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| Look, up in the sky! Is she wearing pink leggings? |
When I was in school, around eight grade or so, I got into comics. I read a lot of them - Batman, Dragonlance Chronicles, Stormwatch, Gen 13, Deathlock, and several others - before I finally got hooked on Jim Lee and Chris Clermont's X-Men run. From then on, I was a fan. I loved Jim's art work and the stories (at the time) were incredible to me. Some of them still are. X-Men 1-3 of that run will always be solid storytelling and art in my opinion. Well, I loved to draw, so I figured, why not make comics myself? I got together with some friends (*waves to James and Joel and the crew of the Hercules 2020*) and we made plans to start Gelatinous Cube comics. We had a mascot, a storyline that tied all our stories together, characters, and a minor bit of talent. Things were going to be great and we were gonna make the greatest comics of all time.
Thank God or whatever beneficial force might be looking out for me because we did not.
We loved comics in a time when comics were going downhill in a lot of ways. The heroes were bigger than life, but sliding towards anti-hero/goth/emo trends and few were good guys or good stories anymore. Everything was about muscle, T&A and XTREME!!!! If you want to see any of it, look up Linkara and watch some of his stuff with 90’s kid. It’s a good example of what we were being fed. I still loved it however.
I never stopped working on those comics. The first thing I ever drew was a combination of my favorite X-Men characters as I’d hoped to get her into X-Men. She was a mutant named Billie Williams (cause I was an ENORMOUS douche back then. There are those that would argue I have not changed much. I am one of them most days) and she had three fingers on each hand (like Nightcrawler), was incredibly strong and got bigger when she absorbed energy directed attacks (like Strong Guy), could fly and was invulnerable (like Rogue). Well, after a while I tamed things down and actually started thinking about character and power and things of that nature. I know its hard to believe, but such things were important to me back then. There had to be a why and a how and a reason for this that and the other thing. I wanted Billie to be someone who was normal and had her life ripped away into this insanity when her mutant power finally became active. Soon, I had a mild mannered bank manager (who’s looks were very much based on Fairchild’s pre-power form from Gen13) who was going to be married, when her bank got robbed. Her fiancé’ (who, if I recall, looked like a bro for some reason) was killed in a blast during the robbery and the shock and fear and terror woke her powers. At this point, I’d also decided that things like Thor were bad. Superman is okay, he has a weakness, but Thor is a god and he’s basically used to pound the bad guys. So, Billie could fly, she could shoot blasts from her hands that were similar to Cyclops, but were heat and light based, so she could punch through a door, but she could also melt steel or something if it came to that. So was born ShadowFire.
That’s her you see up there. I told you she came from an odd time. It was all about cool outfits and such. her colors were blue and gold with the gold on the outside and the blue on the inside. For some reason that I don’t understand, only one of her arms had a sleeve. That’s Rogue’s coat you see her wearing, cause I learned to draw girls by copying Jim Lee’s version of Rogue. The gloves were just basic fingerless biker type gloves that I liked. Oh, and her leggings/boots were pink. I don’t know why. She used to have this thing that appears over her right eye as well, like a swirl thing, cause I liked Cable and he had something like that.
I was rather heavily influenced.
Now, if you weren’t paying attention, you might imagine that the picture above is one I drew back in high school while learning to draw. It is not. I drew that tonight. It took me an hour an a half. This is terrible. I hate most of what’s up there. The head’s too big, the legs and torso are too small, the arms are okay, and so’s the coat and perspective, but the hair sucks (I’ve never been able to do hair). There are those who are impressed I can do this. Those people don’t know that I USED to be able to draw, at least passably. No, seriously. Go on check it out.
You can see a bunch of stuff that I’m actually proud of, or at least, that I don’t totally hate. See, I used to love drawing. I drew all the time. ALL the time. I would come home from school, play some video games, then draw while I watched T.G.I.F. and various other TV shows I loved. I got actually pretty good. Now, I admit, I only practiced drawing people and never did background (something I regret to this day), but I had fun. I liked it. The picture above is a great representation of everything I've lost over the years to various sources. Its why now… well, I don’t know. I still like it, and I lose myself in it like I used to, but it’s almost become a chore. I have to force myself to draw.
Then again, I never should have stopped. I DO want to draw. I think I want to do it for a living. I love drawing my stupid Hometown stuff, trying to stylize it just so and make those silly faces that I must for a gag. But I can’t even do that anymore because I stopped. I stopped, well, I don’t know why. I just did. Time, stress, energy, depression, all big factors, but in the end, I just dropped doing things I liked. You know, like leaving the house, seeing my friends… living.
So, there’s a lot tied to drawing. A LOT. It means something to me, even if it sucks, and has a lot of memory attached to it, and a lot of hope, but both things are hard for me. I am keeping my promise though, to write and draw for at least two hours a night. Publishing too. That’s what this is. A small essay and commentary, and drawing. I want to get back to being me. The few things I find that I like help a lot. If I keep doing them, maybe I’ll get better.
Of course, I can write and draw without leaving the house.
Oh well. Win some lose some.
Later days.
