This is another one of those special opportunities for me. Much like having inked Tuska, Grell, Trimpe, Perlin & Adam Kubert (and coming soon Starlin, Ayers and Colan) Adam Hughes is one of those “holy grail” kind of artists where someone like me gets a crack at inking them when I know it would most-likely never occur with an official assignment because these guys either: ink themselves almost exclusively, are superstar creators who incidentally don’t or rarely do commissions or are pricey when they do, or are some of comicdom’s respected Gold/Silver/Bronze-age veterans who rarely do regular work anymore. My 3rd commission for the Pillarella brothers from Rubber Chicken Comics, this was my first attempt at inking Adam’s convention sketch. I considered adding special FX to play off the lightning energy but after about 2 minutes I realized that it’s the simplicity of a Hughes drawing that makes it special so I just tried to faithfully capture the line weights properly using mostly brush with a little bit of markers. Since he quickly shaded in Mary Marvel’s hair with his pencil I rendered it with a black Prismacolor pencil. After a long commission break I completed this job on 5/24/2005.
About Me
Bob is the inking half of the Sal Velluto art team collaboration on such projects as Marvel’s critically-acclaimed BLACK PANTHER,’99-’02 leading to a 2003 Comicboards “Ooks” Award for “Best Inker” & two “Squiddies” awards for “Best Inker” (2001 along with “Best Creative Team” win and 2002 tied with Mark Farmer and tied for “Best Multi-Part Story”), and many other projects with Sal since 1997 and other artists at Marvel, DC, Acclaim, Malibu, Penny-Farthing Press, Power Comics, IDW, Kingstone, Thrilling Nostalgia Comics, Harris Comics, Topps, Wildstorm, New England Comics, Valiant and several others. While he’s been primarily an ink artist he’s also been a columnist for Sketch magazine and First Comics News. Bob’s a comic book collector and unofficial historian who has acted as a “Master of the Obscure” at the Marvel Appendix site, been a longtime member of the “Jarvis Heads” and a “group expert” at Facebook groups. He’s the founder/director of the official non-profit Inkwell Awards and advocate since 2008. Bob has been credited with “Special Thanks” along with his “Storyteller” colleagues Christopher Priest & Sal Velluto in the record-breaking film BLACK PANTHER (2018) and BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (2022).
Contact Me
180 Park Street
New Bedford, MA 02740
dmralmond@gmail.com