First Comic Book Page

Recently, I had a chance to check out [adult swimmin'], C. Martin Croker's [adult swim] themed blog. Needless to say, it's an inspiration to me on more than one level. It was through Clay that I came about having the chance to draw my first comic book page in the industry, which was certainly a goal I had worked towards (and dreamed about) for many years. Because of his blog, I realized it's been almost a decade since I worked as an assistant on Space Ghost Coast to Coast. At this time Clay was drawing the first ever Coast to Coast spin-off for DC Comics. It was titled something like, Cartoon Network Special, but I'd have to look it up to find out for sure. Anyway, he would work on the book in addition to his usual routine of creating new animation for the show as well as driving back and forth to record V.O. (as Zorak and Moltar). So, it wasn't long before he asked Robert Pope and me to help draw some of the pages. We worked on a few books in this manner. Usually, we were finishing panels that he had already laid out. This page (written by Andy Merrill), was the first one that he asked me to come up with the layout and draw the pencils! I was ecstatic!


After all these years, I still think the page holds up pretty well (even better than a few I did much later). I think I was really warmed up at this time, and it helped to have the input of Clay and Pope working as a studio effort on the comic book rather than the usual solo approach.

Thanks to this opportunity (thanks Clay), I'm still freelancing for DC Comics (and Pope is too) helping out with any and all Cartoon Network properties that I have time to draw.