May I Show You My Portfolio?
For anyone keeping track at home, I’m feeling mostly better. You can tell because I made this:
Which is based on one of my all-time favourite comic book panels, one that bothered me as a boy and still troubles me as a “man.”
In other news, famed comic book author Jason Aaron is back at it again, inviting me to his orgies:
(I’m assuming. I’ve never opened his emails.)
SPEAKING of emails! As always, The Brevortex continues to shine on. In his latest, Tom talks about the rumoured merging of comic book universes, and, for once, I had something to add!
The gaming company I worked for did things like pool tables/cues, air hockey tables, playing cards, etc. This was early in my illustration career and I was insanely excited that they were getting me to do Marvel licensed work! A real dream job until the company went bankrupt!
Sadly, the “pooping Wolverine” is lost to the sands of time and hard drive crashes, but I still have the file for the Spider-Man pool cue!
This is my first-ever professional Spider-Man illustration, obviously based off of Mark Bagley’s Ultimate Spider-Man. It’s not as bad as I remember!
My dad bought one of the Spidey pool cues. It’s probably worth a million dollars now!!! Congrats, daddy!!!!!!
Fuck it, since I’m showing early embarrassing work…
When I was in college I briefly wanted to be a comic book artist. I found myself with a year off before my final year thanks to some terrible youthful decisions, and I had enough money saved up that I didn’t have to work for three whole months, so I hunkered down in my terrible apartment with my many roommates and I dedicated myself to creating sample pages for Marvel and DC.
I really need to stress that I had three months. This is plenty of time. Unless it feels like all the time in the world, which means my days looked like this:
11AM: Wake up
NOON: Coffee shop, making sure to read all the daily newspapers so I’m an informed citizen
2PM: Sit at desk, flip through bodybuilding magazines to study anatomy and draw Batman costumes on ripped dudes
2:30PM: Go with roommates to diner and have “breakfast”. Wonder why we didn’t have our own TV show about all our great conversations
4PM: Work time! Draw five lines, erase three of them, stare at own hand where, one day, an iPhone will be, so I won’t have to stare at just my hand
4:30PM: Watch one of my roommates Twin Peaks VHS tapes
5:30PM: Dinner time! Go with roommates to diner again and have “breakfast.”
7PM: Fuck around
9PM: Go to local internet cafe / bar and drink coffee until two in the morning with buddies, wondering why we don’t have our own TV show about all our great conversations
I really need to stress that I gave myself THREE MONTHS. In those three months I drew three pages. Starting with this SUPERMAN one:
Terrible! Those bodybuilding magazines did NOT help me at all! This is wildly embarrassing.
And then there’s this FLASH page:
Good GOD. Ludicrously bad.
The only one that even comes close to being okay is this HELLBLAZER page:
And even still it’s not very good.
THREE MONTHS. THREE PAGES. When I was finally forced to get a job again I felt like an absolute failure. I never sent the pages in.
My inability to actually sit down and do the work was something I had trouble with all through public school as well. It was so bad that halfway through Grade Eight I was pulled out of class and placed in a little room where I could just come up with my own independent projects, since I wasn’t doing any of the ones assigned. Guess what? I decided to make every project a comic book that I would abandon after THREE PAGES.
Honestly it’s a miracle that I do so much now.
RELATED: A couple of years ago I approached IDW about making one of those oversized Artist Editions called “May I Show You My Portfolio?” The cover would look like a classic leather artist’s portfolio and inside would be all the terrible submission pages of now-professional comic book artists, side-by side with their current work. I think we eventually realized what a rights nightmare it would be, getting DC and Marvel, etc. to allow their characters to be printed in such an unflattering light.
But fuck, it would be SO GOOD!!
ELSEWHERE: For anyone interested, I had a really nice conversation with Dan at GATECRASHERS about Public Domain:
Which reminds me! PUBLIC DOMAIN VOL. 1 is now widely available in NON-comic book shops! I was reminded of this when I checked the listing on Amazon. I’m always pleasantly surprised by my author bio there. Still as true today as it ever was!!
And now, for my paid subscribers, a short KAPTARA installment! I’m back drawing Public Domain, so those will start up again real soon too!
Bye!