My First Art Portfolio (Patreon)

I had forgotten that some time back I gave my first art portfolio to Christine Norrie, a cartoonist friend of ours who had contributed to Action Girl, among other projects. Recently she Christine dropped me a DM on Bluesky that she found the portfolio and wondered if I wanted it back. I told her I would be happy to just have photos of it so I could see the stickers I had put on it. She sent me the photos, and I was disheartened to see I had put a Red Hot Chili Peppers sticker on it. I liked them back in the day but came to despise them. I would have been happier if the missing Public Enemy sticker was still there instead of the RHCP.

It's hard to tell from the photos, but the portfolio was huge and pretty unwieldy. I think my parents bought it for me in the late 80s, and later on they bought me my first drafting table when I moved out of the house. Both were larger than what I needed. None of us had a clue as to what I needed so I guess they went big. Anyway, this monster showed up, and I used it to take art to conventions and meetings with editors at various publishers.

I was not good at taking meetings, setting up appointments or doing tryout art on my own. I never had a proper portfolio of dedicated art to show any potential employees, and I never actually showed anyone the tryout pages I did in the hopes of getting work. The only time I did show off sample pages was when DC editor Lou Stathis asked to me to do some Animal Man tryout pages (for which I was paid). I never arranged any meetings with editors back in the day (or later, come to think of it), I was too intimidated and unsure of my work. When I met writer Alan Rowlands at the comic shop I worked at, he arranged meetings for the two of us to try and get work at the Big 2 and/or get the Phigments comic project picked up. This led to our working on a short story for DC's New Talent Showcase series. After we turned the story my check was lost. The envelope had fallen behind an office door and wasn't discovered for several weeks. The story was never inked, lettered or published. Many years later someone found the original art in the offices and returned it to me, I promptly tore the amateurish pages up and tossed them in the garbage. All in all, it was an important introduction to the world of professional comics -- a late check, confusion, no publication, decades-late art return. There were reasons I -- and probably everyone else --called the series No Talent Showcase, I also dubbed it No Payment Showcase and No Published Showcase.

After meeting the Instant Piano players through NY conventions and whatnot, I would accompany them to their meetings at DC and Marvel, who they were all doing work for. Once or twice I got to talk to someone in editorial. This did not lead to work, and once led me to getting thrown out of the DC office, partially because of bringing up Bat-Mite (and for mentioning I was waiting for Paris Cullens, who was late on a book and being canned in an office until he finished the pages. I've told this story before, probably in one of the World's Funnest posts).

One time I was up at the DC offices and I was waiting for an elevator to go downstairs. Up walks artist Denys Cowan. The doors opened, we both got in. As the elevator headed down, I notice that Cowan is looking at the stickers on my portfolio. I'm already feeling anxious -- adults made me nervous, professional comics people made me anxious, being at the DC offices made me feel insignificant and feeling judged stressed me out. Finally, he looks at me and says, "The only group worth a damn on there is Public Enemy".

I felt very defensive and hot and uncomfortable and I remember searching in my mind for something extremely biting and clever and pithy to say in response to this unasked for opinion, this attack on my musical tastes. Something that would hit back hard, let him know where I stood.

All I managed to say was..."Okay."

Seven years later the elevator door opened and he exited and I shlumped along slowly after him so as to not accidentally cross paths with him again. I've never met the man again.

If he just said "The Chili Peppers suck" I wouldn't have minded so much. Certainly not now.

I have only one other anecdote associated with the big portfolio. The Negativland "Car Bomb" sticker was not well-received by airport security when I attended UKCAC in Glasgow and England. Oops. I learned to keep that side away from folks while taking it anywhere in the UK.