Sam Battin - Comic Writer at Comics for Grownups
Additional Artists in the Stable:
Sam Battin
Boneus Bone
Bobby Bittminntonn
Sam Battin has worked a long time for Comics for Grownups. His blood type is O and his favorite food is cheeseburgers with french fries.
Sam has been making comics since something like the 7th grade, which was waaaaay back in the 1980s. He firmly believes that there are about 10,000 crappy to mediocre pages of comics in each of us and we have to draw them one by one until there aren't any more. At that point, we start making good comics.
Sam's first exposure to comics came when he was about six years old. The family maid was getting rid of her son's comic collection, and so the children of the Battin family were the lucky recipients. Not only were there a fair number of Marvels and DCs (I remember seeing at least one Daredevil comic and also I'm pretty sure the first appearance of the Jack of Hearts in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #23), but there were also some genuine black and white, gritty, 1970s underground comics from the men who would eventually be known as masters of comics art. Lots of dirt, lots of stuff that would probably be worth a great deal. For example, Robert Crumb's work has always had a deep psychological effect on its viewers - the quivering, dirty skin, the pointy nipples and gigantic butts on women, the stubble and the pointed teeth on the men - and that kind of electricity is what Sam remembers from this first explosion of comic entertainment.
The comics were taken away after a week as soon as mom got a good look at them, but by then it was too late. Sam was infected and there was no cure.
Sam's major influences on his comics sensibility have been Mike Baron, Robert Crumb, and Gilbert Shelton. Surprisingly his artistic inclinations have been informed by the dynamic figures of Rumiko Takahashi, though he takes it as a point of American pride to ensure that his character's eyes are normal size.