Sometimes in the late ’90s assignments had become erratic and short term in nature for me. Tom Derenick was also trying to pick up new projects and one way to do that is with art samples. Tom rendered three pages with the Avengers and, through our mutual friend Tom Smith, he then connected with me since he liked my ink work and thought we’d make a good team (w/ Smith as colorist). At this time TomD was blending a little Neal Adams with some Alan Davis so I figured I could pull a Mark Farmer style of inks over his work. These portfolio samples didn’t convince editors to call us but I thought they were nice enough to post here. Since this work, Tom has been pencilling in all pencil tones the last few years as seen in NIGHTSIDE while I have not been using the brush as much as I did here which was the majority of the art. I have added some SFX at the last minute before posting such as most of the zip-a-tone applied as well as the Iron Man Layton-style sparkles and the light white-spattered sections on page two.