DYFL?

Sep. 19, 2012 at 8:43am with 197 notes

Reblogged from mattasticfour

Comics Work

Walt Simonson.

today will mark the end of my run with comics legend Walt Simonson in the pages of avengers. when I was 13 years old I met Walt Simonson at a local comic book show in Cleveland Ohio. I dropped my 13-year-old crappy portfolio in his lap and I started rattling off questions like: what do you draw first the perspective or the figures? I can’t remember much of what he said that day but I remember him filling me full of uncharacteristic confidence. whatever he said to me that day pushed me into the creator I am today. or at least the creator I am trying to be.

without question that was the day i became a comic book creator.

over the course of my high school years I would send Walt updates on my art and he would send me back letters of encouragement. I still have every single one. he genuinely seemed to remember who I was even though I’m very sure he didn’t.

slowly over the course of these many years I found Walt Simonson at a convention, in Columbus Ohio, and told him how important he was to me. years later he was trapped with me in a convention circuit in Australia for weeks. when things started working out for me at Marvel I made it very clear that when he was done with his work at DC I would love to collaborate on something. something big fun and superhero-ey. many years later he finally called and said were you serious?

and here we are. I tried to give him something that was a mix of what he does best and some things that I’ve never seen him do.

the good news is that someone I admired from afar was just as impressive when I got to work with him. it was a complete joy and definitely a time machine moment. I desperately want to go back in time and tell teenage me that not only was I writing the avengers but Walt Simonson was drawing them.

thank you Walt.

Walt is one of the best comics artists to ever live, and an amazing human being. The fact that my name is inside THE JUDAS COIN when all I did was, essentially, paperwork is sort of a crime, but hey, any excuse to touch the hem of greatness.