Hello,


I was an avid reader of comic books(mostly independents and mostly black & white) from the early 1980s until the mid-to-late 1990s. After much of my collection was sold off for financial reasons I have held onto those indies from the 1980s and 90s...even the bad ones. I cannot really explain why but when walking into my local specialty shop(O'Leary's Books which was, at the time one of the world's largest comic shops), something like Justice Machine(then published by Comico) grabbed my attention while books like the X-Men, and such did not so much. I would beat someone bloody to get the latest copy of Stephen Darklord: The Survivor(R.A.K. Graphics) but could do without The Punisher(except for the Mike Zeck books).

Before I stopped reading/buying them a second independent boom had occurred. Malibu publishing was the third largest publisher and threatening D.C. for the #2 spot with their then creator-owned "Ultraverse" line and such but Marvel was like some greedy juggernaught(no pun intended), buying up independents like Malibu as well as distributors themselves like Diamond...in essence forcing their brand of(at the time) crappily written, uninteresting and often poorly drawn(all their good(and a few bad) artists went to work for Image) shite onto all of us. Suddenly all of the smaller, independent books were either pushed off the shelves by multi-variant cover Marvel books and the formerly creator-owned Ultraverse was transformed into standard Marvel tripe.

I walked away from them cold turkey. I used to spend hundreds of dollars a month on comic books but have scarcely shelled out 2$ for one in the last 9 years or so.

I also used to draw comics in an amateur capacity but never had any of my actual work published(One bunch stole some of my work but never actually got off the ground as far as I know) but one or two of my characters(created for CD/album covers) have appeared in Fat Freddy's underground comics, courtesy of my friend Jason(who was writing and drawing for them a few years ago).

Unfortunately I am a type 1 diabetic and what doctors sometimes refer to as a "brittle diabetic" in that my blood sugars are damned near uncontrollable. I have had so many seizures and other related health problems that drawing and painting is a laborious task at best anymore.

I still do some graphics work on occasion but this is mostly 2D pixel graphics for shareware/freeware computer games(oldshcool CRPGs and such) and will probably get back into doing flier and jacket artwork for local bands at some point.

I am also a skeptic and atheist. You can visit my MySpace Page and check out my blogs there.


UPDATE!!

I am buying comics again, mostly through eBay and such. Been mostly restocking my old indie favorites, especially the Tim Vigil/Faust stuff but also lots of Blackthorne & Aircel and so forth. Still won't go near mainstream(especially Marvel) though.