Next Page It's hard to describe the feelings I had when I first saw this page. Though that magical feeling of seeing one's work (in my case inking) printed for the first time had long since passed, holding in my hands the pencils of a project I had actually written had me flying.
The gentleman who brought me the pages that day, the gentleman I had hired to do the pencils of The Dark Fringe, John Kissee, had impressed me a year or so before with samples presented at a Heroes Con. His artwork was "rougher" than what I had been accustomed to inking, but it reminded me of artists like Hugo Pratt or Ted McKeever, and I really liked it.
When the green light was given to do The Dark Fringe, my first thought was to contact Mr. Kissee. I asked him to send me copies of his samples, to make sure that what I remembered seeing would indeed fit with the vision I had for The Dark Fringe. It did and we were off and running, and I had the incredible pleasure of seeing him delivering these pages. Then I had the pleasure of inking them, sending them off to Brainstorm Comics, and eventually holding all four issues of this story.
Two things about John really impressed me. The first was his uncanny ability to take my descriptions of the various scenes and bring them to life in a way that was often SUPERIOR to what I had in mind. The second, perhaps even more important thing was his professionalism. He turned in the material when it was requested and never once turned in pages that appeared rushed or substandard.