Violent Moon Blood

Bill Sienkewicz's work on Moon Knight was some of the most awesome comic book reading I've ever experienced... to be honest though, I'm not sure if Kingpin was in any of that stuff. oh well! lol I have to say, I was already into comics way before I read these stories, but Doug Moench and Bill S. really inspired me. If I were to be totally honest here, I might've done a Dragon Ball or Hokuto No Ken or Akira piece for this. I felt like Moon Knight though, and yeah, I tried my hand at a bit of photo manip on this one, just for fun.

Bigger is better...

There are a few things that got me seriously contemplating comic books as a career.  One of them being the cover to Batman #251.  Batman was strapped to a giant sized playing card which in turn was being held by an even bigger Joker.  It was ridiculous, and I loved it.  It seemed like Neal Adams had such a fun time drawing it, and I pretty much knew that's what I wanted to do with my life (have fun drawing).  So this is my homage to that cover;  Giant-Size Joker and all!

Cyclops

The thing that got me interested in comics and in turn art, was the 90's x-men cartoon.

Milligan and Allred's X-Force

In the early 2000's, I was really getting into monthly comics. One of the first series I followed religiously was Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's run on X-Force. It was an unusual superhero series because it was about a celebrity team of mutants, and characters were introduced and then killed the next issue. Also, most of the "heroes" were dicks. It was incredibly compelling, due to the unpredictable and bizarre stories. This series introduced me to Mike Allred, and I went on to find all the Madman trades and, thus, it led me to more and more creator-owned comics. So, I'm grateful to X-Force for that.

Batman

The one thing that immediately got me into drawing and reading comics was Batman - the Batman movies, the animated series, all the action figures, the re-runs on FX of the 60's Batman series, and the comics. Some people say the 90's sucked, but it was great for lil' Craig.

Spider-Man And The Green Goblin

I remember the exact moment I decided to draw comics.  I was about fourteen years old and I was sitting down drawing spider-man while watching the spiderman cartoon, and I was looking at my ultimate spider-man comics for reference.  In that moment I thought, "You know what?  I could do this forever."

Kingdom Come

I didn't real that many comics as a kid. Kingdom Come was the first thing I saw that really blew me away. The use of lighting and form in it was a huge influence on me. Still one of my favorite stories.

JLA

So I kind of stole a page out of Craig's book this week and went Morrison. I love this era of the JLA. It was the series that got me into comics. It was the only book to make the electric blue version of Superman cool.

I used to read this series over and over again waiting for the next issue to come out... then when it did, I'd start from the beginning and read it all over.

I especially loved the Starro story in the JLA: Secret Files where Starro takes over Flash and everybody in Blue Valley. I also wanted to do a call back to the roll calls that they did at the beginning of every issue.

In my opinion: Morrison and Porter's JLA is the best superhero comic of all time.

Colors coming soon.

8 Bit Wolverine

I hated comics. In 2nd grade, everyone stopped collecting & trading baseball and basketball cards, and started with comics and comic cards. At recess they pretended to be Marvel Super Heroes instead of Ninjas. I hated it. I wanted to ninja kick my friends in the kidneys, not pretend to be Mr. Fantastic casting a spell on Wolverine. I made fun of all the nerds and used everyone's lack of interest in basketball cards to trade them some lame ass Marvel Cards for all of their Michael Jordan cards.

I already drew all the time; Ghostbusters, Monsters, and Nintendo characters. I loved the manuals that came with Nintendo games, and would draw all the stuff from them I could. What's funny is that I would draw stories, I'd draw one scene on one piece of paper, and then the next scene on another piece of paper. I didn't realize that I was essentially making comics, I just didn't grasp the idea of panels yet. One day, I was hanging out at the boss nerd's house (the guy who converted everyone to comics) and he pulled out his new NES game, Wolverine. He stabbed people, I loved it. So I decided in order to get back at all those nerds, I would become an even bigger nerd, collecting so many comics that it would put their collections to shame. Sticking with comics when everyone else moved on to sports, girls, drugs, alcohol, and careers... eventually I would attend The Super Nerd Academy ( Joe Kubert School ). I totally showed those losers...

Preacher

I couldn't really think of anything, so drew my favorite Preacher characters. Preacher is definitely the story that made me want to write comics. I only took an interest in drawing comics through not being able to pay artists to draw my stories.

And now . . . the Wolverine!

Ok, I know I have a bit of a reputation among y'all as a rabid Wolverine fanatic. There is good reason behind it though. I grew up very close with my grandparents out in California. My grandfather went to the University of Michigan and got me hooked on Wolverine football at a very young age. Not only does Logan share a nickname with my favorite college team, but they wore the same colors. Also, my first memory of seeing a comic book and deciding that I wanted to draw them was when I saw the cover to 'The Incredible Hulk' #340 by Todd McFarlane. You know the one. A close up of Wolvie with his claws popped and the reflection of the Hulk in his claws. Very cool. I really got into Wolverine, the X-Men and Todd McFarlane after that. Everything just kinda grew from there.

Also, this is the first drawing that I completely inked by brush in a long time. It was fun using a brush again. Defiantly go through phases with it.

Frazetta/Death Dealer

My dad exposed me to Frazetta's work at an early age. Even though I had already been drawing for awhile at that point, looking at his stuff just catapulted my interest in drawing to a new level. I remember copying the death dealer paintings with shitty charcoal into my sketchbooks, wondering why his looked so much better. I don't know if I would have pursued drawing as much had I not seen his art, and seeing it at that point in my life, influenced my decision to become an artist more than anything I can remember.