ORIGINAL ART, SPIDEY STUFF, FREAK, FIRESTORM, BOWIE and more…

Well, well, well … here we are.

Hope things are good with you. This past week has been a crazy, stressful decade in the Ferguson household, but we persevere 🙂 And I have quite a bit to share this time, so let’s get started…

First off, I want to bring your attention to the fact that the ORIGINAL ART section of my website has been overhauled. Why? Because now the crew at PANEL PUNK ORIGINALS is handling my art sales, commissions, that kind of thing. I’m pretty excited by this, because while selling art and picking up commissions is obviously a big part of any art career, it also takes time away from … you know, actually making art! I never feel like I have enough time to do all of the things I want to do, and as a result, stuff like selling pages, etc., tends to suffer. But not any more! Do yourself a favor and check out PANEL PUNK’s website … I’ll post a link at the bottom of this newsletter (I spend too much time on this to have you bail on me right here at the start 🙂

Speaking of art … I did a few new pieces lately just because I felt the need to draw some Spidey villains. I guess there’s a new movie out or something, I dunno…

Anybody who knows me knows that I love Spidey (I learned to read before kindergarten only because I needed to know what was going on in all the Spider-man comics around my house…)

But if you’re interested in my take on a few classic Spidey bad guys, here you go…

First up … this guy.

The Vulture. Ol’ Adrian Toomes first appearance was in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #2, by Stan and Steve. I always dug how he was really just a cranky old guy with wings, but he could give Spidey (especially new-on-the-job Spidey) so much trouble 🙂

Next up…

The Rhino. His first appearance was in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #41, by Stan Lee and John Romita. It’s funny, since the first time I ever came across the Rhino in a comic, it was actually a reprint of some issue of the Hulk … I only associated The Rhino with Spidey because of the reruns of the old cartoon (which, yes, of course I loved as a kid 😉

The Scorpion. Mac Gargan’s first (in-costume) appearance was in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #20, by Stan and Steve. I think the first time I ever came across the Scorpion in a comic, though, was actually a Marvel Tales reprint of issue #145, which starts a really fun two-parter by Gerry Conway and Ross Andru, a team I really loved…

(More on that below…)

The Grizzly first appeared in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #139 by Gerry Conway and Ross Andru … and yes, of course he’s great! I’m a huge fan of the Conway/Andru stuff, and we all know if Sony were serious they’d stop trying to make the Venom-verse a thing and just build around THIS guy 🙂

I mentioned above that I’ve done a bit of writing lately … I don’t know if I’ve said anything about this before (and I don’t feel like going back through past newsletters to check) but I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a sequel to FREAK. For anybody who doesn’t know, FREAK was a book I wrote, drew, colored and published at Image waaaaay back in 2004. Thanks to a miscommunication the print date ended up being two months sooner than I’d expected, so the whole book became a mad dash to the finish line…

And since I’d never written OR colored a real comic at that point, well … there were a lot of sleepless nights. Also a lot of learning on the fly. I’m proud of the accomplishment, but there are plenty of things with the art and story that I flinch at whenever I take a look back … but then I’ve also always wanted to finish this story. I had planned to do quite a few books following this character and his world back in the day, but now I don’t really see that as being necessary (or as something that I’m even interested in.) But I do want to finish this, and along those lines…

Well, I have an 80 page script sitting here, waiting to be drawn. It’s a first draft, and there are things I need to add and change (hopefully there are some bits I can condense or remove because 80 pages is a lot of drawing 🙂 but I’m reasonably happy with it at this stage. I’m not sure if I want to pitch this somewhere, Kickstart it, or publish it online … but I’ve got time to figure that out.

Looking back at my old work there, though, has made me think a bit (okay, a lot) about how we grow and change as artists with time. Sometimes it’s just part of our natural growth as an artist (or as a human being) and other times I guess it’s more … forced? That sounds wrong. How about … intentional.

And when I look back on FREAK and wonder if I’d want to go through all of that again, I think about this quote from David Bowie:

If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.

Yeah. I mean … what am I gonna add to that?

Go make cool shit. Push yourself. Scare yourself. Surprise yourself.

Something else I haven’t mentioned since it happened … is the passing of Gerry Conway.

Man … that’s rough. I never got to meet Mr. Conway, but it’s no exaggeration to say that he had as much influence on my love of comics, and thus my career, as any artist has. As much as I love the classic Lee/Ditko stuff, as much as I love the Stern/JR Jr stuff … it was Gerry Conway’s run on Amazing Spidey, with artists like Romita, Kane and Andru, that cemented my love of the web-head.

Not only that … but man do I love Firestorm. I didn’t have a comic shop in my small town as a kid, so I only caught the occasional issue here and there, but it was the one DC book that I’d immediately grab if I spotted an issue in the wild. I’ve actually been working to put together a run of that 1982 series, issues 1-100, and at the moment … well, I’ve got 83 of them, as well as a couple of the annuals. Getting there.

I can’t wait to sit down and read this entire run.

Thanks for everything, Mr. Conway.

I should mention that I’ll be doing a con this fall … if you’re going to be in the Orlando area, stop by!

Okay, before I go … my wife keeps reminding me that I need to mention the big bunch of collected editions on the way which somehow include my work (sometimes quite a bit, sometimes just a little…)

ULTIMATES BY DENIZ CAMP VOL. 4: UPRISING – Aug 12, 2026

GENERATION X Epic Collection: Counter X – Nov 3, 2026

RUNAWAYS By Rainbow Rowell Omnibus – Jan 12, 2027

PREDATOR KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE OMNIBUS HC – Jan 26, 2027

…and apparently, this came out a few months back? I dunno … I haven’t seen it.

AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. Omnibus – Mar 31, 2026

Anyway, if you want any of these … well, I probably won’t have any copies 😉 Make sure to let your local comic shop know!

Okay, that’s it for this time … thanks for reading, and here’s that promised link to the PANEL PUNK site! My work should be available soon … if it’s not yet at the time I post this 🙂 Please consider signing up for the newsletter, since that will be the best way to keep up with art drops, commission openings and more!

https://www.panelpunk.com/collections/lee-ferguson

Best,

LF