Thursday, January 12, 2012

The Pet Professional

Way back around 2004, while reading Scott Kurtz's webcomic PVP (pvponline.com), I noticed a blog post asking for artists' to submit their work for a comic that Scott's friend, was trying to get started. I decided to send them some samples even though I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get picked. To my surpise, I got an email from Scott and he told me that his friend, Jason Salsbury, really liked my work and wanted me to be the artist for the comic.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic! I was currently going to school full-time and the only art I had been doing was a bi-weekly comic for the college paper. I wanted to get my work out there and this was just the opportunity I was looking for (especially since Scott was helping to spread the word about it).

So eventually I got a call from Jason and he told me what the comic was about (up to this point I had completely forgot to ask what it was i'd be drawing). It turned out that it was a comic called Pet Professional about a hitman who only takes contracts on pets. Upon hearing that, I definitely had my reservations since I wasn't sure if a comic about killing animals was how I wanted to get my name out there.

However, after talking to Jason a bit more, it became apparent that it was going to be very light-hearted and wasn't meant to offend pet lovers (well, for the most part;). Besides, the pets who were getting knocked off always had it coming. Like the mobster's bully-of-a-bulldog who had early assaulted a young boy's poor defenseless dachshund.

See? They had it coming.

Anyway, to get to the point. My time with Pet Professional may have been brief (I was only with the comic for a little over a year when I decided to move on) but it made me realize how much potential there was in putting my work out there on the internet for everyone to see. The fans (yes there WERE fans) showed me the joy of sharing my work with more than just friends and family.

So for today's illustration, here is the Pet Professional. I've also included a few of my favorite panels from the series in terms of art quality. Thanks for the good times, Jason!



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