I learned about that new fangled "Typing Paper" stuff..."no lines?? Holy Mackeral". So yeah...comics introduced me to art. And for some reason....no matter how much "real art" I'm involved with/ introduced to....I'll always love the energy and fun comics bring to me.

Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

Always. I don't get near as much satisfaction drawing still lifes or wildlife scenes as I do drawing guys leaping over tall buildings. In 6th grade, I drew my very own "magnum opus" 64 page comic book. All on lined paper and 80% total swipes! But man, was it fun!
My sister opened a comic book store after I graduated High School, and she had me paint the window front.....I never charged her, but I got free comics every week...so I was really happy with that. My first real comic gig came when I painted a Superman on the front and the writer for a furry comic called Shanda the panda saw it. He was a big Superman fan and he asked about me and then contacted me to do some work with him. I drew for the company for a few years until the paychecks turned into "IOU's".

Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Yup. Besides Aparo and Perez...guys like John Buscema and then John Byrne and Walt Simonson just showed me a thousand different ways to look at things and I tried to absorb everything they did over the years. I have a major appreciation for the older artists.....guys that don't need a superior colorist to enhance their work....Sal Buscema is slowly turning into my idol and a few years ago I got to work with Al Milgrom when he inked a cover for me on a comic I was working on. Nicest guy in the world.
Guys like Nick Cardy, Rich Buckler, Dick Dillon and Irv Novick.....true unsung heroes. And say what you will about him....but John Byrne is still an amazing artist! I look at his stuff to this day and I'm bowled over.

What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

Favorite was DC's Brave and the Bold. It had my favorite character (Batman) and my fav artist (Jim Aparo) and it included a different co-star every month! It was my first introduction to another of my favorite characters...Mr. Miracle. And other cool guys like Man-Bat and Kamandi! Later on, Avengers, JLA and Fantastic Four sucked me in. I was a big fan of the X-Men during the Cockrum/Byrne era's, but lost interest after Byrne left. I read it off and on but when Silvestri signed on, I just couldn't handle it anymore. I couldn't tell you who's in the X-Men right now.
As of right now, I'm recollecting all the old stuff I either sold, traded or lost over the years...I almost have a complete collection of Marvel Team Up right now...my wife just bought me #1 for Christmas. Short lived comics are my soft spot....books like RIMA the Jungle Girl, Freedom Fighters, Kong the Untamed, Kobra, Omac and The Secret Society of SuperVillians! Stories were never the greatest...but the art? No one can say Nestor Redondo couldn't draw! He was a total master of the form!

Recently, I've discovered the original POPEYE comics..the newspaper strips from the '20's and '30's called Thimble Theatre. I'd never really read the original stuff and all I can say is that E.C. Segar was a madman. Some of the best I've seen! And for some reason, my wife bought me a complete hardback collection of Dennis the Menace from 1950. Now I can't get enough of that strip either.....
I guess I'm just going backwards in time with my likes. Todays comics seem to thrill me less and less each month.

[ArmstrongArts]

Wow, you weren't kidding. We follow basically the same trend down to the airplanes. Interesting.

Ya I wrote mine a little differently so that people wouldn't think I was swipping yours. ;)

[Road9494]

GI Joe, TMNT and Real Ghostbusters were staples of my childhood. I thought the X-Men cartoon was pretty great, it packed a lot of arcs effortlessly into 1 season that would've taken most other shows a few years to do. Batman TAS is a given, but I thought Batman Beyond was a gem of a show, it had a style and vibe that was way ahead of its time. Pirates of Dark Water, Exo Squad, Gargoyles were pretty top action shows as well. On the comedy side Animaniacs would probably top the list, it was a pretty clever and hilarious show.










Microsoft Office 2007 (http://www.office-2007-professional.com)microsoft office 2010 (http://www.office2010c.com)coach outlet (http://www.discount-coach-handbags-outlet.com)

[eleanor123]

Thanks for sharing such nice information liked reading it.

[Bruce Lee]

I feel like I have a better idea of who you guys are, and what you like now. I'm glad I started this thread. Anyone ese care to share?

[Heist]

Hello there Mr. Wallace. I'd like to say I have great admiration for your enthusiasm when helping with the finer points of sketching. Keep it up sir. It's nice to have experience point the way.

I've been drawing since kindergarten. Back then i lived on Guam (lol, yea small time island boy) where i took third place in a scholastic art contest. Honestly I had help then but for the most part it was me. My teacher sat and taught me to draw birds and coconut trees and such. After that i was doing the stick figure flip books on post-it pads. Probably a year later an older cousin of mine gave me my first X-men comic. It was Jim Lee's 90's relaunch with the 4 cover variants. That along with my very first walk-man (given by another cousin) they laid way to many school nights of 4am sketching and lots of letter "F" grades. Every parent conference labeled me a daydreamer and a doodler up until high school when my interests changed. Now that I'm older and have an income I've started up again. There's been lots of years in between, but I'm getting back into the old habits. Those 90's X-men were always my favorite. Jim Lee had a huge impact on my style. So much that i have a hard time shaking it or branching out. I never aspired to be more than a hobbyist, but lately the fire's growing. I've been trying to find my niche so much that I've amassed huge stockpile of art supplies for which to experiment with. Comics have again made its way into my hands via .cbz files, animes, and mangas. Thus the cycle continues. Cheers.

[Bruce Lee]

Thanks for posting, Heist! Once comics get into your blood, they stay in your blood. :)

[Jcatlett76]

-How long have you been drawing?
Since I could hold a pencil...or crayon. One of my earliest drawing memories is laying on the floor in my undies watching Saturday morning cartoons when I was about five years old. My folks would get me those small writing tablets with no lines. I would draw what I saw on TV which was usually "Spider-Man" circa 1981 later becomins Spider-Man and his Amazing friends. I would draw Spidey, Green Goblin and all the rest on the show. Also Super Friends was big then so I drew that as well. I also would draw animals. I love dogs so I would doodle them a lot. One of my favorite things ever is Dinosaurs so I'd draw them all the time. Too bad I can't go back in time and tell myself to add feathers to the raptors! Another love I have is old time radio from an early age. I used go to yard sales to buy vinyl records and tapes as a kid of the old shows and try to copy the cover art. The Shadow was my favorite at the time. All this before I was ten. I'm 35 now. Darn, I ramble a lot..what was the question? Ah...about 31 years is how long I've been drawing. Just now honing my skills because it's something I've always dreamed of doing. I have more patience to learn in my old age.


-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
In a word...YES! When I was about eight I discovered comics. I picked up about a hundred comics at a local flea market and in the mix was about 20 or so Detective and maybe 12 Batman comics circa mid-seventies. WOW!!! I was hooked. Irv Novick to this day is one of my favorite Batman artists. I wanted to emulate him and a lot of my old stuff looks like a cross between him and Jim Aparo. Batman is still my favorite DC character. It's the character that made me want to draw comics. Mostly due to the wonderful work of Irv, Jim & Dick! For me 1986 was the beginning of the "WTF?" stage of Batman thanks to Frank Miller...sorry, I do not care for what he did to the character. So, I migrated to Marvel and quickly found love in a new hero...Spider-Man. He was like Batman only not as dark...well, at least they both swung from rooftop to rooftop and it's those poses I liked to draw. Ross Andru was working on the series when I began collecting AMS. He was pretty good but it was Mike Zeck that captured my imagination in the Kraven saga. It brought a darkness to Spider-Man that I enjoyed in the Batman books. But back to the point...the art was amazing and it really inspired me to draw more and more as a kid. I was only 11 years old when those issues came out but I knew then what great art was and I found it in Mike Zeck's depiction of Kraven, Vermin and Spidey. Over the years I've found things I like in lots more artists but I can't forget the inspiration gained from the older generation of artists.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?
Yes & no...I want to hone my skills and become better and I would love self publish a digital comic or graphic novel but I also have always loved to just draw things from my other interests. Elvis being one, Ancient civilizations, animals...living and extinct.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
I would have to say yes. Growing up I'd copy the covers or pages in a comic and of course it made me tend to lean toward that style of drawing so yeah. I think comic art is just as realistic and it can get in some cases so I don't see that as a bad thing.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?
I have two actually. Batman & Spider-Man. Bat-Man because he's just bad ass and for some reason I relate to him on a moodier psychological level. By that I mean the Batman of 30 years ago. Not the "anti-hero" he's been turned into. I want my Batman back. Also, when I was a child Batman made me feel safe even though he wasn't real. It was the idea of what he was and the idea that anyone could be a Batman. He had no powers, now super strength...he was just this guy who wanted to right the world's wrongs but usually ended up hurting those he cared about in the process. He was human and I dreamed that I could become what he was. Not like Superman who has the unfair advantage of being invulnerable.

The other...Spider-Man. I just related to him on so many levels. Still do. There's so many times in life when nothing seems to go right but we still try to be the person we are proud to be. That's Peter. He's a good guy, good friend and he can shoot webs!

[Bruce Lee]

Thanks for participating, Jimmy! I feel like I know you a little better now.

I have that great issue of BATMAN that Irv Novak drew that features a guest appearance by the SHADOW!

[samizdat]

Hi Loston,

Great idea for a thread! Nice to see everyone's early inspirations and love for comics.

I've been drawing since I was a kid and comics was always the biggest part of that. I remember learning to draw Don Martin's 'Fonebone' characters and copying old Batboy and Rubin drawings from Mad Magazine. Over the years I have liked a bunch of artists from Jon Bryne on X-Men, Bill Sienkiewicz on New Mutants, The Shadow and other projects, Will Eisner's Spirit, Liberatore on Ranxerox, Steve Rude on Nexus, Bernie Wrightson on Swamp Thing, Travis Charest on WildCATS, and more. Steve Rude is probably my all time fave and Nexus my favorite comic. The artistic evolution of Nexus from black & white to the painted covers and increasingly creative layouts by Rude complimented Mike Baron's story arc for the character completely.

Oh yeah, and almost all the 'Good Girl' artists: Hughes, Benes, Manara, Serpieri, Stevens etc...

[Bruce Lee]

Hi Loston,

Great idea for a thread! Nice to see everyone's early inspirations and love for comics.

I've been drawing since I was a kid and comics was always the biggest part of that. I remember learning to draw Don Martin's 'Fonebone' characters and copying old Batboy and Rubin drawings from Mad Magazine. Over the years I have liked a bunch of artists from Jon Bryne on X-Men, Bill Sienkiewicz on New Mutants, The Shadow and other projects, Will Eisner's Spirit, Liberatore on Ranxerox, Steve Rude on Nexus, Bernie Wrightson on Swamp Thing, Travis Charest on WildCATS, and more. Steve Rude is probably my all time fave and Nexus my favorite comic. The artistic evolution of Nexus from black & white to the painted covers and increasingly creative layouts by Rude complimented Mike Baron's story arc for the character completely.

Oh yeah, and almost all the 'Good Girl' artists: Hughes, Benes, Manara, Serpieri, Stevens etc...

Interesting mix of faves, man.

NEXUS always was an underrated book. I have every issue, I believe...including the magazine sized books and the plastic record. Heh.

[Fallenangel]

-How long have you been drawing?

I've been drawing since i was a kid. However, 6 years ago i joined the army so i had no time for anything (including drawing) i managed to finish a picture every a month or two, but only by drawing in buses, on trains and etc.
About a year ago i decided to really put some more effort in becoming at least a semi-professional artist so i started to actually study how to draw, and i also began to practice in digi-painting.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

I would probably say yes, though there are so much more stuff that inspired me and had an influence on me over the past few years. But comics are one of the reasons why I draw.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

No...there are some characters and comicbooks that i would love to draw, but I simply can't relate to most of the mainstream characters, they just look too...I dunno...simple.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

I think they did, and especially on what i like to draw, comics by Silvestri, Turner, Finch, Travis Charest, Paolo Serpieri and many more....i dunno it probably shows in what i usually do.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

Witchblade - I know it's a T&A comic and etc....but i like it. It was the first non superhero comic book that i read as a kid. I simply loved the art, the concept of the withcblade, and of course the half naked/naked chicks played an important role too.
I still read it today, not because of the great writing/art (it's not that great these days), simply because i'm quite used to reading it.


Fallen.

[Bruce Lee]

-How long have you been drawing?

I've been drawing since i was a kid. However, 6 years ago i joined the army so i had no time for anything (including drawing) i managed to finish a picture every a month or two, but only by drawing in buses, on trains and etc.

I used to draw all the time while riding the school bus. I developed a pretty steady hand that way, and I even got used to the bouncing and jarring from potholes on the road.





-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

Witchblade - I know it's a T&A comic and etc....but i like it. It was the first non superhero comic book that i read as a kid. I simply loved the art, the concept of the withcblade, and of course the half naked/naked chicks played an important role too.
I still read it today, not because of the great writing/art (it's not that great these days), simply because i'm quite used to reading it.


Fallen.

Well, at the end of the day we like what we like. I enjoyed Warren's VAMPIRELLA Comics quite a lot. Those Vampi mags always had killer artwork (Jose Gonzalez, Estaban Marato, Jose Ortiz, Rudy Nebres, etc), and her dental floss costume was always good eye candy. ;) VAMPIRELLA also had the very best painted covers of any comic magazine. Only Warren's sister mags, CREEPY and EERIE and perhaps Marvel's THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN came close. The stories were never much to write home about, but VAMPIRELLA was always fun.

[Carl_Shinyama]

My questions to you guys:

-How long have you been drawing?

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?


1. I've been drawing seriously for almost five years now. I drew sporadically here and there until I got into college, and I learned to draw a little bit. Then when I was 24, and I saw Michael Turner's art at that time, that got me back into drawing.

2. Yes.

3. Not always, but they were the ones that I enjoyed drawing the most.

4. Yes. I pretty much want to do only superhero comics.

5. Superman. I am attracted to power and those who use that power selflessly.

[Carl_Shinyama]

I seem to be one of the few aspiring comic book artists that hasn't been drawing "for as long as I can remember." I really applied myself to drawing regularly when I hit my mid-twenties.

And this was mostly because I had a different passion and dream growing up; I wanted to be an Olympic Track and Field Athlete

[Bruce Lee]

I seem to be one of the few aspiring comic book artists that hasn't been drawing "for as long as I can remember." I really applied myself to drawing regularly when I hit my mid-twenties.

And this was mostly because I had a different passion and dream growing up; I wanted to be an Olympic Track and Field Athlete

I also was very athletic, Carl. I was a runner, and a martial artist. Most artists don't tend to be very athletic, I've noticed. I'm not sure why I was particularly inclined to be a physical person, but I think it might be that I enjoyed the outdoors a great deal. I loved stomping around the mountains of Virginia, growing up. My friends and I had great times doing that.

Are you still running?

[Carl_Shinyama]

I've noticed that, too. I, too also spent a lot of time outdoors, spending half my life in Hawaii and Washington.

I don't really run much anymore, especially since I spend a lot more of my free time drawing. I mostly go to the gym at work and lift weights. It's the best form of stress relief I know, especially when I do a no-rest-in-between-sets type of workout :) That, and drawing!

Edit: I just realized I never asked you the question I meant to ask you last night in my reply: I know you do licensing art as a freelance artist, but would you ever consider doing a creator-owned book?

[LewsGhost]

I think this would be a good exercise for me- I'm just discovering this thread.



My questions to you guys:

-How long have you been drawing?

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

Please feel free to ask me similar questions right back!The goal of this thread is for me to get to know you guys a little better, and vice versa. :)

Since I was pretty little. I don't know exactly how old, but I do remember making things as early as kindergarten. I say "making things" because for me it's always been about more than just drawing. I remember in kindergarten we had this assignment where we had to cut simple shapes out of construction paper. I thought this was too boring, so with all the scraps that were left over, I made Superman and Dracula. My teacher was pretty shocked. I don't remember what it was we were supposed to make, but that is what I made.

Yes. But again, I've always been interested in other stuff too. Superheroes were always a perennial favorite.

Absolutely. I used to refer to them for almost everything. I learned to draw noses from comics, and no telling how many other things.

My favorite titles were Batman, Detective Comics, Superman, and Ghost Rider. The visuals were always really strong. The Norm Breyfogle Batman was very inspiring to me. When I was a kid, I had my own comic company whose flagship title ran for 12 issues. By today's standards, the art and writing were very poor- but it was a great experience. I would make photocopies and try to sell them for 85 cents each. This was before the internet and computers, so my readership was never more than say, ten. heh.

[CopperPop]

-How long have you been drawing?

For as long as i can remember, Drew Snoopy, and the Jupiter 2 and the Robot when I was in kindergarden, then went from there.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Maybe not initially, but i looked at a lot when i was a child. when i was hospitalized for a brief period, my dad gave me a stack of comics to pass the time; that might have planted the seed. Then what i can remember the most was a time when we were playing my dad made my brother and a drawing of BATMAN and SUPERMAN. i thought he was the coolest. From there, i drew off and on, but never figures.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

No… I did traditional art most of my academic life… until, I met my best friend Dean.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

No, not initially. In middle school, I had a friend named Dean that always sat near the front of the class and came up with characters… That always impressed me. we talked and became best friends. He was my first comic teacher, he drew bubble muscles, but better that anything i was doing at the time. we drew constantly. So much so that our teacher, not knowing what to do with us let us make things for class. I was out sick, and He drew a picture of one of my characters… What a cool dude, Right? I was hooked on comic characters then. I made over 100.

I devoured drawing characters…. Then, my older brother had a friend that lived across the street. He drew the established characters.. Batman, and Captain America; his favorite. We fast became friends and competitive rivals. He now draws for Red Handed Studios…. and can't remember my name :/ But, Hey I'm really happy for him, it is something we talked about for years and it came true for him!

I was impressed with his drawings from comics, but that is how we all start out… 13th birthday. Another one of my brothers friends gave me a collection of SPIDERMAN books, from then on, my collection and love of drawing grew, I drew day and night, year in year out. Dean and i went to separate high schools, Scott moved away, then went to the army… but i kept drawing.

My biggest honor for me came, when I reunited with Dean, before college, and i showed him my stuff… He had stopped drawing by then, but he looked at my stuff and said WOW, you surpassed me… Then he proceeded to give me a team of HIS characters… Sounds corny, i know.. but HE was the reason i started drawing comic characters.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

My Favorite titles were if i have to narrow it down,

DC: Teen Titans , The art and stories

Marvel: The Spiderman titles, Why? It's SPIDERMAN But XMEN for the stories and art… it was Sci-fi and had a good mix of characters.

Thanks for posting the questions, and for those who read it.

[shannonh]

-How long have you been drawing?

Since I could hold a pencil without chewing on it.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Yes and no. My dad was a fine artist so I grew up around a community of artists that painted in the traditional mediums. So very early in life I learned to paint bowls of fruit and landscapes but never really liked it much. Just too boring. Through my teens and twenties I would pull together a few paintings so that I could do local shows with my dad but never thought of it as a career in those days. Mainly because of seeing my dad struggle to work a full time job and also try to fulfill his dream of being a full time gallery artist....Which never happened. As long as I can remember, I loved horror and would spend hours drawing guts and decapitations. Freddy and Jason lived in just about every drawing I did from elementary to middle school. I look back at those days and think, wow, if my kids were drawing the stuff I drew back then, the school would call a psychiatrist lol.

I live in a small town and didn't really know anyone who was into comics. But I remember going to Kroger every week to get groceries and running straight for the magazine isle Where I would find Cracked, Mad, and Savage Sword Of Conan. My mom would only let me buy one a week so by the third week of every month I would have all three. That was it. I had NO IDEA that there was such a thing as a comic shop. The closest one to my house, even today, is about 45 minutes away. I've always had a soft spot for black and white sequentials and painted covers because of that influence early in my life.


-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

No. I didn't really start drawing comic book characters until junior year of high school. I played a lot of basketball and football through high school so art was not my top priority. Again, seeing my dad struggle made me not want to do it for a living so I never took it serious in those days. I did, however, doodle all the time and had lots of problems in school because all I did was doodle in class. My junior year I found myself needing to take an elective class so I said what the hell and took an art class. There were several guys in there that were into comics pretty heavy and would bring STACKS a foot thick into art class every day and I found myself overwhelmed by the art that was inside. Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Sam Keith, Wilce Portocio, Marc Silvestri, Jae Lee, Bart Sears, and on and on. I felt like that wide eyed kid again watching my first horror flick. I began drawing ONLY comic characters at that point. And let me tell you, my art teacher HATED comics. She always told us to stop drawing that garbage because it wasn't real art haha. That made us do every project she assigned in a comic style lol.

So I guess I was like 17 when I was introduced to the comics community at large. Sports came second after that. I would draw underground comics all the time. I would make up characters to poke fun at teachers and my friends...And people I didn't care for. My new comic buds and I would go to Dragon Con and wait in hour long lines just to show our books to editors. I look back and laugh about how ignorant we were. I would just bring in pages on typing paper and spread them out in front of the editors lol. I didn't know what format the pages should be in, type of paper, or that my drawings should have been in a portfolio of some sort. You have to remember that I lived in a small town and I didn't know anyone who had a computer to find out any info about the process. We didn't get computers in the school until my senior year and before then I had never even cut one on. Plus the so called internet was crap then. Everything I learned about the process came from those editors we saw on out yearly mecca to Dragon Con. Then, of course, I found Wizard Magazine.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Yes! When I started drawing comics, I knew it was my passion. And I haven't put it down yet.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

It's hard for me to pin down one title. I guess it would have been Xmen. But the easier thing to say would be what ever title Jim Lee was on. Loved the St. George he did. Loved Alpha Flight. Loved Punisher... Xmen..Whatever he was doing I was buying. I never followed characters or writers, just artists.

[Bruce Lee]

I think this would be a good exercise for me- I'm just discovering this thread.



Since I was pretty little. I don't know exactly how old, but I do remember making things as early as kindergarten. I say "making things" because for me it's always been about more than just drawing. I remember in kindergarten we had this assignment where we had to cut simple shapes out of construction paper. I thought this was too boring, so with all the scraps that were left over, I made Superman and Dracula. My teacher was pretty shocked. I don't remember what it was we were supposed to make, but that is what I made.

Yes. But again, I've always been interested in other stuff too. Superheroes were always a perennial favorite.

Absolutely. I used to refer to them for almost everything. I learned to draw noses from comics, and no telling how many other things.

My favorite titles were Batman, Detective Comics, Superman, and Ghost Rider. The visuals were always really strong. The Norm Breyfogle Batman was very inspiring to me. When I was a kid, I had my own comic company whose flagship title ran for 12 issues. By today's standards, the art and writing were very poor- but it was a great experience. I would make photocopies and try to sell them for 85 cents each. This was before the internet and computers, so my readership was never more than say, ten. heh.

I'll share a story with you. :)

When I was a kid I drew on the back of long mailing envelopes. I drew comic strips featuring a 12 year old jungle boy character named "Lonlo Tonlo" (Not that bad of a name for an 8 year old to come up with, all things considered). My first story started with Lonlo captured in a cage in the cargo of an airplane. The pilot and crew of the plane were poachers stealing animals from Africa. Lonlo was trapped by the bad guys, and they put him on the plane with the rest of the cargo. Lonlo gets free of his cage (jungle strength of a tiger) and sneaks to the cabin of the plane, and overhears the crew saying, "It's time to drop that jungle boy off at the pool". The plane was above the Atlantic Ocean, you see. There is a fight, and Lonlo pushes two thugs out the door of the plane, grabs the gun and shoots the pilot. Lonlo grabs the ONLY parachute on the plane (conveniently hanging on the wall near a fireman's axe--go figure), and jumps out over the Atlantic. He lands in the water, and there are shark fins in the water. He sees a ship in the distance. Then I never drew another panel. LOL. Not bad for an 8 year old though! Maybe I should revisit that character.

[KarAnde]

Figure while Im lurking instead of posting pictures and learning(scanner is looking to start a brawl with me at this point) I'd do this

-How long have you been drawing?
As long as I can remember, in fact still have a remarkably bad 1st grade cheetah drawing(I was the best "drawler" in my class).

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
Not at first, Really I was inspired by some amazing sketches my dad had done of big cats in my baby books, they were my only connection to him growing up and thereby drawing became that connection(unfortunately as a stupid kid wanting to show off to my friends I've lost the things he drew over the years).

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?
Not always its been a long and winding road from wanting to be a veterinarian to a game designer to wanting to get into comics, now Im trying to divide my school pursuits between becoming a better artist and social psychology.

My drawing pursuits are all either comic or game oriented though sometimes it feels like I missed out on a lot of learning in my teenage years pushing those dreams slightly further out of reach...which of course make me want to learn more...its like cookies hiding on the top shelf takes time but getting there is possible.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
I would say so, all the different "styles" that pop up have me constantly looking at different artists processes and how the fundamentals that im trying to slowly beat into my head play into those processes.....oh and comic characters are cool and I find myself wanting to create my own take on characters.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?
Favorite title....Hard to say. After my Sonic years toons took over my life, it was only after high-school graduation and my first job that my pay checks started disappearing into comics...en masse covered a decent sized bedroom wall or two with a packaged and boarded wall paper of comic titles.

....anyways I just veered wildly into not answer the question land soo I think it comes down to either Bat family titles (the robins are my favs), teen titans, Spiderman, or Captain america, its a tie between those cant choose.

[stoat]

Havent been able to get near a pencil all week,have a Quiet 10mins at work so thought I would share:

-How long have you been drawing?
Since Day 1 ,Drawing was the primary way I spent my time from age 3-15,still drew regularly up to about the age of 20,when life changed in all sorts of ways and I didnt really start doodling again until my wife reignited it in the last few years.so a break of nearly 20 years! aside from the odd life drawing class or shortcourse.
-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?
Initially it was anything from TV or Films or Books, Star wars, snoopy, Harryhausen films, then Spiderman hit me big time around 1978 on the TV and I was obsessed, My mum got me my First comic around 1981 which was the old uk weekly spiderman which reprinted US material.
Hooked, As well as the weekly Spiderman which also reprinted great Buscema era FF and Avengers, Marvel uk also put out an Original X-men weekly reprinting the Kirby era and ran Devil Dinosaur as a back up, also started reading all the UK war comics like Battle and commando, Secret wars hit town when I was 9 or 10 at the same time spiderman weekly caught up with the mid 80’s material and blew my socks off. This all Led into 2000ad,Heavy Metal and My discovery of a local specialist comic store selling US imports. I was being overloaded with exposure to more and more great artists and Varying styles and my drawings always reflected strongly what I was reading that Day.
This even carried on up to when I was about 18, starting Art Collage and Vertigo hit big time.
-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?
Absolutely massive Impact, apart from my early Spiderman obsession I have nearly always looked to see who the artist is before I purchase, I was always mimicking the comic art of my faves, Saying that, I have always loved all aesthetic arts and have a great love of artists and illustrators in general, loved the lines of people like Schiele and Klimt, illustrators like Aubrey Beardsley and John Bauer, great Fan of Design and Graphics in General.
But there are countless sources of personal Inspiration and influence in comics: Buscema,Neal Adams ,The Romita’s, Alan Davis, Michael Golden, John Bryne, Smitty, Mazzuchelli ,Mike Zeck , Paul Gulacy, Art Adams, Rick Leonardi, Carlos Ezquerra, Cam Kennedy, Steve Rude, jordi Bernett, list goes on and on and I very much notice my Drawing has a tendency to emulate whatever I am currently reading.

-What was your favourite comic title (and tell me why, please)?
It was Spiderman up to about 1989 always loved the Character and he seemed to develop with me during the 80’s.Same with the X-MEN run throughout the 80’s when there was a real sense of underground outsiders, I dropped this as well around the same time the Silvestri/Dan green run ended. Buscema’s Avengers was 4 Colour heaven, Alan Davis’ Cap Britain and Excalibur were both dark and Fun under Alan moore and then Claremont .Bernetts Torpedo just rocks,Nexus has always been a favourite ,just for being different and Steve Rude’s iconic design. I Was always fond of Chris Bachalo’s Vertigo run on Shade.
2000ad was a godsend when I was 13.
And Recently I have simply loved Marcos Martin’s Daredevil, the Page design was gorgeous ,kudos to Rivera too.
Oh and Kaboom’s Adventure time just puts a big smile on both mine and my boy’s face

[Mental-Mouse]

-How long have you been drawing?

I've doodled my entire life with lots of failed attempts to take drawing seriously.
When I turned 26 and saw the way the future looked I decided I was going to take a chance
on art. So, for about six months now I've put more time into drawing than about all previous years combined...
and I still feel like I've wasted too much time. Gotta get offa my but and do the boring studies so I can improve.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Yes, but later in life than most. I always wanted to tell stories, but my actual writing skills
are only somewhat decent. Drawing would seem to fit me more...once I get my ass in gear.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

Im selfish, I haven't really wanted to draw another person's creations.
I just wanna draw my own things. So, partial yes in I want to draw my own creations.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

More so now than in the past. Growing up during the Comic Dark Ages, my parents never let
me get American Comics. In High School I had access to Anime and Japanese Comics...I pretty much ignore them
all these days.

The Comics and artists that influence me now are pretty much all European. Jamie Hewlett's Tank Girl, Skydoll, Anything by Moebius, The Adventures of Tintin, Asterix and Obelix and Metabarons.

The only American Comics I read regularly are, Invincible and Fantastic Four.
DC has pretty much holds zerp interest to me.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

Not sure...but It is at the moment between Incal and Skydolls.
Pretty much because I can stare at the art for hours and hours and hours and not
get bored. Marveling and pondering how and why each little thing was drawn.
They also seem to have better placed Speak bubbles. To me at least.
Story wise, I love 'em too. I have a great admiration for the character John DiFool...
and Sky Doll's Lodovica. I find her design and expression mind meltingly beautiful.

[Bruce Lee]

Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions, Mental-Mouse. I read HEAVY METAL back in the day, so I've been a fan of the artwork of Moebius since 1980. I am also a TINTIN fan. I have given most of my TINTIN collections away at this point, but I still have EXPLORERS ON THE MOON AND SHOOTING STAR. I've read many ASTERIX collections, and I'm also a fan of Belgian artist, Pierre Culliford (AKA as Peyo). I burned out on TANK GIRL while attending the JOE KUBERT SCHOOL in the mid '90s. When you're surrounded by dozens of artists who are constantly drawing and talking about a single character all day it can be a little tiresome. The movie didn't help much either (though I did love the animated sequence). Heh.

[Mental-Mouse]

It was fun to answer!

I wasn't even ten when Tank Girl came out and reached popularity. By the time I was able to get into it, the people around me only knew it for the movie. Which left me as apparently the only person buying up all the Tank Girl TPBs from the one place that sold them.

My Burn pretty much was on the entire area of Japanese Comic Media. After being a fan for so long I just started to find myself completely fed up with it. Especially as a good deal of the people I around me at the time (i.e. High School/Early College) Seemed to be do nothing but shout its endless praise ( =All other animation/comic formats were inferior!) I just threw up my hands and abandoned even glancing at it from afar...save for like old stuff...from my childhood...cause Nostalgia...

[LewsGhost]

I'll share a story with you. :)

When I was a kid I drew on the back of long mailing envelopes. I drew comic strips featuring a 12 year old jungle boy character named "Lonlo Tonlo" (Not that bad of a name for an 8 year old to come up with, all things considered). My first story started with Lonlo captured in a cage in the cargo of an airplane. The pilot and crew of the plane were poachers stealing animals from Africa. Lonlo was trapped by the bad guys, and they put him on the plane with the rest of the cargo. Lonlo gets free of his cage (jungle strength of a tiger) and sneaks to the cabin of the plane, and overhears the crew saying, "It's time to drop that jungle boy off at the pool". The plane was above the Atlantic Ocean, you see. There is a fight, and Lonlo pushes two thugs out the door of the plane, grabs the gun and shoots the pilot. Lonlo grabs the ONLY parachute on the plane (conveniently hanging on the wall near a fireman's axe--go figure), and jumps out over the Atlantic. He lands in the water, and there are shark fins in the water. He sees a ship in the distance. Then I never drew another panel. LOL. Not bad for an 8 year old though! Maybe I should revisit that character.

I'm just now seeing this! Thanks for sharing! It's never too late to resolve a cliff hanger. I would love to know what happens next.

[D.I.S.]

Been seeing these, so I decided to drop in on it.

-How long have you been drawing?

My earliest memory of drawing was when I was a toddler in daycare and this kid would draw the Ninja Turtles. Like most kids at that age, the turtles were my favorite everything, so I wanted the kid to draw them for me. He told me no. I was so mad, I told my mom as if she would get the kid to do it for me. Instead, she told me to draw them myself. They came out looking like paper clips with bandanas on, but I was proud of it, especially because I did it. A light bulb appeared.


-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

Yes, but animation takes the top spot. I got into comics around the time Superman got killed, and started collecting (briefly) when they brought the four Supermen into the fray. Those set of comics, Jim Lee's X-Men #1 combined with Batman TAS, X-Men TAS and probably The Animaniacs sparked the flame.


-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

There's something so alluring about transforming. Comic book heroes and villains embody that. The first time I saw Batman or Wolverine, I got the clothes, the toys, the memorabilia. But it was drawing them that made me feel like I was capturing the character. Thinking like them. Drawing them is the closest you can come to being them. So yes I did.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Yes. When I was younger, it was dynamic characters all day. Big muscles and scrunched up faces. I think I took after Liefield and McFarlane. As a teen, I wasn't nearly as interested in comics but I did still draw. Nowadays, I read more comics than I ever have, mostly for the creative team's storytelling which is what influences me the most today.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

Back in the day, (by that I mean the 90's) I really didn't read a series except for Batman and Superman because of the major events around '92-'94. I have the most Superman comics because of his death and the return. I didnt get back into comics until college started and it was the Naruto manga I got into. A lot of people turn up their noses at Japanese Manga/Anime, but I dig Naruto for 3 reasons. 1. Its an underdog story. Love those. 2. Masashi Kishimoto's art is consistent and fun to look at. 3. There's an end game for the entire story.


Thanks for offering this questionnaire, Loston.

[Ollivieri.art]

Saw this thread and thought I would chime in with my history.

How long have you been drawing?:

Like almost everyone I've been drawing none professional since I could hold a pencil. I took art in high school and set about trying to become a great artist but that was scuppered when I broke my arm and wrist and following that I haven't been anywhere near as confident or frankly competent. Now I'm in my twenties and unemployed so I have a ton of time to just draw and draw so I've decided to focus on getting out the regular life and do what I want to.

Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?:

Comic books no, superheroes, yes, growing up in the UK it wasn't as easy to get comics, but the tv shows got over here just fine, I fell in love with the DCAU, which hasn't gone away, as well as the 90's Warner bro's cartoons. Unlike most of my friends I wasn't as keen on the Marvel animations of the 90's, although I do love tragically canceled Avengers:earths mightiest heroes.

Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

Yup, always wanted to draw a Superman story or Batman story, as I've grown up I've broadened to wanting to have fun with layouts on the Flash or go crazy designing the aliens in Green Lantern. I think with just about everyone else I have my own heroes in my head too that I want to draw and share with people too.

Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Again yes but not in the conventional sense, when someone asks me the way I picture the heroes it's the DCAU versions by Bruce Timm, as I have grown up however I've fallen in love with the legends like Jack Kirby, Wally Wood etc as well as (to my surprise) alumni of this site Ryan "Wya" Ottley, Darwyn Cooke, Cory Walker and the current crop of Image artists.

What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

Once I hit college age I left the small town place I grew up in, and started going to the biggest city in my county, Leeds, and discovered that we had 3 comic stores, I've collected comics ever since, but the comic that I throw at anyone who says they want to try a comic, is Invincible, I think I've personally made those guys nearly a grand by now as almost everyone I've lent my copies too ends up buying the hardcovers too, and they all agree it's for the same reasons, the arts awesome obviously, but it also balances the nostalgia of the older comic book heroes and the anything can happen quality that indies have, the fact it can make you tear up too, such as with the fight between Omni-man and Mark is quite something as well.

As an aside, I also adore Dragonball, having watched that when it was imported and buying up the manga when I found them in those comic stores, thinking about it these days, I think the reason that I and a generation of westerners fell in love with that show is that Toriyama basically adapted a lot of superhero tropes and ideas into it.

That was fun to think about, if a little awkward since I've basically just gushed about a guy I've never met but that you (Loston) worked with...

[Bruce Lee]

Some good influences, for sure, Tom! Welcome to PJ!

[CrazyDiamond]

My questions to you guys:



-How long have you been drawing?

Since before Kindergarten. I remember I used to stay inside drawing dinosaurs on big pieces of paper while the other kids played outside.

-Did comic books play a large role in your love for drawing?

I only really got into comics when I was 13 years old. Before that I was more inspired by toys and video games.

-Have you always wanted to draw comic book characters?

Ha ha. Strange question. Simple answer no. Sometimes I feel like drawing comic book characters, sometimes characters from video games, sometimes characters from toys and sometimes just characters.

But I HAVE always wanted to draw characters.

-Did comics have a major impact on the way you draw now?

Similar to above.

-What was your favorite comic title (and tell me why, please)?

I started by buying one issue of Spiderman (Spectacular Spider man #182) because of the Spiderman Video games that were around at the time I think. That comic had an ad for an X-men telephone game, from there I started buying X-men comics. From there I was into Gen 13 then, The Maxx (Because of a Maxx Gen 13 crossover), Then Hellboy and after Hellboy is where things started to get interesting.

I was in animation school at the time and was 19 years old. There were so many creative people around me and they would bring in lots of different books from all types of artists. One day my best friend there brought in a comic by one artist and it changed my life dramatically.

Vaughn Bode.

After seeing Bode's work it was like a light switched in my head. It was totally unlike anything I had seen before but I connected with it on so many levels. I think of all the artists I have been inspired by Vaughn Bode is the one I feel closest too. After that anything went, I started getting into underground comics, Crumb, Love and Rockets, Mark Beyer. I also started studying older artists like Windsor Mcay.

At this time I was quite distanced from the super hero stuff and it would take one type of comics to bridge the connection back. For me that was when I really started to get into Japanese comics.

I think it was Junko Mizuno that got me hooked. However I always loved the Japanese aesthetic through the video games I grew up with and was heavily influenced by Capcom around about the same time I was into Hellboy. (I remember when I received the Book 'Capcom Illustrations' in the post I couldn't believe I actually owned it. I looked at that book everyday for at least a month.

So yeah. Junko Mizuno was featured in a comic magazine called "Pulp" it had a few "alternative" manga artist's stories featured in each monthly issue. Bakune Young was another one of my favourites. So from there I studied Japanese artists and finally it brought me to where I am today. I now embrace all three periods of my artistic youth - and now have so many influences that I get lost. And am still finding more all the time.

I love it.

[Bruce Lee]

Thanks for the reply, CD! I appreciate hearing from you! I remember liking Bode's work--particularly COBALT 60. I also remember his work with Bernie Wrightson on some humorous strips back in the day. Like Gene Day, Vaughn Bode died way too young.