Firestar Sketch Cover

I was introduced to Spider-Man through NBC's Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends when I was four. Aside from the 1967 syndicated cartoon, I learned about Peter Parker and his double life through his adventures with alongside Firestar and Iceman, as well as much of the Marvel Universe like The X-Men. It was also where my art skills were really born; I used to sit in front of that TV and sketch the Spider-Friends in crayon. So when I got the order to do this piece, it was tapping in to that four-year-old exuberance. This is the first time I've ever sketched Angelica Jones so deliberately sexy. There was always that sexual tension between she and Peter, and it was always a mild love triangle going on given that Bobby Drake also had feelings for Angelica. I remember a conversation in a Magneto episode between Bobby and Peter as they prepared for battle and Bobby was willing to step aside in that one instance so that Peter could have a shot at Angelica. But Peter responded "If she said no, bye bye Spider-Friends." That was my first intro to how complicated Peter's life was beyond the super heroics. So when the client requested the composition be a revisit of that infamous panel that introduced Mary Jane Watson - also the model for Angelica for the show for unknown reasons - I thought why not throw in some Parker luck? With that in mind I created a "worlds collide" scenario that Peter always goes through with Aunt May's presence off-screen. Plus it's every teenage kid's or college kid's nightmare. This is also the first time I've ever sketched Ms. Lion, I think. I may have drawn her when I was a kid, I'm not sure. I also used character model reference for Peter from the series so I could create a sense of nostalgia. Further nostalgia could be found in the framed photo of Coney Island; that is where Ben and May Parker met when Ben was the ferris wheel operator. Anyway, I really love the thickness of the blank covers Marvel uses because there is minimal bleeding. This piece was etched with copics, white out, and graphite 2H for the areas of the background farther in the distance.