HOME | DD

Description
(C)DC/WB

'But what is that thing with you being against DC?', I was asked recently because of my known 'Marvel Zombie' stance and quite public anti-DC attitude as the reader-follower.

It's not just the affection and the known traits that characterize someone's choice... sure thing, there are folks quite comfortable following and liking BOTH publishers and approaches to the medium, the same with those exclusively supporting alternative scene, Dark Horse, IDW, Zenescope, Image... but in MOST cases it was almost always pro-Marvel/pro-DC division. I mean, in an episode of THE SIMPSONS Miss Crabbabble has cancelled the wedding, telling the unlucky groom - ComicBook Man - 'Take it as this: I am Marvel, you are DC' to which he's replied, 'I have nothing to add to that'. Or something along those lines...

Anyway, years ago, in the mid-90s I've lived in London UK as a struggling cartoonist and I've learned that DC is hunting a replacement for the allegedly seriously ill artist Mike Parobeck on the BATMAN ADVENTURES monthly comicbook, also known colloquially as 'Animated Batman Comic'. To cut to the chase, I was privileged to encounter at a London UKCAC comics con the DC employee-cum-talent headhunter [ at the time ] and the very series` colourist Rick Taylor who liked my samples [ Mighty Max penciled and inked pages plus TONS of Animated Batman pencils in the vein of the great Bruce Timm and the aforementioned M.Parobeck who very soon passed away due to the complications with diabetes ].
After returning to the US he's faxed me THE DIALOGUE LIST, not the complete script... precious time lost... Then the script arrived and I drew the complete 8-page episode, NOT for the regular DC monthly but the licensed juvenile mag with short strips drawn in the Timm's 'animated style' about Batman and other DC superheroes by M. Parobeck, on top of his monthly Batman Adventures duties.

I did the pencils... inked them after they were photocopied. Enclosed character studies, even small 'Thank You' sketches for each and every 'Animated Batman' crew member: for Mike Parobeck, inker Rick Burchet, colourist Rick Taylor, writer Kelley Puckett and editor Scott Peterson. FED-EXed the package to them, soon got Rick Taylor's phonecall from NYC telling me THAT THE JOB IS MINE IF I WANT IT and that was it.
No script has arrived for me to illustrate... after several weeks I've phoned DC, to learn from Rick Taylor that things've happened, someone else got the gig since poor Mike Parobeck has died and THAT was it.

Maybe The Worst aspect of this all was my stupid announcement to everyone I knew at the time [ thank Heavens for no blogs, forums, messageboards etc. at that time of the Internet's infancy ] that I'm The New Batman Artist.
For months whoever's met me was going 'Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na... BATMAAAAAN!'. I've almost self-combusted in shame.

It's all long gone but not forgotten. I know - $h!+ happens and all but something has snapped inside me. My prevalent affection for Marvel's become predominant and soon I've put my ambitions and dreams to rest for a full decade during which I haven't drawn or bought a comic, doing dead-end jobs and trying to find myself through playing in bands when I had time off etc.

I still love Bruce Timm's drawing style and have nothing but the affection and deepest respect for the legacy of Mike Parobeck, quite able artist capable of drawing in other style[s], not just the 'Animated Batman' which he's managed to make his own.
----------
Ok, for reasons I cannot remember THIS very page - No.7, the penultimate one in the short 'audition episode' written by K. Puckett is the only one I have managed to save. All other photocopies are lost in too many house movings during those unstable times in the UK. DC has never ever returned to me my unused original artwork with studies and such. The page was drawn with 4H lead in 2mm clutch pencil [because Parobeck used that lead hardness, only wooden pencils] as the light-table clean-up of the marker roughs I've made on thinner A3 papers also sent to DC. At the time I didn't own Art-o-Graph overhead projector, the contraption made famous by Neal Adams, Brian Bolland, Mike Parobeck and many others during the pre-computer era.
Like Rick Burchet, I've inked those tight pencils with Windsor-Newton synthetic hair brush and FW acrylic black ink, with nib for smaller details and greasy pencil for gray effects on the rough paper surface.
Illustrating Puckett's script was pure joy.

Everything else afterwards turned into bitterness.

I know... I should't have allowed to be so sensitive or afforded the 100% trust. That's life.

Description
(C)DC/WB

'But what is that thing with you being against DC?', I was asked recently because of my known 'Marvel Zombie' stance and quite public anti-DC attitude as the reader-follower.

It's not just the affection and the known traits that characterize someone's choice... sure thing, there are folks quite comfortable following and liking BOTH publishers and approaches to the medium, the same with those exclusively supporting alternative scene, Dark Horse, IDW, Zenescope, Image... but in MOST cases it was almost always pro-Marvel/pro-DC division. I mean, in an episode of THE SIMPSONS Miss Crabbabble has cancelled the wedding, telling the unlucky groom - ComicBook Man - 'Take it as this: I am Marvel, you are DC' to which he's replied, 'I have nothing to add to that'. Or something along those lines...

Anyway, years ago, in the mid-90s I've lived in London UK as a struggling cartoonist and I've learned that DC is hunting a replacement for the allegedly seriously ill artist Mike Parobeck on the BATMAN ADVENTURES monthly comicbook, also known colloquially as 'Animated Batman Comic'. To cut to the chase, I was privileged to encounter at a London UKCAC comics con the DC employee-cum-talent headhunter [ at the time ] and the very series` colourist Rick Taylor who liked my samples [ Mighty Max penciled and inked pages plus TONS of Animated Batman pencils in the vein of the great Bruce Timm and the aforementioned M.Parobeck who very soon passed away due to the complications with diabetes ].
After returning to the US he's faxed me THE DIALOGUE LIST, not the complete script... precious time lost... Then the script arrived and I drew the complete 8-page episode, NOT for the regular DC monthly but the licensed juvenile mag with short strips drawn in the Timm's 'animated style' about Batman and other DC superheroes by M. Parobeck, on top of his monthly Batman Adventures duties.

I did the pencils... inked them after they were photocopied. Enclosed character studies, even small 'Thank You' sketches for each and every 'Animated Batman' crew member: for Mike Parobeck, inker Rick Burchet, colourist Rick Taylor, writer Kelley Puckett and editor Scott Peterson. FED-EXed the package to them, soon got Rick Taylor's phonecall from NYC telling me THAT THE JOB IS MINE IF I WANT IT and that was it.
No script has arrived for me to illustrate... after several weeks I've phoned DC, to learn from Rick Taylor that things've happened, someone else got the gig since poor Mike Parobeck has died and THAT was it.

Maybe The Worst aspect of this all was my stupid announcement to everyone I knew at the time [ thank Heavens for no blogs, forums, messageboards etc. at that time of the Internet's infancy ] that I'm The New Batman Artist.
For months whoever's met me was going 'Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na... BATMAAAAAN!'. I've almost self-combusted in shame.

It's all long gone but not forgotten. I know - $h!+ happens and all but something has snapped inside me. My prevalent affection for Marvel's become predominant and soon I've put my ambitions and dreams to rest for a full decade during which I haven't drawn or bought a comic, doing dead-end jobs and trying to find myself through playing in bands when I had time off etc.

I still love Bruce Timm's drawing style and have nothing but the affection and deepest respect for the legacy of Mike Parobeck, quite able artist capable of drawing in other style[s], not just the 'Animated Batman' which he's managed to make his own.
----------
Ok, for reasons I cannot remember THIS very page - No.7, the penultimate one in the short 'audition episode' written by K. Puckett is the only one I have managed to save. All other photocopies are lost in too many house movings during those unstable times in the UK. DC has never ever returned to me my unused original artwork with studies and such. The page was drawn with 4H lead in 2mm clutch pencil [because Parobeck used that lead hardness, only wooden pencils] as the light-table clean-up of the marker roughs I've made on thinner A3 papers also sent to DC. At the time I didn't own Art-o-Graph overhead projector, the contraption made famous by Neal Adams, Brian Bolland, Mike Parobeck and many others during the pre-computer era.
Like Rick Burchet, I've inked those tight pencils with Windsor-Newton synthetic hair brush and FW acrylic black ink, with nib for smaller details and greasy pencil for gray effects on the rough paper surface.
Illustrating Puckett's script was pure joy.

Everything else afterwards turned into bitterness.

I know... I should't have allowed to be so sensitive or afforded the 100% trust. That's life.