I’m in the home stretch of finishing the first issue of SPIDER-MAN/FANTASTIC FOUR with only 2 pages to go. Once again, this morning’s sketching has primed the pump… but nothing worth showing has resulted, so I thought I’d go into my binder full of copies of odds and ends that many of you might not have seen. This first piece is something I did for a HERO INITIATIVE (formerly A.C.T.O.R.) auction held down at MEGACON several years back. I think it was while CROSSGEN was still in existance– and while Mark Waid was there working for them. I mention that because, if memory serves, Mark bid on and won this piece. It’s interesting to look back on work from even an handful of years ago and notice how things have changed in my drawing in that time. At this point, my work was a bit more…. bloopy… I guess you could say– much rounder and softer. I was also drawing the feet on my characters much bigger and balloon-like as well.

This second piece is a pencil page I did for an issue of IRON MAN a couple of years ago (I don’t remember how many, exactly). I think the premise was that Tony Stark was having a series of fevered dreams that thrust him into different bizarre situations. The editor at the time asked me if I’d be into drawing Tony in an ALICE IN WONDERLAND setting. It’s not often that one gets asked to draw a studly male hero from a comic book in a dress and in such a fun and odd landscape– so it was a natural that I’d say yes. It was indeed a lot of fun to do.

OK… hopefully I’ll have something original to post on Wednesday.

This is Entry 338.

Mike