The Culture of Pop

Lady’s baby smiles and coos, takes away my lonely blues.

Only yesterday I was asked what tools I use to ink and color.

In 2003 I attended a comic convention few knew about in my hometown of Las  Vegas. It was my first comic-con experience and remains my favorite thanks to the people I met there, one of which happened to be Darwyn Cooke, who was there promoting The New Frontier.

I asked Darwyn if I could have a little sketch from him after he took a look through a pad of pencil sketches that I had hastily drawn in the late night/early morning hours of that day. He very kindly obliged, but the real shock came when he asked me to draw something and bring it back to him the next day to ink.

After an exciting day filled with artists and writers I never thought I’d meet in person, I was given an assignment that I couldn’t pass up. Exhausted from preparing for and attending the first day of a convention with very little sleep  between I managed to draw a little bust sketch of Catwoman, who Darwyn had redesigned and helped to reintroduce in the comics a short time before.

The next day I was revitilized with a mission to meet my appointment with Mr.Cooke at a certain time at his booth. I spent the day chatting it up with different artists, getting a feel for how a comic-con works, and receiving a lesson in sequential art from Dan Brereton that I greatly enjoyed and lead me right up to the minute that I was to meet with Darwyn. When I arrived at his booth I was surprised to find a sullen face on Darwyn as I caught a glimpse of him through the two men who either found or made an opportunity to interview him. The two men standing together spanned the width of a convention table, blocking anyone behind them and eclipsing whoever they interviewed. At one point they parted just long enough for Darwyn to see me standing behind them and he happily burst between the two of them to call me over, inviting me to sit with him, David Bullock, and J.Bone in his booth.

Darwyn inked my picture while I looked over his shoulder, unknowingly giving me an up close demonstration of tools that I had been researching in the months before and that I use to this day. David took a look through my sketches while I looked through a portfolio of poster sized covers (some of which had yet to be released), while J.Bone joked and chatted while completing a sketch for a fan.  At one point I looked up and the two men were still standing there with a dumbfounded glare on their faces that had an actual shade to it. 

My experience there is a big reason why I enjoy drawing sketches for others, if only to put a smile on their face for a second, why I’m now able to open up and converse with other artists and people in general after years of keeping to myself, and why I tend to draw Catwoman in a way that I hope honors Darwyn’s design. It was also a great reminder that a little kindness and consideration can go a long way.

On the Strip, December 1987

In a 1954 photo a wide-eyed boy reads the comic Menace #11, a pre-code horror comic typical of the kind that had parents groups and politicians in the throes of moral panic.

From the visible ad page the unknown boy has bent back one can determine which story and page he is looking at. It is from the horror & murder tale Only A Beast. The 4-page story is credited only to artist Al Eadeh. The author, if not him, is unknown. Unfortunately this lack of credit is not unusual in the work-for-hire era of comics being considered fully disposable entertainment.

Here is the entire story.

You can almost see him reading the line “I am a beast, and a beast kills those who hurt the ones he loves!”