From The Vault - Humberto 2005

It wasn't too long after I started doing freelance art as a career again that I got a phone call from Josh Thorne who, at the time, was a freshman at a nearby local high school. It seems Josh's school had a program where, every Wednesday, they had a choice to go out into the community and help someone out as an apprentice.

And, after seeing an article about me in the local paper, Josh decided that he wanted me to be his mentor. He called once, himself, and left a message. When I didn't get back to him right away (I meant to, I swear) he called again. I was impressed that he called himself and didn't have his parents do it for him. I'm not sure if I, during my freshman year of high school, would have had the guts to call someone up out of the blue and asked if I could spend an afternoon once a week hanging out and helping them. Especially someone in the art field. So, that impressed me and I had him come over so we could meet each other.

We hit it off right away and he started coming over every Wednesday afternoon to help me.

On the days where I wasn't busy and didn't need him helping me on some client project we would both work on comic books together. I figured if someone wanted to learn how to draw and draw things they never thought of or wanted to draw before then doing comic book page after comic book page would really hone some of their skills.

I worked on a version of OilCan Drive while Josh worked on his own creation, "Humberto and the Mac Daddy Burger Shack."

It was the story of a lowly fry cook who has to stay late at work one night cleaning up. Because he is there he becomes wrapped up in an adventure that includes sexy female spies, secret burger sauces, and hungry zombies. It was a ton of fun.

One of the things I promised Josh was that if he got the interiors for his book done that I would do the cover for him. So, here is what I came up with. For some reason we did both a cover and a poster version of the cover. All in the name of fun, I guess.

Sadly, Humberto never saw a second issue. Well, there was half of an issue done but never finished. Unfortunately, I might have passed on some of my bad habits with OilCan Drive to Josh and the world of Humberto. I've never done a second issue of OilCan Drive (but I have done a LOT of issue ones) and he's never done a second issue of Humberto.

But, Josh, who is now graduated and almost 21 (yikes!) is still drawing away, playing his music, and making his way through life. I talk to him from time to time and we still hang out. I hope I've helped him in some way and his life is a little bit better for having me in it.

For me, the situation was great and I miss those Wednesday afternoons when I would pick him up from school and we would spend the day drawing comic books, playing music, watching movies, and talking about life.

Good times, good times.