In the nineties, when I had finished my tour with Milestone Media, and my work on Xero for DC Comics, I got a gig on X-Man…. which lead to lending my talents to the book SLINGERS, a book that used characters that used various aliases that Peter Parker used as a disguise from whatever travails his true alter ego SPIDER-MAN was experiencing.  I had done a years worth of that book when I founded that Slingers was to be canceled due to sales and I was brought into the Office of Tom Brevoort who flagged me down after turning in pages.  

    Back then, it was vogue to walk in your work so you could voucher your work for payment.   Nowadays, it’s all computers and cloud severs.  

     Tom was looking to kickstart a new volume of Captain Marvel, this time using Mar-Vell’s son Genis-Vell along with Rick Jones as his partner in crime.  When I learned that Peter David was writing it, I was SO down to draw this book….never mind the mythos behind the Captain Marvel legend.  I didn’t even stick around for the end of Slingers.   There was a preview script ready for art and I jumped at the chance to do it. So, my first thought was how do I make Rick Jones MINE? 

I had the idea to make him look like Ricky Martin, who was really big at the time, living La Vida Loca…. and I thought it would be a great update to a legendary character that had been in league with the likes of Hulk and Captain America and had been to war in the Avengers Forever storyline. 

No pressure.  

    But I had no pressure in drawing the image that was the new Captain Marvel.  And I knew if I did this right, people would start to respect my art abilities.  So I used my love of anime and manga storytelling-wise to intro the image of my first time  drawing Genis as CAPTAIN MARVEL.   I was looking to flex and I saved my excitement for this VERY PAGE.   The clanging of the nega-bands by Rick Jones, the POWER COSMIC creating a flash of light, a tornado spiral of energy and air swirling around the now shadowy image of Rick and a pull back in camera to reveal the first image of a cool looking character I would be exponentially maturing my art from for the next three years.  All from a straightforward script that gave me the license to truly tell a great story as if I was directing a cartoon.  

     When my best friend found out I was going to draw this particular series for Marvel, he was floored.  He loved the Captain Marvel character also. 

     When I think of when my career in comics kicked off,  personally feel this page is the seed that got my name perculating in the comics industry.  One day I may just redraw this page for fun with the abilities I’ve acquired after over 25 years of drawing comics.  

This was fun.