How I met Joe Mad

[eworks]

It's about his art. I'm sure everyone has a story of how they came across Mad's artwork. Well, when I was younger I never put any attention on who wrote or penciled any comic book that was on my hands. I just liked the pretty pictures. I would see Joe's work on X-Men, cards, mag covers, and Battle Chasers but I didn't know it was him I just thought to myself "d**n! the X-Men look badass and The girl in Red(refering to BC) looks pretty good." Anyway, then I got X-Men #341 with Gladiator and Canonnball but by that time Battlechasers was already over for a while. So I was never another person waiting for the next issue of BC(whew). But then I started doing some research on Mad and came across this site and went out to get all issues of BC and some X-Men ones and anything I could with Joe's art. After that this site is the first one on my bookmark. Having the internet and looking at most of the links on this site under the "links" section I can still say Joe is my fav artist of all time.

Cheers!

[onslaught36]

Awesome story! Here's mine:

I was heavily into comics in the 90s but by 1998, I became more interested in anime. That lasted until 2006 and then I heard about the Comic Con coming to NY. I had such a good time but by the time Comic Con 2007 came around, I lost interest in anime. So there wasnt much reason to go, but I knew I'd be missing out if I didnt. So I started looking at the old PSM magazines (pre-2003) that used to have the covers done my comic artists and in the inside, they showed you the progress pics leading to that cover being decided upon by the artist. My favorite one was Joe Mad's Nov 2001 Devil May Cry cover but for 6 years I had never bothered to look him up.

In a google search I found this site and was amazed by the art!! Truly the best I've seen, and then I printed out the checklist to try getting some of those comics. I ended up getting 2 at the Comic Con and a variety of his X-Men ones from the Midtown comics near my school. But no one had Battle Chasers. I then heard about this website mycomicshop.com, which has every comic you could think of and I bought all the Battle Chasers issues (except 7, which I found in a comic store but somehow it disappeared in my house). Now, I have all of Mad's X-Men issues, all of Battle Chasers (except 7), all of Deadpool, some MCP, and all the Age of Apocalypse ones except number 2. So my collection is very close to being complete!! Now I look forward to Ultimates on Wednesday!

[joemad]

You guys are sweet. ;D

-Joe

[jettison]

Marvel, X-Men trading cards.....his art really stuck out to me....later on I finally got into comics, and started gobbling up his X-Men books.

Been a fan ever since.
The new Ultimates is here in my apartment, waiting to be read......d**n, its been a long time!

[Sketchlogic]

Here goes my freaked OUT story....Wizardworld 06' Chicago. me, my 2 brothers were on our way OUT THE DOOR, and were always speaking about the Mad greatness, everytime art comes up, Joe MUST come up, he's just....Joe so lol, were walking to the door to leave and before, BEFORE i turned my head, we said "d**n, what if Joe showed up this year, that would be insanity' or SOMETHING to that effect....guys i swear to god, i turned my head, my d**n eyes almost watered with excitement LOL, i have been a Mad fan since his first published work in MCP so i never imagined, ever, meeting him, myself or my brothers. But i turned my head and omg....i saw Joe sitting down at that little marvel booth with the Ultimates Pinup gigantic posted behind him...now im trying to tap my brothers while im focused on Joe..."guys...oh my god...you 2 HE'S HERE!!! JOE MAD IS HERE!..."WHAT!? WHERE? WHEN?!" ......all of us ---> OH MY GOD!.....we STOOD there...FROZEN for about 5 mins...Joe was looking at us laughing his ass off at how d**n groupie we were LOL! so then my little brother shook his hand and didnt want to touch ANYTHING that day with that hand, and after we barely got out of the shock we simply had to express our admiration and HOLD our temptations to ask him for a sketch, we figured we did NOT want to go that route, just express our undying devotion to knowing that he's the greatest period lol. We also asked him or spoke to him about how incredible!! the Ultimates Pinup was and I QUOTE HIM "bah..this is NOTHING, wait till you see the finished book, this is nothing'' LOL!! Sigh...we shook hands, expressed again our pure admiration and went our way to burn some lead at home...thanks Joe for that moment. It was indeed a MILESTONE in our lives personally and artistically. Also, i think, THINK he was familiar with my posts on the old official site, which was cool, i spent alot of time defending him dammit lol.

[drazen]

;D yay story time!!!

so I am living in a country called Bulgaria, that 'cuz of the Communism had been away from the comicses and the comics culture for really long time so the only comics we had was Mickey Mouse . So anyway at a time there were all these people that tried publishing comicses.
So one day I was walking to the Police station to get money from my mom(yup she AND dad are cops ) and I saw something colourfull on the newspaper stand I went there and saw Battle Chasers issue 2 I bought that little thing and was blown away from the awesome art, ink and colour and it all was in one book- the storyy was awesome too I guess- I was way too busy watching the pictures . so anyway I called the guys that were publishing it and got me the first issue and then the third and fourth and umm after that the publishers just vanished we didn't heard from them again and by that time I was introduced to the mighty INTERNET and came in this awesome site, saw some of the great art pieces of Joe MAD! and met really cool guys here, nathen, coldcity and all the other I really enjoyed it then I enjoy it now too but still those years were so cool- no job, no wife I'm kiddin ofcourse I wouldn't trade a moment of my life so anyway the art of Joe made me wanna draw more I was really inspired by it and thanks to it I still am so thank you Joe and Nathen(I can not go without thanking the guy who made this site possible)

[eworks]

Very cool stories! I wish I met him in person. Hopefully you go to a con here in So. California one day Joe!

[tomtravers]

Hi all, this is my first post on these boards though I am a long time hardcore Joe Mad fantatic. I had a lot of trouble getting signed up for the site for one reason or another and only recently was able to be fully activated, been dying to partake in the discussions here! This seems like a good place for a first post.

If I recall correctly, I discovered Joe's work through ads for Battle Chasers in Wizard and other comics. I had just begun collecting comics, I was obsessed with the art, always on the lookout for the next mega artist whose work I could admire and gain inspiration from. I remember reading a lot of hyped up articles about BC and I remember the first few issues being totally sold out and expensive to track down. Finally I went out and picked up issue 4 at my local comic shop when I was about 15 yrs old. Obviously, I was blown away by the art and so began my Joe Mad fandom. I tracked down everything he had done, paying high prices for early issues of Battle Chasers and stand-out Uncanny X-men issues. I went as far back as his Marvel Comics Presents work, well worth the searching and the dough.

Joe's work inspires me as an artist, entertains me, and just makes me feel good in general so for that I am truly grateful and look foward to everything he produces in the future.

Thanks, Joe!

[maverick1104]

I was an old school Mad! fan. Don't exactly know what issue I got that got me into him, but it had to be during his early Uncanny X-Men days. Probably around the Age of Apocalypse/Onslaught days is when I really got into Mad!'s art. I do however remember issue #325 with the baseball game. So, I couldn't exactly tell you what issue, though. I got into comics when my grandpa bought me an issue of Batman. I fell in love with the character. He looked so awesome. Still does. Anyway, that led to some character called Wolverine, who kinda looked like he could kick the crap out of Batman. So, then my love of Batman swayed to the three-clawed Wolverine. It was the X-Men issue drawn by Jim Lee with Wolverine on the cover fighting Ghost Rider. And then that led me to other X-Men artists like Andy Kubert, John Romita Jr., and finally the great Joe Mad! And honestly, I really didn't like Joe's art much at first. The things I end up loving are things I dislike at first. Strange but true thing for me. So, after awhile, his energetic, anime-influenced art won me over. I've been following ever since. Every single thing I can get my hands on, I've picked up or ripped out and put into my Joe Mad! folder. Still would like to know what happened with that Nickelodeon/B.L.A.S.T. movie that Mad! and Loeb were working on years back. Maybe if Mad! reads this he can shed some light....eh?

[chantienyee]

I started collecting comics when I was, like, 12ish.
My brother introduced me to this 25-cent bargain basement. He was into Conan and ElfQuest and stuff. We were big on Star Trek back then. I picked up a few Star Trek books and just kept going back with him to get more. Only Star Trek.

Later on my horizons were expanded when he got me into his ElfQuest books.

Fast forward, like, 4-5 years.
Uncle and family came over to visit. My cousin wanted to go to 7-11 down the street. So he did and picked up an issue of X-Men while he was there. I was always spoiled at their house with X-Men action figures and SNES games (Sega Genesis X-men was wicked!), and the animated X-Men and stuff. This issue he'd bought was... #347 or something? The one with Spider-man around the whole storyline with Bastion, or whatever. I was totally struck by the drawings. I looked it over for a few seconds and I was, just, like, "HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT FOR THIS??" I eventually bought it from him and bought every subsequent Uncanny book (until, what #351, when he stopped (not sure if I have my issue numbers right...)) Then went back and tried to get as many back issues and variant covers as I could. I started collecting as much new stuff as I could when he started Battle Chasers, and that's when I started buying books for the "art", rather than the story.

Now I have thousands of dollars of beautiful comics and artbooks, and it's all thanks to Joe's awesomeness

[LabSOUND]

My first time seeing a Joe Mad! comic had to be Uncanny X-Men #338. It's the cover when angel got his wings back. I remember walking into the comic store and there was something about that cover that drew my eyes right to it. I picked it up and looked inside and was blown away. I never had a comic attract me like that before so i decided to get all the back issues right there and then. Ever since, what ever Joe Mad has done i have been very supportive. I get 2 to 3 copies of everything he puts out. Whether it's a variant cover, games even posters, i would get them. I went as far as getting original artwork wich I'm the proud owner of 3 of his original X-Men pages (whish he start selling the Battle Chasers ones though . )

[scuppo]

the first time i met joemad was in that deadpool series that he did. then after that i caught him in the uncanny x-men right before the phalanx covenant, his first x-book was one with gambit i cant forget it.

[upschris]

ive never met the guy.its been half my life now, i wish he had gone to more conventions.

[snow]

My story seems to start 2 months after Drazen's...I'm also from Bulgaria. I was on my way home after school and I passed by a small bookstore, and they had the #4 issue of BC shown and I liked the cover and bought the comic. I was really blown away by the awesomeness of the art. So I found the 3 previous issues and read them... and that's it, I still don't know what happens next. -_- Anyway, as soon as possible I will find the rest of BC.
And when I got internet running at my place one of the first things to search was Joe MAD!'s art... and that's how I ended up here.

[t6092494510]

I remember then I was about 12 years old I've seen Joe's work all over the place. In fact I didn't realize it was him who drew Astonishing X-Men till I was 16 when I got serious about art. When you are a child you don't really care who the author or artist is till you get old. Every since then I tried to draw like Joe but soon came along other artist like Lesean Thomas, Patt Lee, a bunch of Japanese Manga and Animation Artist, also Indies artist Trent Kaniuga. Even thou my style has changed dramatically from Joe's style I still love his work. Every since Joe started doing Video Games it really open my world to other form of games. Still kinda wish Dragon kinds was adopted by Vigil Games. I still think that game has potential.

-Peace ;D