Artist Whilce Portacio

We managed to sneak in a quick chat with Whilce Portacio at this year's San Diego Comicon. As with everyone else, he was presented with a copy of A Monk's Tale, which he told us that he liked the "sepia look" we were using to print our book. We're happy that we got the chance to give him a copy, and we appreciate his warm reception.

Now for me, Whilce Portacio and Jim Lee were the two artists that impressed me so much that inspired me to start drawing way back when they were working on X-Men. However, Whilce has always been my favorite artist bar none, and meeting and talking with him was something that I really wanted to do at the convention. Meeting him was like meeting your childhood hero.

Roughly eight years ago, I made a trip out to Toronto to attend the Canadian National Comic Book Expo(I'm not sure if that's what it was called back then). Whilce was one of the guests at the show, and I remember standing in line for ages just to get to talk to him. Also at that time, I had recently released Timelines, which was a comic book that wasn't quite up to par. The only real piece of artwork that I showed him was the first page of a Wildstorm Submission I was working on. He critiqued it, and pointed out a couple of things that I should work on. So for me, giving Whilce a copy of A Monk's Tale was like seeking out your mentor's approval, trying very much to show that you're working hard to improve.

To be honest, I'm sure that Whilce doesn't remember the Toronto Convention, but hopefully someday he learns what a positive influence he's been on me.

Thank you Whilce, your work has been completely inspirational.

Kandrix

PS. You can check out Whilce's current project, Stormwatch: Team Achilles from Wildstorm, or pick up any of his older work!