Artist Renzo Ventrella pays tribute …
The glory of art is that you don’t need special effects or a big budget or a time machine. All you need is inspiration.
Well I’m honored that artist Renzo Ventrella found inspiration from a column I wrote a few days ago in the wake of Sir Christopher Lee‘s death.
I explained how, as a kid, I used to write to DC Comics with casting suggestions for a Batman movie — with Lee as Ra’s al Ghul.
The whole thing can be found here, if you’re inclined to check it out. I was really surprised by the warm response, which was pretty moving. Turns out it struck a bit of a chord with fellow fans.
Anyway, I was absolutely bowled over when I got a message from Renzo, whom I’ve never met. He sketched up this piece, giving vision to what was just a fanciful dream:
Renzo is the chair of the Fine Arts Department and an instructor at Manhattan‘s prestigious Xavier High School. He’s also a comic book illustrator and designer.
His admiration of Christopher Lee goes back a ways. Here’s a piece he calls The Many Faces of Christopher Lee, which was, he says “interestingly enough, one of the last pieces I did practical zip-a-tone and splatter on (I do that stuff mostly digitally now), not to mention one of the first I colored with the computer as I learned Photoshop some eight or nine years ago!”
Wanna know more? You do. Here’s his Facebook page, so go check him out.
Great pieces, Renzo! Thanks for sharing them with us.
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