M.O.D.O.K.'s Jordan Blum Talks His Favorite Art Pieces - Creator Owned Art

Jordan Blum is a comic and television writer whose works include Marvel's M.O.D.O.K., American Dad, Community, Minor Threats from Dark Horse Comics and M.O.D.O.K. Head Games from Marvel Comics both with Patton Oswalt and Scott Hepburn. I spoke with Blum about his favorite piece(s) of art from his collection as part of a series called “Creator Owned Art.” Here’s what he said:

My piece of original art needs a little backstory—one about the artist and the other about the person who gifted it to me… But even before that, I feel like I need to talk briefly about my own history behind collecting comic art.

It starts in the mid-90s and I’m probably 11 or 12, DEEEEP into my obsession with comics. It’s my whole world. I dream about being a professional penciler (spoilers, it didn’t work out). I’m even buying professional boards to draw on. So naturally, I want to own one by my favorite X-Men artist, John Byrne. Quickly, I learned his X-pages are way out of my price range, but $30 for a West Coast Avengers featuring the Golden Age Human Torch is doable. I frame it and hang it and fawn over it every day. Noticing the un-inked pencil marks and notes in the margins. For the next few years, I dabbled in collecting, picking up a page of my then-current fav X-artist, Adam Pollina, while also getting sketches like a Martian Manhunter from Howard Porter or a Flash from Mike Wieringo (god, I need to track that down).

As I entered college, I attended fewer cons and got a lot more broke. It’s what you do. But skip to ten years later, and I’m in LA, a working professional in the entertainment industry who now attends Sand Diego Comic Con yearly with a little bit of disposable income. I start browsing the familiar aisles of artist alley. I get an original Barry Allen by Carmine Infantino and a page of Aquaman by Patrick Gleason, and suddenly, that fire is relit.

Soon my first son is born and I start a sketchbook for him – a Cyclops by Jim Cheung, a Cannonball by Liefeld, a Nightcrawler by Ed McGuiness. I need more, more, MORE (for my son of course).

Finally the unthinkable happens… I break into comics (not as a penciler) getting to do M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games for Marvel Comics. Original art is being made from stories I WROTE! Not only that, they’re being penciled by SCOTT HEPBURN. Scott draws comics the way I want to read them, the way they pop and burst in my mind. His pages are so thoughtfully laid out: characters and action explode out of panels, facial expressions convey every emotion, details litter the background begging to be uncovered upon various rereads. Mentally I make a note to sign this guy to a “life-time contract” and I’m gifted multiple pages of original art including a “M.O.D.O.K. gone mad” splash that will live forever as my definitive M.O.D.O.K. image (sorry Kirby, I know that’s sacrilege).

To ensure my plan of locking down Scott full time, he, Patton and I co-create Minor Threats. If you think it’s thrilling owning pages you wrote from a Big Two book, imagine pages from something you created whole-cloth. This is all a long way to say… Scott Hepburn is my favorite comic artist. But technically he didn’t gift me my favorite piece of original art…

I love my wife. We’ve been together for years. She is my best friend and an amazing partner. She is also famously a terrible gift giver. She’ll tell you that herself. Where as gifting is my love language, it is one she doesn’t seem to speak. We often laugh at one of her earlier attempts… a double-XL thick cotton, black Civil War t-shirt with beautiful Steve McNiven art printed on what felt like hard plastic, guaranteed to irritate the nipples. 

So, imagine my surprise when I received my 40^th birthday present from her. A family portrait she commissioned from Scott Hepburn. She had secretly contacted Scott, perfectly assigning characters to our family – she would be her favorite mutant Jean Grey, my oldest, a dinosaur/monster aficionado would be a reptilian creature, my youngest a Peter Parker fanatic would be Spider-Boy and I of course would be Cyclops (the greatest fictional character every created). I was moved to tears. It was so personal, so well thought out – the family that meant more to me than anything (even comics) captured by the artist I admired the most. It now hangs in my office – bringing a smile to my face every time I pass by it. I’ve always had a deeply emotional connection to comic art and I don’t think this can ever be topped…

…but let’s wait and see what Scott and my wife have planned for my 45^th .

READ MORE CREATOR OWNED ART POSTS (and please consider subscribing to the newsletter!)