The Way back Machine 7:unpublished!

It's been awhile since I've done a "WBM" post. For those of you unfamiliar with these every so often I'll dig back into the files and show some old work. Sometimes old published pages but occasionally I'll show some unpublished pages.

Now these will take a little explanation. around 1993/1994 when I first started doing sequential work. post college, I hooked up with X-factor/Alien Legion artist and his fledgling company Axis comics, took take over as the artist of a book called "W" about a team of superpowered international mercenaries.

Now the thing about these pages is I had not seen them since then until C2E2. Larry, who I hadn't seen since then brought them to me at the convention ( I have to admit, it had been so long I didn't recognize him, or the artwork at first, LOL) in a plain manila envelope.

It's weird to see your old work, especially the really early stuff that was A)No where near as good as I thought they were B) the only surviving originals I have from that period of my life.

A former fiancee of mine burned the rest out of spite.

It's long story.

There were two things that I noticed immediately. The first being that my "style", the line that I use is still very similar. The line weight is the same but everything else has improved, figures, faces , especially, have solidified. The backgrounds and story telling are much more complex now. Back then i was something of a "purist" when it came to comics. i refused to use reference, preferring to draw everything from my imagination.

BIG MISTAKE! I used to use photo's and models in my illustration work but for some reason I didn't carry it over to comics, which is the opposite of the advice I give to artist now.

This is just really bad storytelling as well. the flow of the page keeps changing because I keep breaking the two camera rule, or the 180 degree rule.

*The 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.

The second is that I see all of the rookie mistakes that I see in portfolios at conventions. I'm really surprised I got any pro work at all honestly, but everyone has to start from somewhere.

This job was also the first time I worked with Rob Stull, my former inker on Firestorm.