I had an amazing moment, when my friend artist Seppo Makinen emailed me a couple old comic book pages I hadn't seen for over two and a half decades. This splash page from "A Tonic for the Homesick" was the very first comic book story I ever wrote.
I saw samples of Seppo's science fiction artwork printed in an amateur press journal we both belonged to, and I sent him my script, asking if he might be interested in drawing it. About a couple weeks later Seppo mailed me the finished pages, which he had even lettered. This was a Rod Serling inspired sci-fi morality tale, from 1985.
Although I have many warm memories of this story, it was never actually published. Hopefully it will see print soon.
The page posted below is from my very first published story, "The Dinosaur Doctor", from 1986, penciled by Seppo Makinen and inked by the late Alan Larsen. Interestingly, I composed a story where the title character created modern dinosaurs by extracting their DNA from the dino-blood trapped in the bellies of prehistoric insects fossilized in amber, beating the Jurassic Park novel to the punch by several years.
I'll always feel great gratitude for Alan for giving me my start and my first paycheck as a writer. A couple years later Seppo and I teamed-up again with our Sherlock Holmes/Dracula mystery adventure, Scarlet in Gaslight, and our careers finally ignited. Without Alan Larsen's encouragement, I don't know if that would ever have happened.
Thanks, Alan...where ever you are.
(Click on the pictures for larger images.)
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