Captain America And Falcon Kid Art 1979

This is probably my favorite piece of superhero kid art. Cap has been my favorite Marvel character from day one and this piece of art from 1979 proves it. I always enjoyed the 1970's Cap series. It was unique. I liked Jack Kirby's style and crazy storylines. The stuff holds up pretty good to me today as well. The sad part is if I drew Cap today, it wouldn't be much better than this. I definitely peaked artistically at nine years old.

Green Lantern #90

My first exposure to DC's seminal science-fiction superhero was the Denny O'Neil-Mike Grell mid 1970's series co-starring Green Arrow. I liked the characters in Justice League and thought I'd check out their regular book. Needless to say I liked it very much. Grell's art is fantastic and captures both the cosmic scope of GL and the gritty realism of GA. Grell is one of my favorite artists. I loved his work on Legion Of Super Heroes around this same time. I finally got to meet him at a convention a few years ago and was torn over who to have him draw in my sketchbook. My buddies got both GL and GA so I decided on Dawnstar from the Legion. I was thrilled with the result.



If you really like science fiction comics, be sure and check this series out plus anything else Grell was doing at the time. You won't be disappointed.

X-Men Kid Art 1979

I was amazed when I got all my kid art back how many Marvel characters I drew. I was mostly a DC reader in the late 70's and I didn't really get into Marvel until junior high. All my art subjects had the exact same poses. I wasn't really that innovative. I'm glad I used colors though. It makes the bad drawing jump out a little more. I wish I would have done the new X-Men too. My nine year old version of Wolverine would have been frightening!

Action #484

This gem from June, 1978 was one of my favorite Superman stories as a kid. I loved the original Earth 2 version of the character and this was one of the few times he was featured in Action. Of course the reason was the 40th anniversary of his first appearance in June, 1938. It tells the tale of his marriage to Lois Lane in the 1950's as only Cary Bates and Curt Swan could tell it. To top it all off it has a fantastic cover by the incomparable Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, who drew a good portion of the covers at this time. I was very fortunate to meet Mr. Lopez on a couple of occasions and he was kind enough to do this beautiful sketch of the Man Of Steel in my sketchbook.



It's one of the best sketches in the book. He will always be remembered as one of the definitive Superman artists of the seventies and eighties.

The Genius Of George Perez

One of the first artists I ever got into when I started collecting comics in the late 70's was George Perez. I really liked his early work on Fantastic Four and when he went to DC and starting doing some Justice League issues after Dick Dillin died, my admiration for his work was cemented. When I entered my teenage years, his and Marv Wolfman's New Teen Titans was probably my favorite book. I was thrilled to finally meet him at a show in Kansas City in the early 90's but, being in college, I didn't have any money for a sketch. That changed in 2002 when my buddies and I went to New York for a show. He was incredibly nice and did a fantastic sketch of Sgt. Rock for me.



Needless to say, I was thrilled with the sketch and my experience with George, as this picture suggests.



I've met George a couple of more times since then. He did a fantastic Starfire sketch in my sketchbook which thrilled me since she was probably my favorite character in the Titans when I started to read the book.



Hopefully George will come back to KC soon so I can get another sketch for the book. I'm thrilled that he's still going strong in the business. Current comics need more guys like George Perez.

The Great Jim Aparo

As I found that a lot of my older posts I posted through Flickr didn't show up anymore, I thought I'd repost some of my art commissions I've ordered through the years. As I discovered the awesome blog The Jim Aparo Fan Club I decided to post my Aparo commisions again.

My wife ordered me the piece above back in 2000. It's my favorite piece of art in my collection. It epitomizes classic Aparo for me. I love that The Phantom Stranger was pencilled with just broad strokes of his pencil. I stare at it every day and am thrilled with it nine years later. In the next couple of years I also ordered some pencil drawings of classic Aparo DC heroes Aquaman and Green Arrow.





When I met Aparo in 2002, I was lucky enough to have him draw a quick Batman sketch in my sketchbook. It's pretty sloppy but I was thrilled to watch him draw.



Check out the aforementioned Aparo Fan Club blog for more fantastic examples of my all time favorite comic book artist.

Mr. Miracle Kid Art 1979

I thought I'd repost some of my superhero kid art considering that when I posted them before through Flickr, they disappeared when I changed accounts. My parents recently gave me a lot of my childhood art they saved when I was 8-9 years old. They are very reflective of my interests at the time, which like a lot of kids in 1979, were superheroes and Star Wars. I drew a lot of somewhat obscure heroes (at least to most nine year olds). One of the more complete pieces was this Mr. Miracle drawing I did for my dad for Father's Day. I don't even remember reading any Mr. Miracle appearances until I was much older. I must have seen one of the ads in another DC book and liked his costume. That's the only explanation I can think of. I'll post more of my superhero centric kid art in the coming days.