List

Sorry for not updating in so long. As time goes by, I seem to just get more and more depressed over Mike's death. I'm still hoping to share some good stories, but I haven't been up to it lately. But, in the meantime, I thought I'd put down a list of the things that Mike loved a lot -- things we talked about all the time and always seemed to come up. And, I don't get to hear them anymore... certainly not with the passion Mike had for things. So, I'll just set these off into the ether... on behalf of Mike.

Things Mike Loved -

Magic Pickle by Scott Morse - Mike was first to get on the Scott Morse train. He loved that stuff and it's amazing to see the work Morse is doing now.

Big Blown Baby by Bill Wray - I'd never heard of this before I met Mike, but you couldn't help becoming a fan after he pitched it for you, though! Apparently, this is the funniest book ever printed.

Roachmill by Tom McWeeney -- I think Mike must've been Roachmill's biggest fan. All through McWeeney's Wildstorm and Battle Chasers career, all Mike could say was "fuck that -- I want more Roachmill!".

Bill Willingham's artwork -- Willingham seemed to disappear for about 10 years or so before coming back strong with Fables. Mike kept his name alive through the halls of Artamus, though! He loved his stuff.

Howard Chaykin (who doesn't love Howard Chaykin?). I believe they got to hang out a bit at the Baltimore show a few times. I'm glad. The cool thing is that Howard was a big fan of Mike's stuff, too.

That's all for now. But, hey -- help me out and add your own in the comments section!

Drawing comics

As you can tell by the lack of new posts, I'm drawing comics again! I tend to go back and forth between comics and doing illustration work for Disney Imagineering, but with the recession in full swing, the Disney freelance is gone. So, it's all Marvel Comics these days, and I'm really grateful to have the work! With comics, though (or at least with ME and comics), it's a nonstop, full-time, 7 days a week, 17 hour a day job. So... it's been busy!

After Mike passed away, I was extremely glad I WASN'T drawing comics at the time. 15-17 hours a day at the drawing board is a lot of time to sit and torture yourself. I've always thought it's sort of a mix between being a long haul trucker and a monk. You've got to work out all your shit and figure yourself out through the years... otherwise the demons in your brain will make you nuts. So, it's nice to have had a bit of a break before returning full-time to comics. As down as I got, it sure could've been worse.

I did MegaCon last weekend, and I wore my nice "By Thy Side..." pin over my heart each day. Won't get to see Mike at a show again, but I'll still think about him each day. I was a little surprised with how quickly I'd get choked up when folks who dropped by would start talking about Mike. Just fans looking through my FF artwork who weren't even thinking about it. Just jawing about how great a guy he was. It's crazy how fast all the blood rushes to your head and your eyes well up. I don't know how I'll get through Heroes Con. We'll see.

More updating soon! Gotta wrap up this book first... and the next one is with Parker, so it should be a blast!

Dolemite & Ron Garney

I heard on the radio a few weeks ago that Rudy Ray Moore had passed away, and it made me think of the old studio days. I think it was Rich who had a Beastie Boys album that had some Dolemite samples on it, and I eventually went out and got one of his albums for us. It was a lot of fun and made for some great studio fodder. We would take Dolemite poems (I guess they're poems) and put comic book people in them... just something to do while walking to the copier. My favorite little rhyme was:

Ron Garney went to Kansas City
Started kicking asses
'Til both shoes were shitty

Over and over. There were many like this, and for whatever reason... they all involved Ron Garney. This was in the day when Ron and Mark Waid made Captain America one of the best books in the industry (which seemed impossible in the 90's), and we were all HUGE fans. Mike ended up being really good friends with Ron after meeting at Heroes Con '96 (I think it was '96...). Knowing how much Mike admired Ron's work, I got a big kick out of it and I know it meant a lot to Mike. It was very cool.

Ron was also good buddies with Tim Townsend, and I eventually got to know Ron through Tim. It's weird that I ended up meeting Ron through a totally different set of events than the studio in North Carolina (now that I think about it), but the comic industry is such a small community that I was bound to meet up sometime. Ron's one of the nicest guys I know, so it's been fun having him as a friend. Although, I don't think I ever shared any of our Dolemite poems with him.

Mike and Randy

Sorry for the lack of posts the past few months. I've been on a deadline and generally pretty miserable, so I didn't want to stink up the blog.

Randy sent me this great picture of him and Mike, so I thought I'd share it here (just because I liked it so much). Two of my favorite people:

I got to catch up with Randy over the holidays, so that was nice. Hopefully I'll get to see him a few times this year.

1995

My old buddy Chris Kemple sent me some photos over the weekend, and it was like getting a trip in a time machine. I don't think I've ever seen these before -- if I did, I just forgot about them. Even though I'm making stupid faces, I'm just so happy to have a few color shots of me and Mike together. And, in my office to boot! Those years are such a blur... it's just amazing to see shots like this.

Kemple was probably working on his adventure comic, Red Vengeance, at the time, and one of the benefits of having a studio was being able to quickly snap some reference photos. Rich, Tommy Lee, and Scott would do the same. Since all of us worked so much, photos like this are the only time capsule that exists.

I've gone from angry to sad over losing Mike in the past 2 months. These pictures really lifted my spirits. Thank you, Chris!

Nathan

Before I started this blog, I googled Artamus Studios to see what would come up. I'm glad I did, because I stumbled on to my old buddy Nathan Massengill's site. Nathan was always part of the gang even though he lived too far away to come in very often (like Randy!). But, I always looked forward to his visits and talking shop. Sometimes he would bring in artists that were down visiting with him like Pop Mahn and Ed McGuinness -- it was always fun! Anyway, thinking about Suzanne's recent post about how hard it was to get Mike away from the drawing board made me want to point folks over to Nathan's site for this:

http://nathanmassengill.com/blog/?p=10

Nathan is one of the most thoughtful guys I've known, and he did a much better job of putting this into words than I ever could.

Mike the Fan

I don't think anyone wanted to draw comics as much as Mike. There wasn't anyone who was more interested in comic fandom, comic book history, and reading interviews with a comic creator, than Mike. I think he had every single issue of Comic Interview -- he would read any interview that he could get his hands on. So, whatever CBG or Comic's Journal that was around... it's a pretty sure bet that Mike devoured it. One of his favorite books was Gerard Jones' The Comic Book Heroes: The First History of Modern Comic Books.

Mike read that book from cover-to-cover, twice (during '95-'98 at least). He just couldn't get enough. So, it's not surprising that the internet was like striking gold for Mike -- with an endless supply of interviews with creators from around the world. He loved getting to learn more about artists and their techniques, and you could tell from his Blog that he was happy to return the favor. Seeing Mike get his own Modern Masters volume from TwoMorrows Publishing was a proud damn day. I don't think anyone would've appreciated having something like that more than Mike.

The week after Mike passed away, I kept hearing people say "I wish he could've seen this" or "I wish he would've known" in regards to the huge outpouring that went out online ... which really was a wonderful and beautiful thing. But, I kept thinking.... he DID see this, he DID know how people felt -- he's one of the only people who have seen something like that. It was just a few years before when Marvel changed direction on Fantastic Four and people went absolutely ape shit. The news actually "broke" Newsarama for several days! You had an endless amount of people, fans and pros alike, testifying to the might of Waid & Ringo for page after page after page after page. And, the one thing I can be sure of, is that Mike read every single one of those posts that were up there. Every nerd on planet Earth stood up to profess their love for the work. And, even though there was a lot of stress at the time, I know that somewhere down deep, that Mike was smiling ... really, really fucking big. It was the first time something that huge had happened online, and it actually made Marvel reverse their decision. Totally unprecedented and unbelievable, and it's hard to say if it will happen again.