Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: EW and The Aspiring Artist

First things first, Elk's Run is the shit:

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There was an update yesterday, in case you didn’t know. Today I’m continuing to show off the horrendous writings and drawings I made between the age of 13 and 15 by exploring my early attempts at comic art.

There was a magical time when a certain young artist inspired every thirteen year old kid to put pencil to paper and start making comics. It was a time when story was sacrificed for cool poses, where every character looked the same, had nonsensical shading and anatomy that made God wept. It was a time where any given kid, despite the handicap, could pick up a comic and say, “I can do that.” I was that kid. My handicap was the inability to draw. The year was 1992.

The year we were first blessed with YOUNGBLOOD. I remember the hype. I remember going to Mannix and buying two copies of Youngblood #1, one for saving and one for reading. I remember opening it up and saying, “Holy Fuck, I can do that.” And I remember drawing Rip-Tide, looking at it and thinking I can make an honest shot at this comic drawing thing. Wouldn’t you?

Sure she looks like Tina Turner. Sure she has a deformed arm (with deformed hand) coming out of her head. Sure her left breast is smaller than the right. Sure her left shoulder is the biggest fucking shoulder ever. Sure she had no nose and no ass and her vagina starts way too high. But fuck it, I practically light-boxed that shit from a Youngblood comic.

Here would be a good place to show-off the character designs for my own comic, but I’ll do that on Friday. For now, let’s continue to enjoy my attempts at other people’s characters. Like Venom, for instance.

Wow, look at that spittle. Ignore the fucking mongoloid head and 56-inch right bicep. That spittle is dope. That’s some McFarland spittle. And look at those teeth, the detail. Ignore the tongue that just sort of “starts”, though. And definitely ignore that 3-inch wide left elbow.

I was a big McFarland fan. I knew Liefeld’s writing sucked and I was catching on that his drawings weren’t that good. But McFarland, back then, was my fucking man. Look at all of Spider-Man’s webs! Look at the size of Spawn’s cape! The detail! Look at how many words Spider-Man is saying! And they don’t always end in exclamation points, like other writers! That must be some artsy shit! If there was any creator I wanted to be back then it was McFarland. Well, McFarland or Jim Lee, which brings me to this Gambit picture.

What the fuck was it that made every kid my age obsessed with Gambit? And shading, what made us obsessed with shading? Even better, what made us obsessed with the really, really shitty characters like Darkhawk:

I think the anatomy jokes are plaid at this point but I will say that FDR had a better chance of walking than my Darkhawk did. I loved Darkhawk. And Sleepwalker. What. The. Fuck. I swear to God, when I was a teenager Marvel comics where taking the books that housed their weakest ideas and lining the paper with acid so that when you touched it, it seeped through your skin and made you believe it was the best idea ever.

What was Darkhawk’s power? He flew and had a whip? Sheesh.

Eventually I started experimenting with color. The one picture I still have from this era is of Bloodshot:

I’m not going to lie, even now with all the hatred towards gimmicks and things like chromium covers, Barry Windsor-Smith’s cover to Bloodshot #1 is one of the most eye catching covers of all time. You can put a thousands comics on a wall and my eyes will be drawn to that Bloodshot cover.

Unfortunately, my complete lack of artistic training completely destroyed that picture and any other image that might have done Bloodshot’s weak character any justice whatsoever. .

But I thought I could draw. No school, never drew before. But a certain man inspired me to dream and God-damn it I was going to try.

Labels: mitc

EW and The Aspiring Artist

Monday, May 30, 2005

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