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Well where do I start? I guess I'll just write about what the comic book fans want to hear about and leave the "growing up hardships" for my biography..lol. So, Ok the 1st comic books I remember reading were CREEPY
and HEAVY METAL at the age of 7. Now I know these are mature
titles, but my mom didn't know that these comic magazines had
rated R themes, she just had the misconception that comics, ALL
comics are for kids...how wrong she was. So at age 7, I was drawing
nude girls and superheroes. my entire childhood was just me in
an imaginary world, watching BATTLE of the PLANETS and GODZILLA
and if I could stay up late enough, the occasional black and
white horror movie. By the time I was 10-11 y/o in the summer
I would stay at my Grandmas and my babysitter would be the local
movie theater, called STATE THEATER, in Newton, NC. I would go
to the 1st show and watch the same movie over and over until
the last showing. Lots of movies burned into my mind forever! I persued a few drawing gigs for PERSONALITY COMICS and at the time, I was working with KIRK (Vamperotica) LINDO. I was making a whole $200 per book.whoopppeee!! That was cool for me, I was actually a paid artist, then I met Jack(Midnight Screams) Slattery at a comic convention. He hired me to do a story called NEVERWHERE in issue #2. I told him I had this idea from a cartoon I seen on MTV, called AEON FLUX...I said I wanted to draw a comic book where the lead character was a tough ass female. He told me it wouldn't sell, but he did give it a shot. RAZOR #0 MYSTERY EDITION came out in SEPT. 1991, I sold 1500 copies and would later move 1500 more copies. By far it was the best selling book his company had ever published. So the great sells were bitter sweet, I had to find another publisher. Tim Tyler owner of FATHOM press, offered to publish RAZOR, so I drew a new book RAZOR #1 and reprinted RAZOR #0. Tim warned me that he had only sold as many as 3000 copies of his previous books, so I was expecting that. Then AUG 2002 RAZOR #1 sold 7,000 copies and RAZOR #0 Fathom printing sold 5,000 copies. That was huge for Fathom press, Tim knew that RAZOR was something special and suggested that I self publish the book, this was going to be something the underground comic industry was going to make into a cult following. It become just that, so for the next 4 issues I planned it out perfectly to choose my favorite artists to do a cover for RAZOR #2 cover by JAMES(THE CROW) O'BARR sold 16,000 copies, RAZOR #3 cover by JIM(TAROT)BALENT sold 17,000 copies RAZOR #4 cover by TIM(FAUST) VIGIL sold 17,500 copies and the RAZOR #5 cover by JOE (DAWN) LINSNER sold 25,000 copies. I was making more money than I could've ever imagined and if I never did another issue, I would've been thrust into comic lore for just the accomplishment of the first 5 issue of RAZOR. So I did struggle with going on. I thought it would be too much to have her story go on any further, but after looking at the money that had been brought in to help my family and friends, I decided to keep going and giving new artist the chance and encouragment that I tried to find in my early quest. There was no way I was going to turn my back on a artist that needed a shot in the industry, LONDON NIGHT STUDIOS, soon become the premier indie publisher that would give a new guy his 1st shot in the game. Some guys that got their shot with LNS, Billy (SHI) Tucci, 1st published art/ 1st app. of SHI, Razor Annual #1...Ed(SUPERMAN) McGuiness, 1st art London Night's Tour of Fear '93, David (KABUKI) MACK 1st art/1st app. of Kabuki was the London Night Kabuki one-shot and back up story in RAZOR/SHI crossover...So regardless is trade mags care to acknowledge it or not. LNS launched hit characters as well as hit artists. As the comics boom of the mid-90's continued, I continued to create and build more and more to the Hartsoe stable of characters, such as MORBID ANGEL, LETHAL STRYKE, POIZON and many more, but none could compare to the success I had with RAZOR. |