When I started, It took me about two hours to do a page of full pencils. One of the things that got me my first work at Marvel, in fact, was my speed. Production Manager John Verpoorten loved the fact that he could send me a 17 page plot and expect in back in less than 10 days.

Fortunately, as I got technically more proficient, I did not lose my speed, and, in fact, as I have learned just how much can be entrusted to the inker (not having to fill in black areas completely, for instance) my penciling speed has increased.

Snag was, the report could only have come from someone who’d been snoozing whilst playing journalist, since what I’d actually said was that I’d stopped doing thumbnails before I got into the Biz.

So, yes, I start with a pretty clear “snapshot” of the whole page in my head and “project” that onto the paper.