So, you want to know a little about me, huh? Well, here goes, and I'll try not to bore you. I was born in Philadelphia, PA. and I was raised in Northeast Philly. As far back as I can remember I've always loved comics and comic strips. My 1st memory of reading any type of a comic was a reprint of Kirby and Simon's Captain America # 1. I was hooked after that. I read everything I could get my hands on. My brother's comics, My cousins' comics, my best friend's comis. The Marvel and DC Universes were opened up to me and I was thrilled. I couldn't get enough. And the ART! It amazed me! I knew this was what I wanted to do.
I could always draw and the comics just made me want to draw more. And I did. On newsprint pads, little telephone note pads, my coloring books, napkins, brown paper bags and even my school copybooks. Boy, did I get in trouble for that! (first from the nuns and then worse from my Mom) But I kept right on drawing. I wanted to tell comic stories.
My Favorite Comic Artists' growing up were Jack Kirby, John and Sal Buscema and Gil Kane. But I also had an affinty for guys that weren't as popular too. Dick Dillin, who drew the Justice League Of America, Irv Novick, who drew The Flash, George Tuska who drew Iron Man and later Luke Cage Power Man, Nick Cardy on Teen Titans, and a guy named Will Eisner who did a little known comic called The Spirit.
All these guys inspired me to draw and I wanted to be as good as them. I received How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way and Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Figure Drawing as Birthday gifts. I wore these books out when I got them. When I got into High School, I took both an Art class and a Mechanical Drawing class. This was the first real formal training I received. It opened my eyes to how little I actually knew about drawing and gave me my foundation that helped me follow my dream and get into Art School.
I enrolled at the Hussian School of Art. There, I was given a stronger foundation in all forms of art and learned from teachers' whose lessons are still with me to this day. One day, while browsing in a book store during lunch break from school, I came upon a book called Figure Drawing For All It's Worth by Andrew Loomis. "What's this?", I thought. I opened that book and my life changed forever. This book had all the answers I was looking for. Proportion, perspective and compostion of figures in a dimensional space. I bought it and read thru it in 2 days. I brought it with me to school everyday. It became and still is, to this day, my "Bible" for drawing. For me, it begins and ends with Andrew Loomis. I recommend him to every aspiring artist.
After Graduating Hussian School Of Art in 1984, I worked as Freelance Artist doing
Advertising Illustration. I designed Newspaper Ads, Brochures, Pamphlets, Company Logo's and Billboards. My passion has always been comics. I was determined to get into the business and become a working professional.
My passion, hard work and determination paid off, when in 1989, I became the assistant to Legendary DC Artist Dick Giordano. Working and learning from him was one of the greatest experiences of my life. While working for him, I also was able to get and do work for their New Talent Showcase and their TSR licensed line of comics, that included
Dungeons and Dragons and Dragonlance.
During this time I met writer Roland Mann, who was a writer and editor for Malibu Comics, and I worked with him on his Cat And Mouse series and his Demon Tails series.
This lead to me getting some freelance work from Malibu, that, unfortunately, was never published. But I made great friends and worked with some of the most professional people in the industry including Steven Butler, Ken Branch, Mitch Byrd, Josef Rubinstein, Jose Marzan Jr., just to name a few, and all are incredibly fantastic people.
Fast forward to the present time and I'm currently involved with doing commissions for clients that include doing sketch covers, faux comic covers ( original and re-imaged covers) and pin-ups and illustrations that they request.
I'm also working on 2 creator owned projects that are using my updated versions of heroes that are in Public Domain. The first one is called Parallel Lives. It's about a team of heroes (think Avengers, or Justice League) who meet their counterparts thru unexplained events and the reaction to those events. If you liked the old JLA/JSA team-ups, you'll like this. The second series is called Adventure Theatre-Double Feature.
It will feature TWO characters and their stories in one book. Think Marvel's Tales To Astonish, and it won't always be the same 2 characters, and I feel that will help not only to give the comic a fresh approach, but also help you be introduced to newer versions of the Public Domain heroes I will be using.
