Sunday Mailbag- Monday Edition: Inspirations?

Q: How did you get into art and decide to make a career out of it? Who were your inspirations?

A: I can quite honestly day that I’ve never wanted to be anything but an artist. My very earliest memories regarding what I loved to do and what I wanted to be when I “grew up” (still waiting for that to happen) are of me, stacks of paper and drawing implements.

If I had to pick something that was a catalyst for that lifelong desire to be an artist, it would probably be Batman. I was born in 1966, and the Batman TV show was the big thing at the time. Even though I was just a baby my parents said I reacted to the Batman theme music and when I was old enough to sit in front of the TV and watch it the show was in reruns. at age three I was toddling around the living room with a towel pinned around my neck and yelling “POW”, “BIFF”, “KABLAM”. My dad was a manager of a grocery store and would bring home Batman comics for me. I’d make him draw me Batman and the Batsignal all the time (He couldn’t draw but he did his best). Well before I started school I was drawing Batman and other superheroes, and I never stopped drawing.

Thanks to JC Mullins for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!