For a few years, Dusty Abell and I were a team and did about 300 pages together. Dusty approached Mike Mignola with this concept which started in a chinese monastary in the 30's (based on some book he read) and wrapped up in the 70's, a period Dusty and I would constantly wax nostalgic over. Colored by Dean White, who did a terrific job. From my hazy recollection, Mike was actually interested, but it got put on the back burner, until other new opportunities came in which demanded his time ( like a movie, perhaps?) A shame this project never saw the light of day, isn't it?

     The big time, ma! It's a rare treat to be doing a Wizard cover, even if it was only one of three variants (by other artists). On the original, Arwyn was more centered and more of the rock was shown on the right. They enlarged the image and actually improved the figure placement. Greg's, mine and Caesar Rodriquez's signatures appeared at the right of the rock, which got knocked off the new layout. Couldn't they have repositioned our names in that big blue area above the rock? ARRRGH!

    Despite sharing a studio for two years, Tony Harris and I rarely collaborated, because the most excellent Ray Snyder was his usual inker. Tony signed on to do three Transmet covers, so the three studio inkers (Jim Royal being the third) each took a shot. There's not a whole lot of difference in the final product, as Tony's pencils were ultra-tight.

    The man himself! This was Dusty Abell's most inspired cover ever and it was fun! Since DC usually offered me more work than I could accept, I didn't look for Marvel work. Even though I hadn't quite broken into Marvel proper, Jason Liebig must've liked what Dusty and I did, because a handful of covers was my only Marvel work for a long time.

    One of the oddest comics to come out of the late 90's: A two-issue series reprinting the Chris Claremont / John Bolton backup stories used to fill extra pages in the X-men reprint title Classic X-men! I remember joking around with then-editor Jason Liebig "Is there a demand for this?" And he shrugged "We needed something to fill the X-title schedule for two months."

     This Batman/Mr. Freeze pin-up is another favorite. It's hard to tell, but I used drybrush and white paint splatters. If you find a copy of this issue, you'll see the detail much better. I had added a whisp of drybrush under Batman's armpit to indicate snow whipping around that the colorist either missed or ignored. Nonetheless, it's a great color job.