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I cringe at the term "old school". To me, it suggests that something is outdated, out of vogue, or not in line with the norm. When I think art deco, I don't think "old school", I think art deco. There are classic elements that are rarely used anymore that I think are still very relevant and to which a lot of new could still be applied to. I don't want the same old thing, but I do think there are new things that can be done with classic elements.

I got hooked into comics when I was eight years old. My parents were newly split and my mom was living pretty poor. She took me to a laundromat and there was a Stop-N-Go next door where she bought me a comic book to pass my time. It was a Marvel Tales reprint of John Romita's first Spider-Man issue. It was the fantastic story that unmasked the Green Goblin and it had a killer cliffhanger ending. I still can't think of many comics better than that one. I had to wait a whole month to find out what happened and in that time I bought some of the other Spider-Man comics on the shelves. My first Amazing Spider-Man was issue #269 which pitted him against Firelord with a great story by Defalco, Frenz, and Rubenstein and another cliffhanger ending. My first Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man was issue #107, the first part of the now classic Death of Jean Dewolfe storyline by Peter David and Rich Buckler. My first Web of Spider-Man was issue #8 where Spider-Man was abducted into his own dream by the villain Nightmare, also by Peter David with Sal Buscema art. I still don't think there was a better year for Spider-Man comics than that one. The issues that followed were fantastic, each title had a different flavor and yet all were top notch.

I had to get more. The Green Goblin was my immediate favorite bad guy but one of my friends told me that he had died and a new Goblin, a more modern more dangerous badass villain named the Hobgoblin had taken his place. No one knew who the Hobgoblin was and the letters pages was buzzing about the secret of his identity. I was fascinated by the villain and I collected all the fantastic back issues involving him. I was also very fond of the black costume however I really liked that Spider-Man went back and forth, so we could have our cake and eat it too (this was when the alien costume had left and the black costume was just another costume). I also loved the character of Mary Jane who wasn't Peter's girlfriend but a really good friend who he could confide in. It just seemed the way a good relationship should bud.

A year or two later something weird happened. Frenz and Defalco were off the book and the Hobgoblin mystery ended abruptly in a very anti-climatic way. Peter and MJ got married very suddenly, without evening dating first, and the stories got very inconsistent. I never noticed who did the art before, but after Frenz left I did start paying attention because, with the exception of Mike Zeck's Kraven storyline, the art got pretty bad in Amazing after that. Then McFarlane came on and there was something appealing about it but it didn't work for me. I was too in love with the Romita style and as much as I loved the characters, a married Peter Parker just wasn't as interesting. I didn't like Venom because I loved that costume but it didn't look sleek and mysterious on Venom, it looked goony and bulky. I collected Spider-Man comics for years after that getting the payoff from the back issues but collecting the new out of habit and never really feeling satisfied.

I started to collect other stuff and moved beyond superheroes. The Crumb movie came out when I was 18 and I was fascinated by it. I got into the whole Indy craze in the 90s but as the decade went on I realized a lot of it was superficial. My city Madison, was pretty clickish with it's cultural distinctions and while my interests were never mainstream or normal it was clear that I wasn't an indy kid because I didn't look or act the part. So, I decided to just be whatever I was, I bought what turned me on, a few of the better Indys, some good escapist stuff, and a lot of great back issues of the stuff I was too young to know was so good back in the old days.

These days I continue to collect and feel very passionately about comics. I just finished collecting the Paul Gulacy run on Master of Kung Fu and Dave Steven's Rocketeer. My favorite comic magazine is Backissue and I get a kick out of discovering the works of people like Matt Baker who kicked ass before our ignorant generation thought people could kick ass. I run the R Crumb family website, RCrumb.com, which I'm contracted to run and which allows me to interact with the family of one of my heroes, and one of the few real icons in comics.

Within a year of that Marvel Tales comic that got me hooked in comics I found another Marvel Tales comic from a year or so earlier down in my playroom. It was reprint of the first part of two part Crime Master storyline that also featured the Green Goblin. It was drawn by Ditko and it wasn't quite as immediately appealing to me as that Romita issue, but something in that comic fascinated me and it has been growing on me ever since. That story was truly the Spider-Man NOIR story. It was a crime story and Ditko's art was perfect. To this day I can't say which one of those comics was truly my first one, even if I know which one got me hooked. But I will say, that other comic, the one by Ditko, the one where the Green Goblin's identity was a mystery still, it's invaded me and that storyline, that first issue in particular, is my favorite comic story of all time. Ditko kicked ass and no one know Spidey like he did. I've never seen that story on anyone else's top Spidey stories list, but it SHOULD BE!

My comic book heroes/gods are Alan Moore (of course but as much as his similar views on comics to mine as for his work), Robert Crumb (who I admired before I accidentally fell into getting involved), Steve Rude (who got started in Madison), and Paul Gulacy. I'm married to a hottie (no, really, I'm Peter Parker) and I have two young daughters that rock! I'm a starving artist/writer who is hungry to output some of his visions and I'm looking to make a career move to use my skills in someway I can use my illustration/graphics talents.