Why I Draw ComicsI have been a superhero, fighting crime, alien races, and super villains since I was 14. At least, I always wished I was. For years and years I had read comics, and I loved the idea of becoming someone else, since my life wasn't exactly an action movie.
 I
met my wife Jennie when I was in a band, playing drums in bars and
small nightclubs in the area where I live. We became good friends
for many years, and eventually fell in love and started dating. She
has been very supportive of the fact that I am spend a lot of time
doing things that are related to my comic book. I have a 2-year old
daughter named Mya, who has taught me more about life than I can
even put into words. She is a bundle of joy, a little devil who can
transform into an angel as soon as she knows she is guilty of
something, and little machine of destruction when the situation
calls for it.I became interested in comic books when I was in the 3rd grade, when my uncle gave me a stack of 15 or 20 comics, and I immediately fell in love. I sampled a lot of the mainstream comics such as Batman, X-Men and such, but the one that really caught my interest was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which at the time, was quite the underground comic. My cousins and I used to like to read them and want to learn ninja moves, so we went out and got us some kung-fu books and practiced on each other. We also made swords out of tree limbs and sparred. At the beginning of the 4th grade, my school shut down, and I had to change schools. I pretty much got separated from my all of my friends, so I always took comic books to school to read and keep me company. In the 7th grade, I created my first real character-Superdog! (And his faithful sidekick, Superpup.) My cousins also added on to the ongoing saga of Superdog and created Superbeagle, Superdog's cousin.  I
had always loved animals, and I wanted to be a veterinarian for the
longest time until something happened that I think changed my mind.
I had all kinds of hamsters, and one day one of them got sick. My
mom took off work and I stayed out of school so that I could take it
in to the vet. Little did I know, the vet got his license out of a
mail order catalog. He decided he wasn't getting enough nutrition,
and he was going to have to inject him with the proper nutrients and
vitamins. When he went to give my hamster a shot, he stuck the
needle all the way through it, and clean out the other side! My mom
and I were horrified when he squeezed on the needle that was
impaling my hamster, and the liquid sprayed out onto the table.
Needless to say, the hamster died within a few hours. Well, a couple
of months later, I had another hamster that got sick. I had passed
the other incident off as a fluke, and my mamaw and I took this
hamster in to the same doctor. I apparently didn't learn from my
mistakes back then. This one had the same problem getting the proper
nutrients, and he decided he had to give this hamster some vitamin
drops. As he went to open the poor, sick thing's mouth, it bit him.
His reaction-to jerk his hand back as hard as he could, slinging my
hamster into a wall, as it flopped onto the table. 15 minutes later,
I was hamsterless...again. The point is, I gave up being a
veterinarian to be a comic book artist. And, maybe with a little
hard work and a lot of luck, my chosen line of work won't cause
people quite as much pain and sadness of my prior dream job. If it
does, let me know and I'll sign up for vet school right away...=)J.T. Blevins |
