PJ Interactivity Thread

[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.