JIMMY PALMIOTTI - BLAST FROM THE PAST - WEEK 12

TRIBUTE TO ANGELO TORRES

Hey gang, before we get started this week, I wanted to give a shout out to my good buddy's lovely interview and video with the legendary Angelo Torres.  It's a wonderful interview with an incredible artist and favorite of mine.  Please check this video out!

Interview with the great Angelo Torres

GHOST RIDER

I was working as a background artist up at DC helping my buddy Mark Texeria do backgrounds for the Punisher and Ghost Rider series and was showing samples of my penciling work around the editors offices looking for any work. At the time, the closest thing to a paying try-out book they had was MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS and I had been doing some inking work for the editor Terry Kavanagh. More about Terry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Kavanagh

So, I had hit terry with some samples and he gave me a two-part Ghost Rider story that appeared in MCP 98-99 to pencil and ink. My first actual penciling gig for a big company. I was thrilled. At the time, they paired me with new writer named Dan Slott. Dan and I were both just breaking in and I had met Dan a few times around the office and really liked him, so that made it easier. I will be honest, I was so excited and nervous about the gig but I didn’t have much time to be anything since the job was due quickly.

Anyway, I got to work at home, posing my brother Pete on the splash page and then digging in. Honestly, I was not ready in a lot of ways but I had a lot of encouragement and my buddy Mark to help me out if I got into a jam. It was a really exciting time for me since I was dreaming of this type of work my whole life. In total, the two-part story was 16 pages, and looking back they are not as horrible as I thought, but nowhere near professional enough. When they came out I was excited as hell, but sadly I was not able to pick up anymore penciling work, which did not help my already fragile ego and then I started getting offered a ton more inking work and as they say, the rest is comic book history.

Perhaps I will start trying my hand at penciling again since my buddy Patrick wrote me a short story for one of the many Sex and Violence books I put out myself at Paperfilms. We shall see. For now, some pages from so long ago. Enjoy.