Wednesday 28 January 2009

2099 in 1994 and 1995

Along with a copy of I Know and Old Lady, I found a pile of photocopies of comics and illustration work from the '90s.

Back then, Joey Cavalieri was one of the coolest people at Marvel and I really wanted to work with him, so I pestered him a fair amount. Eventually he asked me to do a Ghost Rider 2099 sketch. He liked it so it turned into a pin-up assignment -- the pencils are below:

It was Chris Bachalo's book at the time, so I let his fingerprints show up all over my work thinking it might lead to a fill-in of some sort.

Joey asked me who I wanted to have ink it -- I was about to suggest Mark Buckingham (who had the main gig already), but then Joey asked if I inked my own work. . . .
Even though I really hadn't inked my work for a while, I said yes and proceeded to wreck my own pencils. If another inker plopped that flat black on the sole of GR's shoe I probably would have spit nails.
Joey was kind enough to ask for a generic cover for his files after I did the pin-up.

I winced when I saw how badly I bungled the perspective on the bike, but I think the inking improved a smidge.
I got swamped with work for quite a while after this and the next thing I knew Joey was gone from Marvel (as were a ton of other people I knew and had worked with).
Joey landed over at DC and looks like he's doing fine -- I think he's editing my pal Ethan's new series.
~Richard

3 comments:

Kane Motri said...

I am no 'original art' person at all, but, damn, I would definitely buy either of those...

(It also made me feel, that Marvel should be reprinting the 2099 stuff the way they did the Age of Apocalypse or Onslaught...)

Unknown said...

I think I sold the pin-up years back. I don't know that I ever got the cover back.
I would like to see a collection of Ellis's Doom 2099 stuff and David/Leonardi's Spider-Man 2099.

Larissa Thomas said...

those are sweeeeeet!!!