The Spectacle — My Comic Book Art

For those that have read my “About Me”, you may have noticed the phrase “amateur comic book artist”, but not have known what that meant.

Well, my son Leighton just purchased a WACOM Intuos4 graphics tablet, and he asked me to draw “The Spectacle”, my first comic-book hero:

I named and created “The Spectacle” when I was in 4th grade, and trust me … he didn’t look like this back then! And really, it’s a funny name, I admit, but I was only 10 years old.

It took me eight years to get to the skill level you see here, and back then I only had paper, pencils, and markers. The WACOM tablet took a bit of getting used to … that and the fact that I haven’t actively drawn comic-book characters for a few decades.

Those with a bit of memory in comic books may notice a similarity to the 1980’s Captain Marvel from Marvel Comics … and you would be right!

Those astute with anatomy will probably notice many mistakes … hey, I was never a professional, okay, but it’s still fun.

Anyway, during my comic book days, I created around 17 full-length, full-color comic books.

The big problem was that once I got to a certain point, they would take so long that my art got better by the end, and I had to go back and re-draw the cover. That reminds me of learning to write novels! Hah!

Why did I get into art? Well … I grew up in an artistic family. My father painted portraits and signs … My mother drew, painted, and created stained glass … My sister is a trained commercial artist … and everyone else can draw if they put their mind to it.

And I’m only sticking with my generation on up … I could go further if I wrote about the grand-kids and great-grand-kids, some of whom are older than I since I was the youngest of six.

(I will mention my daughter, Adele, however, who has surpassed me in portrait drawing .. amazing! And my other two kids have great artistic ability as well.)

For what it’s worth, I hope this little trip to the past was fun for you, my loyal blog readers.

And remember … drawing is NOT in your hand. It’s in your eye. Observe closely, and you will be able to draw!