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Mark Waid talks Action Comics #500 - Creator Owned Art

Mark Waid chats with us about his favorite comic art!

Mark Waid is one of the comic book industry’s most prolific writers, with an impressive resume that includes The Flash, Kingdom Come, Superman: Birthright, Irredeemable, JLA: Tower of Babel, and the Fantastic Four. Currently, Mark is working on Batman/Superman: World's Finest with artist Dan Mora, while the team’s work on the new Absolute Power event for DC Comics arrives later this summer.

I asked Mark about his favorite piece of art from his collection as part of a new series called “Creator Owned Art.” Here’s what he said:

This page, from Action Comics #500 by Marty Pasko, Curt Swan, and Frank Chiaramonte - "The Life Story of Superman" - is the comics page that made me a writer. When I first read that book in the summer of 1979, it hit me like a thunderbolt. I realized for the first time what made a great superhero story. It's not the fights, it's not the powers, it's immersing readers in the superhuman condition. "The sound that bullets make when they bounce of living flesh"--that one sentence--was the most profound lesson I ever got: write from the inside out. Inhabit the characters and let yourself imagine what their lives are like every moment of the day--not just when they're throwing punches, but how they move through the world given their unique powers. If you can move at super-speed, what does it feel like to stand in line at the DMV? What are all the unexpected ways, both big and subtle, that you could use a magic lasso that made people tell the truth? What does the Atom breathe when he shrinks smaller than an oxygen atom? What does it look like to literally pass through time? What would you do, how would you feel, how would you go about your everyday existence with abilities far beyond moral humans? I'm grateful that, after I'd found a measure of success and was able to use the lesson taught me, that I was able to thank Marty time and again for his inspiration.

I knew the original artwork to that page must be out there somewhere, but it took nearly thirty years to track down on eBay, and even then only during a fluke search for "Curt Swan," still my favorite comics artist. I no longer recall what I paid for it, but whatever it was, it was worth 100 times that to me.