Circles of Influence

Back on August 12th, I very happily posted a screenshot from the Facebook feed of cartoonist, animator and painter Bill Wray (Mad Magazine, The Ren & Stimpy Show), who'd shared my article on Vaughn Bode. But what I didn't realize until sometime much, much later (after revisiting his page) was that the second comment down below was from Bob Camp–which had me geekin' out  all over again! 😅 

Bob Camp is a former Marvel Comics comic book artist and a giant in animation with credits on TV shows like ThunderCats, Silverhawks, The Ren & Stimpy Show and many, many others. Camp is also the guy who illustrated the artwork on the 12-inch single of Afrika Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force's Renegades of Funk, a piece that was  a big influence on me as a young hip-hop kid. 

The aforementioned is a piece of record cover artwork that was also being included in a listicle that I was actually in the middle of outlining at the time!

Oh, artist Denys Cowan (Black Panther, The Question) had also liked the piece in Wray's feed, but we're actually Facebook friends, so it wasn't that much of a surprise. He's liked pieces that I've shared in my own feed, including this article when I first shared it there. 

In addition to that uber goodness, I realized that my article had also been shared on Facebook by Ron Turner, the founder of underground comics publisher Last Gasp. And the first person to comment there was cartoonist/tattoo artist Mark Bode–the son of Vaughn Bode. 

I'd always wanted Mark to see my piece, so it was super cool to get confirmation that he'd seen it–and read it. Even if he very clearly missed the point a little. 😇

Excelsior!