ComicSpace - Read Bulletin

Home / Jhames34 / Bulletins / Read Bulletin

Befriend Jhames34

« Back

Posted by:

Jhames34

Date:

March 29th, 2007 11:56 AM

Header:

Star Comics but with guns!

Bulletin:

(continuing my autobiography)
When I was 10, my family moved from the town of New Holland to Reamstown, PA in the summer of 1987. Soon after my relocation, I discovered an antique store that always seemed to have comic books for sale! One of my fondest comic book memories was probably also my first JACK KIRBY exposure as well! I bought an issue of Tales of Suspense, a Marvel comic that featured two stories per issue, serialized. One of the stories was a Kirby Captain America story where the Red Skull had finally acquired the Cosmic Cube! Because of that antique store, I was given a dose of Kirby magic well after his prime! I was hooked! (The other story was an Iron Man story featuring a crazy Sub-Mariner chasing after him and beating Iron Man up pretty badly. I have very fond memories of that Don Heck drawn story as well)
Despite the impact that Kirby comic had on me, I fell into what became known as the "Image Trap," I thought Jim Lee was the ONLY comic book artist worth a grain of salt, and eventually warmed to such talents (heh) as McFarlane and Liefeld. One of my friends was sickened by the 'appalling' art that a fill-in artist had in an issue of Liefeld's X-Force, but I liked the style to what I was seeing. That artist was Mike Mignola! I think the way Mignola's fill-in was recieved is a very clear statement about
the 90's comic book standards.
* * *
I don't remember exactly what inspired me, but at about age FIVE I became obsessed with drawing. Who knows WHAT it is that makes US want to draw, but whatever it was, I was hooked by it. The first character I remember creating was a Rock-n-Roller with spikey hair. He looked like a pineapple. That was probably shortly after realizing that people's arms do NOT come out of one's head, but one's torso! (I [i]STILL[/i} keep forgetting that!
* * *
When I was younger, Nick Fury was my hero. NO one could be cooler to me than the SHIELD agent! I even made a fake SHIELD I.D. card for myself! I loved that he was a tough-talking aggressive take-no-prisoners sunova-you-know-what. Unlike me at the time, but boy did I have high hopes! Today, I'm a total hard-edge mean machine...if you ignore my Hello Kitty wallet, that is...
NEXT: making love to your art: how to avoid paper cuts

« Back

Befriend Jhames34