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Hello, there!<\/p>\nHello, there!<\/p>\n
I have retired the old website, I\u2019m twenty-five pages into laying out my next graphic novel project, and as of July 1, 2024, went live with my new rebuilt BrentAndersonArt.com website, the same day I kicked off my 2024 Month of Sundays Art Commission Event, which was very successful. Thank you to all who participated and made it a success. I am enjoying my current transition into \u201cretirement\u201d quite a bit.<\/p>\n
Fifty-six years ago, in 1968, I was introduced to the World of Monthly Marvel Comics Group Wonderfulness, and immediately, with the help of a middle school friend, George Chelemedos, began to produce one creative conceit after another a Brent Anderson Universe of characters and stories and comic strips. For a period of three-and-a-half years, I created dozens of new characters, robot heroes, animal-themed heroes, super spies, prehistoric heroes, space-adventuring and cosmic hero-gods, and super-teams. It was the Age of the Superhero and I was all in.<\/p>\n
At roughly the same time, I published, co-published or contributed to a number of independently produced amateur comics called, at the time, \u201cfanzines\u201d or \u201cfan magazines,\u201d yet never losing sight of my ambition to produce my own universe of creator-owned comics.<\/p>\n
In each of the years 1974-75, I mailed packages of original pencil art to Marvel\u2019s Art Director, John Romita (Sr.), each containing five penciled sample pages. Each return of the artwork included a Form Rejection Letter with a hand-written note at the bottom from Romita encouraging me to continue practicing and, in the second letter, if I ever found myself in NYC to call upon him for an interview.<\/p>\n
The next year, in 1976, I did just that, and for six months did a smattering of work for Doc Savage Magazine<\/em>, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, <\/em>a five page \u201cAngel of the X-Men\u201d back-up story, and an unfinished story for DC \u201cMail Order Brides to Another World.\u201d<\/p>\n After six months, I knew I wasn\u2019t ready in either ability nor temperament to start my career with the comics industry, so I returned to California for two-and-a-half more years of art instruction and personal comics creation.<\/p>\n In 1979, I returned to Marvel and New York, got plenty of work and a few proffered opportunities, some taken some not, but I never adopted the \u201cand I never looked back\u201d expression I had read and heard other artists in the field making. Not once. I was constantly looking back to the unfinished nascent work of my youth, and wondering if I would ever have the chance to \u201cgo back\u201d and pick up where I had left off, even as I was building a successful 50-year career drawing and co-creating many diverse comics in every conceivable genre.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t only think<\/em> about going back, however. During those fifty years, I jotted down story ideas, did character designs, collected every possible reference I could for each project, carefully storing and recording them in 4-drawer filing cabinets, cardboard boxes, and ultimately in digital files, for use at some indeterminate time when I resumed work, if ever.<\/p>\n It\u2019s now if-ever time.<\/p>\n With the completion of the most recent issue of Astro City, the \u201cThat Was Then\u201d Astro City Special<\/em> One-Shot (March 2022) and the 209-page El Jagu\u00e1r \u201cOut of the Shadows\u201d<\/em> graphic novel (unpublished as of September 2024) I was free to contemplate what my \u201cretirement\u201d from comics was going to look like. I knew from Day One back in November 1968 when I drew my first \u201cRadium\u201d four-page comic, this was what I would do for the rest of my life, only stopping if I could not physically draw or conceptually write the material, or I was dead, whichever came first.<\/p>\n So, today I am announcing my official \u201cretirement\u201d from the comic book industry. Long live retirement!<\/p>\n See you in the Funnies!<\/p>\n Brent Eric Anderson<\/p>\n If you would like to respond or leave comments, go to https:\/\/brentandersonart.com\/site\/contact\/<\/a><\/p>\n I would love to hear from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello, there! I have retired the old website, I\u2019m twenty-five pages into laying out my next graphic novel project, and as of July 1, 2024, went live with my new rebuilt BrentAndersonArt.com website, the same day I kicked off my 2024 Month of Sundays Art Commission Event, which was very successful. Thank you to all…<\/p>\n