Clearing out the overstuffed original art bin of pieces that might accidentally be topical again. Here’s a house ad that ran in Eclipse books during their tenth anniversary year…besides featuring a host of characters you don’t remember, or will ever hear of again, there up top is Marvel Comics newest corporate asset super-hero, MARVELMAN! (Or Miracleman as he was known in his anything-to-avoid-a-lawsuit days back when I drew him for this assignment.) Working for Eclipse in those days was an interesting experience…I spent ten issues inking a brand-spanking new penciler named Lee Weeks (Whatever happened to him? I hope he’s still in the biz, and doing well)…as well as inking the first published story for Erik Larsen, and a few others. PLUS: it was my first regular paycheck as a comix creator, and around the time I seriously thought about doing this for a living. It was WAAAY better than lifting boxes.
Ty the G. Back to drawing my Mad pages so Mr. Viviano don’t get actually mad.
Ty Templeton's ART LAND!! 
Ty, you always KILL at these group shots. Every single one is unique and cool chracter… kinda makes me wanna read the damn comics.
Funny you mention Larsen, too. I recently bought a old New Wave issue he penciled and you inked (Weeks did the cover). The combination was odd, but it totally worked.
Ah, think of how much better the art would have looked if I’d known how to draw back then. But anatomy lessons got in the way of playing rock and roll and dancing with the women down front. (I was like, 22 or 23 when I drew this.)
Inking Lee and Erik is a very fond memory, especially since they both went onto HUGE success. I think I meshed a lot better with Lee, as we both had a fondness for Buscema, Romita and Tom Palmer and that’s what Lee clearly wanted. I’m not sure that style worked for Larsen’s pages, as he was MUCH more cartoony, and I was fighting it a bit, to try to keep it consistent with previous issues. I should have probably gone more in tune with Larsen than trying to inch it back towards a more illustrative style that Weeks and I had been doing, but I was probably encouraged to ink it more “house style”. At the time, I recall not liking Larsen’s art, and complaining about it. But he got SO much better in just a year or so. My first year or so in the biz is abysmal and embarrassing to say the least, so I’ve always tried not to recall those issues when talking about Larsen’s work..
Looks like I have discovered this page about 4 years late, but it is an amazingly detailed page. Is it available to purchase or long time gone?