I was a Star Wars kid, born in 1978, grew up in the 80s', fell in love with comics in the early 90s' and discovered Punk Rock around the same time. Jim Kettner is cut from almost the exact same damn cloth as me, age and everything.
When I read Ink in Water written by Lacy J. Davis, and drawn by Kettner, I fell in love with his art. The book follows the journey of the author, Lacy, living with an eating disorder. It is an extremely powerful book of self defeat, self abuse, self care, and self discovery all the same. A lot of the themes captured there very much echoed some of the themes of The War for Kaleb.
The thing that really drove the themes home in Ink in Water was the amazing art of Jim Kettner. It was the first time I really saw the darkness, and all consuming power of mental illness visually represented the way he does. He also gives us a glimpse of what it was like for someone like him to grow up reading comics, and coming of age in a punk rock scene. It was only appropriate that I ask Kett to draw Kaleb for me.
Given that I have just finished my third tribute cover, Kett asked if it was okay to do one of his own, based off one of his heroes, the legendary Thor artist, Walter Simonson:
My wife, having had taken a class with Walter Simonson, back in our SVA days, decided to shoot Walt the awesome image. He retweeted it, and it made everyone's days, but probably not quite as much as Jim. It was like a seeing a kid wake up for Christmas.
You can also see Jim's process for putting the image together over at his website Kettnerd.com.
Thanks Alex!
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