My Childhood Love of Superheroes

My earliest recollection of my introduction to superheroes began with my interest in The Lone Ranger, Superman, Batman, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Spider-Man, and The Six Million Dollar Man. As you can imagine, this love of these wonderful fictional characters came to be through the medium of television before I could read.

As a kid before I could read, I had action figures of G.I. Joe Adventure Team, Steve Austin, Evel Knievel, Micronauts, and then the Mego toys. Saturday mornings were the best day of the week where I could watch cartoons for four hours straight and may be lucky enough to watch Evel Knievel or Muhammad Ali on ABC’s Wide-World of Sports with my Dad. My afternoons were filled with watching reruns of the 1960’s Batman, Little Rascals and the Three Stooges.

Most of this happened before three major events in my childhood: (1) the birth of my brother, (2) Star Wars, and (3) my ability to learn how to read.

My recollection was that I was a Southern boy living in Fresno, California with a heavy Southern drawl. I would say “thee” instead of “the” and I sounded like a young Forrest Gump. Because of that, I was made fun of by the other kids in my class when it came time to read out loud. The humiliation caused me not to want to speak in public and it was impacting my reading skills at an early age.  On top of that, I was bored with the “I See Sam” books that I was forced to read with the rest of my classmates.

My Dad did something to change my story.

My First Comic Books

The first comic book that I can remember owning was ALL-STAR COMICS #58 (Jan-Feb 1976) which came out just before I turned five-years old.  For those comic book collectors out there, you know that this issue was special because ALL-STAR COMICS #57 had come out in 1951. This issue was a re-launch of the Justice Society of America with the Earth-2 Super Squad and this was the debut of Power Girl. This issue also happens to have a cover illustrated by Mike Grell  ( a person that I will comment more about later).

Talk about a first issue! Wow! It also had an Earth-2 Robin that didn’t look like the Robin from the SUPER FRIENDS cartoon, but immediately, I learned this was a parallel world. I understood instantly at early age.

From there, my Dad realized that while I wasn’t too thrilled on reading my school reading assignments, I could hardly put down these comic books. From there, I read ACTION COMICS starring Superman, DETECTIVE COMICS with Batman and Robin, SGT. ROCK, SCALPHUNTER, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and a favorite – WORLD’S FINEST which also starred Superman and Batman, but what more importantly, starred Green Arrow and Black Canary. Two characters that I would fall in love with.

My Dad would pick up comic books for me throughout my childhood. One of my still cherished books is a book that he gave me for my 8^th birthday in 1979 just before we moved to Springfield, Illinois. He gave me the 40^th Anniversary Edition book of SUPERMAN: FROM THE THIRTIES TO THE SEVENTIES which featured the best stories of Superman. I still have the book with my Dad’s loving inscription hand-written inside the book cover.

Star Wars and Superman

In May 1977, my world changed with the release of STAR WARS on the big screen. I would play with Star Wars figures for the next decade and religiously read the various Star Wars comics that Marvel produced. Some of my earlier interests waned, but I also continued to read WORLD’S FINEST COMICS and JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA on a regular basis where my interest in Green Arrow grew.

Then, in 1978, Christopher Reeve portrayed the Man of Steel on the big screen. I was branded a comic book geek for life.

It was at about this age that I told myself that one day, I wanted to write and draw comics.

Move to Springfield and the Eighties

My parents moved my brother and me from Fresno, California to Springfield, Illinois in 1979. We were regular kids, growing up in a small town. I felt we lived a great childhood with school, Wiffle Ball baseball games, bike riding, swimming, playing army, collecting cards and comics, playing with toys,  trips to the mall and arcade. During the summers, we pretty much had to be home by the time the street lights came on.

In 1982, Hasbro reinvented the G.I. Joe brand by releasing as 3 ¾” G.I. Joe Action Figure and making it a “Mobile Strike Force Team” that fought the terrorist enemy army of Cobra Command. My younger brother, Steve, collected the figures. I collected the comics and we both watched the cartoons after school. I continued reading all sorts of comic books during that era, where I mainly loved the military books like G.I. Joe, Sgt. Rock, and the Unknown Soldier. I still read lots of Justice League and Batman books, but I was following Green Arrow wherever he would pop up.

Mature-Themed Comics of the Late 1980’s.

While I was in high school, comics went through a bit of a radical change with Alan Moore’s WATCHMEN and Frank Miller’s THE DARK NIGHT RETURNS. As I was hitting my teenage years and growing up, it seemed to me that comics were growing up along with me. Tougher storylines such as BATMAN: YEAR ONE and then Green Arrow was reinvented with Mike Grell’s LONGBOW HUNTERS.

My brother was mainly reading Marvel Comics and a huge X-MEN fan. There was still a stigma of sorts in those early teenage years that I was still reading comics. I remember walking to White Oaks Mall and purchasing issues at Osco Drugs and hoping none of my classmates would see me because many thought comics were for kids and being a teen meant you had to put away childish things. Finally, with these “mature themed” comics, it kind of allowed me to save a social face and not worry any longer about being caught reading these four-colored wonders.

And then I was introduced to the black and white manga book that was LONE WOLF AND CUB thanks to Frank Miller’s cover illustration. This Japanese samurai tale by writer Kozue Okami and artist Goseki Kojima that was translated in English woke me up to the artform that comics could be.

The latter part of my teenage years exploded with my interest in comics as I began to read all sorts of books on the market and find back issues with Green Arrow/Green Lantern by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams.

At age 13, I created a comic book character called The Emerald Mantis in my sketch books.  I continued to draw, draw and draw. I loved all my art classes and in the back of my head, I knew I still wanted to be a comic book. While I originally started to draw because of my love of comic book characters, I was also going through a love of Art in general. Still, in those formative years, Stan Lee’s and John Buscema’s book, HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE MARVEL WAY became my artistic bible. While it showed an up and coming artist what it took to pencil and ink comic books, what it really did was put down a basic foundation of learning to draw with fundamental principles that apply to all art.

Pretty sneaky sis!

The 1990’s – Adulthood, Comics and My Aspirations

While at Illinois State University in the early 1990’s, I pursued my study of fine arts with drawing and printmaking. I made no secret that I still loved the comic book medium to the chagrin of some of my instructors and fellow classmates. I was told by one of my instructor’s that my desire to write and draw comic books was a waste of my time and talents and that I needed to concentrate on “real art”. I kept to my traditional studies of art, but the comic medium had molded me into the artist that I was.

I was continuing to read comics at this time. Image Comics launched with Todd McFarland’s SPAWN and I was digging the writing of this fellow named Chuck Dixon. He was writing ROBIN and DETECTIVE COMICS and later on NIGHTWING, PUNISHER and GREEN ARROW. Dixon immediately was becoming my favorite new writer.

Since 1987, I had read Mike Grell’s GREEN ARROW monthly series religiously. Grell was my favorite Artist/Writer and he was my inspiration that I could be one too. When he left the series just before my last year of college, I was heartbroken. On my 20^th birthday, I made a list of goals for what I wanted to do by the time I turned 30. On that list… I decided that wanted to write GREEN ARROW.

Just out of college, married and working at a Kinko’s during a graveyard shift in Atlanta, Georgia, I began planning a self-published opus that I was going to call THE OUTCAST SEVEN. This comic book series starred my martial arts character, The Emerald Mantis, and took place in a fictional city called St. François de port. I also had a female character called The Tricrüstic and a stuntman named who would later become a character I named Crash Colton.

By the mid-1990’s, Chuck Dixon took over writing GREEN ARROW with the new character named Connor Hawke, though my hero, Oliver Queen had been killed off. Around this same time, I was enjoying James Robinson and Tony Harris on STARMAN , Mike Mignola on HELLBOY and Tom Peyer on HOURMAN.

The Internet Age and Breaking into Comics

Starting in 1996, the World Wide Web was starting to take off. I was learning to design web pages in Pagemill software and thought it would be interesting if I designed a fansite of some sort of interest that people would flock to. I tried to think of something that there wasn’t already a lot of information on out there – my choice became Green Arrow.

The Emerald Archer was my favorite character. So around October 1997, I launched the Unofficial Green Arrow Compendium website. It was a resource for Green Arrow with history, toys, comic checklists, news, character bios, and all sorts of other tidbits on the Battling Bowmen. The fansite was received praise, mentions and awards. For me, it was something to do as a pastime as I honed my web design skills and played fanboy. What unexpectedly happened though… I started to mingle with the comic book creators that included Denny O’Neil, Elliot S! Maggin, Devin Grayson, Mark Wade, editor Darren Vincenzo and then Chuck Dixon. Dixon, at the time, was writing Green Arrow and I was a fan giving his book full support.

Out of this fansite endeavor, opportunities arose. I was given news bits and things “unofficially under the table” to help promote GREEN ARROW for DC Comics. At this same time, both Sean Taylor (another aspiring writer with a YOUNG JUSTICE fansite) and I were given a freelance job of writing for West End Games where we were penning the bios and stats of character for the DC COMICS UNIVERSE ROLE PLAYING GAME.

In 1998, I had traveled to my first Wizard World Chicago where I met Chuck Dixon. I show him some samples of my art and provided him with my business card. At that time, I helped moderate an unofficial Green Arrow Message Board and helped out at the sister Birds of Prey message board. At this time, DCComics legal department was starting to shut down some fansites. Chuck contacted me and we launched his Dixonverse website where I became his webmaster and message board moderator. At approximately this same time, I also became the webmaster for Chuck Dixon, Denny O’Neil, Scott Beatty, Devin Grayson, Brian K. Vaughan and Jay Faerber. I was also a co-editor of the O’NEIL OBSERVER FANZINE. It was a whirlwind time of my life.

Approximately 1999, I began to work more closely with Chuck Dixon. I illustrated a prospective Green Arrow story at that time when Dixon left the book. At that point, it was announced that Kevin Smith would become the writer of a newly launched GREEN ARROW series. I had a few conversations with the Mallrats director and got my next big break. I became a consultant on the GREEN ARROW series as he wrote where I provided feedback and continuity checks.

I first got notice during the Wizard World Convention panel in 2001 where I was at the table with editor Bob Schreck, writer Kevin Smith, cover artist Matt Wagner, penciller Phil Hester, and inker Ande Parks. Kevin was about to leave the monthly series and a fan asked him who he would like to replace him. Kevin told the audience that he wanted me to be the next writer. WIZARD MAGAZINE and others speculated, but the assignment went to Brad Meltzer. I stayed on to help Brad Meltzer in the same capacity and I was continuing work on the various DC UNIVERSE ROLEPLAYING GAME handbooks. I had also helped Devin Grayson with her four-part ARSENAL mini-series. I was doing everything I could at that time to break in and write for DC Comics.

My break came with a story that I wrote for GREEN ARROW SECRET FILES #1 (Dec 2002). I penned the story that first told the tale of Ollie’s parents and how they died. I also wrote several character bios and the infamous chili recipe.  There was a few moments there where it looked like I might have received

Shooting Star Comics

Around this same time, I also became involved with several of my friends on the Dixonverse website in another endeavor that launched an independent comic company that I was to be a co-owner of called Shooting Star Comics. Together, many of us collaborated to put together an anthology series of our own personal comic stories and art. I dusted off the old OUTCAST SEVEN idea and turned it into THRILL SEEKER COMICS. It became a regular feature in the anthology which finally launched that character called The Emerald Mantis.

What unexpectedly became a hit though was a throwaway character that I called The Yellow Jacket: Man of Mystery. He is a pulp fiction fedora/trenchcoat/mask wearing character that was my take on The Phantom/Green Hornet/Crimson Avenger/Spider/The Shadow… except mine had a bit of a Southern George Clooney O, BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? Influence on it.  Yellow Jacket immediately became my indy hit sensation.

Shooting Star Comics involved a lot of egos. Mine included was a big one. Unfortunately, some noses got knocked out of joint, toes were stepped on, friendships were tested. All of us put in a lot of money to get this off the ground. We had potential. We did good for those few short years, but members began to slowly drop off one at a time. I became more involved on the design/production/management side and by 2006, those of us that were still left decided it was time to close shop.

During the run, I worked with Chuck Dixon and even got a chance to collaborate on a cover with my hero, Mike Grell. It was a collaborative piece on SHOOTING STAR COMICS ANTHOLOGY #6 that he illustrated and I digitally colored. And to top it off, Mike illustrated my creation... The Yellow Jacket: Man of Mystery. A dream come true!

Some friendships were repaired. Some remained damaged to this day. But the shooting star fizzled out.

Today

Since the demise of Shooting Star Comics, I began concentrating on my health. That time that I was dedicating to writing and drawing comics was turned to time that I worked out in the karate dojo where after three years, I earned my black belt. The temperament changed at DC Comics under new management. Editors and folks that I knew, are for the most part, no longer there. I got my foot in the door but I think my associations with other creators also hurt other chances to do more work. It is a shame.

But I also removed myself, only doing some sporadic work here and there with other comic companies. Now, that things are back in order, I’m dusting off THRILL SEEKER COMICS and hoping to revive it as I continue to work on other side projects outside my dayjob at Benedictine University at Springfield.

Now that I am approaching 40, my enthusiasm isn’t the same as it was a decade ago, but my love for comics has never ceased. I continue to read new comics out there, but love returning into my own back issue bin at home to read classic tales of yesteryear. I've got some more tales in me to write and draw in the years to come. Keep checking my website for updated info from time to time.