Stuff from my Studio #10: Jack Davis Original!

I have several really awesome pieces of original comic/cartoon art I’ve gotten over the years from friends and fellow cartoonists. This is one of my favorites because it’s Batman, it’s by the legendary Jack Davis, and I asked him to do it.

Back in 2014 we were brainstorming ideas for a T-Shirt to produce for the National Cartoonists Society’s Comic-Con booth. We settled on doing one themed on Batman, since it was the 75th anniversary of the character’s first appearance. We asked a number of well-known NCS members to give us a piece of Batman art, and we received some really great ones. Here’s the final design:

(BTW I traded my art for this to Bill Morrison for his terrific Batman art… I’ll post that one one of these days).

I called Jack up just to see if he’d be willing to send me a piece of Batman art for the shirt. I thought maybe he’d have something laying around he could scan and send. Instead he sent me this original in the mail about a week or so later. I wasn’t expecting it, and was appalled to find the oversized envelope sticking out of my mailbox, with the flap UNSEALED and the art PARTWAY HANGING OUT!!! That art could have been lost, damaged, rained on… but it made it in one piece. Jack included a note saying he’d like me to keep the art rather than send it back.

This is the only piece of Davis art I own. I never had the nerve to ask him if I could swap any published originals with him (HA! That’s a joke… like asking if I could swap my busted down Ford van for a Porsche), and while I’m sure he’d call this nothing but a “doodle” it hangs in a place of honor within the studio. I miss Jack.

Here’s a better look at a scan I did before having it framed up: