Thanks For Reminding Me of Who I Am...

For a while I had stopped drawing and writing all together it wasn't until late 2004 that I returned to the art I so desperately missed.
Let me back up and tell you about my exciting forays into comics. I began making my own comics when I was probably either five or six years old. I would draw comic books about Pac-Man, He-Man, Batman, and Optimus Prime. From there I became interested in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Mania. In fact, in third grade I was doing comissions for my schoolmates at an astounding fifty cents a turtle! From there I was introduced to The New Mutants, which snowballed into a love for all that was related to X-Men, with the exception of Wolverine, whom I still dislike. After a long while digging on the X-Men, I became interested in the Peanuts gang, since Charles Schultz is from my home state and my father had subscribed to the StarTribune - the only Twin Cities paper able to publish the strip.
Over time my interest in drawing comics began to wane. The last comic that I produced before my hiatus was a twenty page comic entitled Happy and Joyous Day, which I co-created by my good friend Matt Nguyen. This comic was a part of my final project at The Art Institutes International of Minnesota. Following school, I ended up getting a job and moving to Madison, Wisconsin. After moving, I stopped creating comics, but I still had influences. I was enthralled with the work of University of Maryland graduates Frank Cho, creator of the syndicated strip Liberty Meadows, and Aaron McGruder, creator of the syndicated strip The Boondocks. I also at the time became a big fan of Michael Jantze, creator of the formerly syndicated The Norm comic strip. At one point I contacted Michael Jantze on how to break into the syndicates, he gave me some great resources, which I haven't used, partially due to the various censors that are required by the syndicates. The censorship of syndicated strips was something, to my understanding, that both Frank Cho and Aaron McGruder have dealt with at times.
I moved to Phoenix in December of 2004, directly following my graduation from the University of Minnesota. While in Phoenix I began messing around with creating comics again. At one point, I had decided that I wanted to publish my comics in newspapers, but then again realized that I wanted more freedom in creating art and therefore stopped pursuing work through the syndicates.
During my time in Phoenix, I collaborated with a woman by the name of Liz Young on her Master's Thesis project. The project combined dance, music, theatre, and comic art into a twenty to twenty-five minute piece that was well received by the entire audience. Following one of the night's performances, I was asked to take part of a question and answer session, which I wasn't prepared for in the least. I had people asking me questions such as, "what was your inspiration for ___," and "what type of method did you use for ___." I felt out of my element. I was asked if I wanted to continue collaborating in this field and at the time I had said "no." However, after later consideration I decided I was open to collaborating again with dancers. Thus, Liz and myself may collaborate on another project sometime in the future. However, it was this project that brought me back up to speed on drawing, writing, and creating again.
The last artist that I have to thank on my continued road is Hope Larson. Although I do not have a personal relationship with her, other than one e-correspondence and a brief conversation at a lecture at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and although my style of art is nothing like her's whatsoever. Her life intrigues me. She is an ever-changing transplant that is married to a fellow artist. Her story is somewhat similar to my travels throughout the midwest and southwestern United States and being married to an artist, my wife is a dancer. Unlike myself, Hope and her husband, Bryan Lee O'Malley are both established artists in the comic business and I am living back in my home state, while she is living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After her lecture and learning that she started publishing her comics on the internet, I wrote her a correspondence thanking her and then proceeded with this website that you see today.
Of course, this self-fulfilling intellectual masturbation generally does nothing for the reader of such a blog, but it's good for anyone who cares to know where exactly I my thought process lies.
In summation, my thanks goes out to Bob Kane and Bill Finger (creators of Batman), Toru Iwatani (creator of Pac-Man), Ray Wagner (the president of Mattel, the company that created He-Man), Takara and Hasbro toys (for creating and distributing Transformers), Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird (creators of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Chris Claremont (original writer of New Mutants and longtime writer of X-Men), Charles Schultz, Frank Cho, Aaron McGruder, Michael Jantze, Liz Young, and Hope Larson for helping me develop any talent that I have today and not letting me forget who I am and what I want to do.