I write my comic scripts on a laptop computer, and I draw my comic pages using a Wacom tablet in Photoshop. I couldn’t have imagined doing that when I was a kid. After writing with a pad and pencil, my mom allowed me to use her IBM Selectric typewriter. Which I started out doing with one finger hunt and peck. In high school I’d take typing classes (do those exist anymore?) As to drawing I just grabbed a handful of typing paper and drew with a pencil… (either that or drew on the brown paper bag book covers at school.) Eventually taking art classes.

Even though I was just a kid, and starting to learn how to drawn and write, I knew what I wanted to be. Learning would begin by studying and emulating the writers and artists I so admired.

The first comic, which I written about multiple times here, was written by Len Wein. I would discover his writing, and editing, in so many books I read. Later he’d become a friend. I so wish I had the opportunity to asking more questions about those early books I read and loved before his passing.

The second writer I discovered (though there were others, but they didn’t make an impact upon me at that point) was Roy Thomas the writer of the All-Star Squadron. I loved his writing of the Golden Age heroes and introducing new characters to the pantheon while including actual historical events to the stories. I’ve already written about that.

Following that I was reading other books with other writers, but it would in the pages of the The New Teen Titans that I would discover Marv Wolfman’s writing. It was a great series of super hero stories, but there was one early issue that told me how good he was at storytelling.

The New Teen Titans #18

On the surface, the story was re-introducing a super hero that first appeared in the original Teen Titans #18 back in 1968. This hero, from the USSR, was named Starfire, but one of our new team members had that name. So, the cover shows him having defeated her and ready to destroy the rest of the Titans. The question is WHY? It was an all-out fighting issue, but something was going on beneath all that. Something very dangerous, and a threat to the nation, but in the end, it was heart breaking romance story. (Read it.)

It was this story that told me comics and super heroes could be so much more than villain of the month and team ups. This was the type of stories I wanted to tell.

Marv would also be the very first comic book writer that I saw in the credits of animation in such shows as G.I. Joe and JEM and the Holograms.

The next writer that stood out to me was Mike W. Barr on The Brave and the Bold teaming up Batman with other heroes (other writers worked on this book in the past and I’d discover them in the back issue bin and love them). As he ended that book (it came to an end) he continued writing Batman in a team series called BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS.

On both The Brave and The Bold and Batman and The Outsiders, Barr worked with artist Jim Aparo. Who, to me, is the greatest Batman artist. It is his art that I see when I think of Batman.

This would be the first team book I’d read from the very start. Batman broke away from the Justice League. Though he had no intention of searching for new heroes to be a part of, he found ones that needed his help and to be able to help each other. It was just a darn good book.

More importantly, because of his work on BATO I discovered Barr’s other work, and completely fell in love with his independent comic THE MAZE AGENCY; about a private detective and her mystery writer boyfriend. For someone who loved mystery stories like Ellery Queen, and television shows like Remington Steele (that should date me), or Castle, this comic was an absolute must have. Soft arm chair mysteries, they were very enjoyable.

Now for a couple of writers who are also artists.

I first discovered John Byrne on FANTASTIC FOUR (yes, that’s Marvel Comics not DC. It was probably the only Marvel comic I read for many years. I was a DC kid after all). Byrne’s Fantastic Four had so many interesting things about it. He expanded upon Jack Kirby’s original stories and create an internal logic to the “science” in these stories.

One of Byrne’s FF stories that impacted me, was very similar to Marv Wolfman’s Titan story. This story, in Fantastic Four 285, took place in the middle of Marvel’s second SECRET WARS cross over story in which the cosmic character called The Beyonder, interacts in the lives of many heroes, this time he steps into the life of Johnny Storm, The Human Torch, who has discovered what he means to the world, and to a young boy who is picked on all his life and admires the Torch to the point of setting himself on fire. It’s a very heart-breaking story but well worth the read.

I would follow John Byrne again when he took over the Superman books along with Marv Wolfman, then on to his own book THE NEXT MEN. He would do other books for DC and other companies. His most disappointing book, as I mentioned in my previous post, was his time on Wonder Woman.

George Perez, as I mentioned previously was the artist on The New Teen Titans and then the CRISIS (plus a ton of covers, and work at Marvel), afterward he wrote and drew the new WONDER WOMAN series, able to start her origin from scratch as her character got a reboot in the CRISIS. I’ve gone into this in the last blog, but leave it to say it was not only beautiful artwork, the story was solid; based in Greek mythology and the modern world’s threat of war.

Artist Adam Hughes is best known for his sexy girl art. He’s a wonderful artist, and yes, his women are very beautiful but they were never sexy for sexy sake. There was a realistic look to them in his clean line form. His Wonder Woman covers are the best. Most people knew his art from when he took over as artist on the Justice League (after Kevin Maguire another fantastic artist that was perfect for the book at that time.). For me however, I discovered Adam Hughes on the previous mention MAZE AGENCY. Even though we have a beautiful woman as the lead, the world in which the characters existed and how they interacted was so well done as Barr’s story went on to solve the mystery.

Now let me bring you to my favorite comic book artist, the one that has been there from the very beginning.

Jerry Ordway was one of the regular artists on The All-Star Squadron, and his art had such a nostalgic feel to match the time period and the heroes in the book. It was perfect. As I wanting to be a comic artist, it was Ordway’s work that I studied more than any other.

He would go one to be the first artist on the ALSS’ spin off book INFINITY-INC. I also discovered that he had been an inking on John Byrne’s Fantastic Four. His inking style gave so much to those pages on top of Byrne’s own great work.

As mentioned, he would become the inker on George Perez’s art of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. The two artists were perfect together. As mentioned previously Perez represented the modern Earth 1 and Ordway represented the Golden Age Earth 2, so they worked so well in combining those worlds.

After the Crisis was over and the new world came together. Jerry was the artist on Marv Wolfman’s ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN series alongside Byrne’s Action Comics and Superman Books. After Wolfman and Byrne left the books, Ordway became one of the regular writers as well.

After that he was the artist/writer on the graphic novel THE POWER OF SHAZAM, retelling and updating the origin of the original and one true CAPTAIN MARVEL (stupid copyright issues). After the success of the graphic novel, there would be an ongoing series about the good Captain and the rest of the Marvel Family (again this is still DC).

Recently he’s being doing sequences of pages in the newest JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA series. I wish he was doing the whole thing ongoing.

There are many other comic book writers and artist that I admire, but the ones mentioned here made the greatest impact on me and my own abilities as an artist and writer as I was getting started.