So when I first decided to do a blog, one thing I thought I would do is talk about what got me into comics and art, what I loved as a kid that stoked my desire to create the artwork I do today! I think it's pretty interesting... I hope you do too:)
As anyone over 40 knows, comics were a lot different in the 70s and 80s. I remember going to the corner store and picking up comics on the rack, or when i'd go and get my hair cut at the barber, he'd have coverless Spider-Mans I read while I waited.
I even remember riding in my parent's car, sitting on the floorboards of the back seat, reading my stack of comics. Once, I pissed my parents off when I traded Star Wars figures for comics with one of my friends... I wish I still had some of those comics (one of the comics was Strange Tales #107... I loved that comic!). But I didn't start my true collecting until my mom took me to my first comic shop! I was looking for Amazing Spider-Man #252 -- the first appearance of the Black Costume! That got me hooked! After that, my mom would take me to the local comic shop when she could, in the meantime, my friend and I would ride our bikes to the nearest record store that had a rack full of new comics every week. I look back at that time so fondly:)
So, where did the art come in? Good question... I don't recall being a kid that was always drawing, I was outside playing with my friends. But I do remember I liked copying what I saw in comics. I found that I had a knack for drawing what I saw, and started drawing overly-muscular superheroes. A comic store owner who self-published his own comic even took an interest in my art, and that set me on the path... I wanted to draw comics!
I started copying the artists that I loved... John Byrne, Art Adams, and Jim Lee were my main comic influences. I was filling sketchbooks with "bubble men" as I practiced anatomy. I remember drawing Jim Lee's X-Men, recreating a whole page, panel by panel... I even drew a poster of his promo for X-Men #1. I was really getting into drawing when I met a group of artists in school that were comic nerds like me! My new friend, Dimitrius, was a better artist than I was, and I just loved his work. HE was the kid that couldn't put his pencil down, unlike me:) We bonded through comics and art and decided to work together. I had some experience with inking (the black line art over pencils for printing) and decided to ink some of Dimitrius' pencil work, and it just "clicked". I was going to become an inker!
... to be continued:) Part Two coming soon!