Cartoon Quest

I have had a lifelong fascination with drawing. Though my career took me on the challenging and rewarding path of portrait photography, I’ve always burned a candle for graphics and illustration, more specifically, comic books. I guess the whole thing kicked off when I was eight years old In 1967. My dad let me pluck a copy of The Amazing Spider-Man off the comic book rack at Brown & Jones drugstore. It cost 12 cents. (Dad must have been in a good mood, my allowance was 10 cents.). From the moment I opened the cover and encountered, Peter Parker/Spider-Man, J Jonah Jameson, and Doctor Octopus, I was hooked. Fascinated. Spellbound. Mesmerized.

Fast forward 50+ years. In August of 2021 I began taking online art classes from New Masters Academy. (Great classes. Excellent instructors.) After taking a half dozen drawing classes and one painting, I signed up with comic book illustrator, George Pratt. He was a comic book legend.

What follows is an assignment from the class. We were to look up a famous photojournalist, pick out four of their images to draw then build a 4-panel story around them. I picked Joel Meyerowitz. Here’s the piece.

Enjoy.

paul