As far back as I can recall, I seem to have had a pencil in my
hand. Growing up in the small coal-mining town of Clintwood in
southwest Virginia, there weren't many creative outlets for a
kid like myself, so drawing became a favorite pastime. I would
watch Saturday morning cartoons and try to reproduce what I saw
on the television screen, resulting in numerous sketches of the
Pink Panther, Bugs Bunny, Speed Buggy, and Frankenstein Jr., all
popular "stars" in those days. My father would often buy comic
books to be distributed between my brothers and me. I suppose
I enjoyed them more than they did, as I was soon bitten with the
collector's bug. I can still remember the joy of being able to
fill an entire shoebox with comics!
As it turned out, those comic books were to play a major role
in my artistic development. It all started when I began tracing
Batman figures from comics by holding the book to a window, covering
a page with a sheet of notebook paper, and copying the image -
at the age of four, I had discovered nature's lightbox. Eventually,
I gave up on tracing comics and just started drawing from my imagination.
Always though, comics were an important influence. Most of the
time, I was drawing Batman, Spider-man, the Hulk, or some other
"funny book" hero. Comics completely captured my imagination -
the idea that someone could have amazing powers and use those
abilities to serve mankind just fascinated me. Yep, I was hooked
for life.
As I got older, and my artistic talents began to develop further,
I began setting my sights on becoming a comic artist. As an early
teen, I would draw comic book characters on loose-leaf paper,
creating my own universe alongside three of my best friends. We
dreamed of a day when we could have our own comic book company,
and thousands of our own wonderful superhero characters.
Over the years, I realized that I've been influenced by many
artists, and their works continue to inspire me to this day. The
list of inspirations is a long one, including Art Adams, Neal
Adams, Jim Aparo, Brian Bolland, John Byrne, Gene Colan, Steve
Ditko, Frank Frazetta, Gil Kane, Jack Kirby, Russ Manning, Mike
Mignola, George Perez, Marshall Rogers, Bruce Timm, Alex Toth,
Al Williamson...it goes on and on. However, seven artists - my
own "Magnificent Seven" - have made major impacts on my work.
This section of my site is dedicated to them.
