Above Left: Mid-’80s painting of Lt. Col. Oliver North, best known for his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair. Above Right and Next Page: A three-page sequence featuring Hulk and Thing (are you sensing a pattern?) from one of Ron’s portfolio samples which helped him land a job at Marvel Comics. Hulk, Thing ™ and © Marvel Characters, Inc.
and read these things. I was so into it. The reason I started trying out for Marvel is because of something I said to the guy behind the counter. I said, “Boy, I would love to draw these. I’m an artist. How would I go about drawing for Marvel?” And he said, “You have to send stuff in. But...” and he pointed me over to this Marvel Comics Try-Out Book they had for sale that I hadn’t even seen sitting there. It was this huge book, and I was like, “Oh, wow! I’m going to enter this.” Everything was there in it. It had the paper, it had the story. I think John Romita, Jr. had drawn it. You could ink it and send it in, or you had blank pages you could pencil, and they had a whole script in there. So I brought it home and I worked my ass off on it. I was determined to win it. I sent it in, but I didn’t win. Actually, I think Mark Bagley won it. 10
MM: Mark Bagley won it, and I think Erik Larsen came in fourth place or something. RON: Oh, did he? It’s funny how the timing works; they both worked on Spider-Man at the same time. MM: Did you get a letter? RON: I did get a letter, basically saying, “Thanks, but no thanks.” MM: Did that experience make you want to quit? RON: No, because my ego was bruised. I was used to winning awards. I was always being noted as the best artist in the class. So I knew I was a good artist, I just was clearly not good enough at drawing comics. I had a lot to learn. Up to that point I had predominantly