2002 Captain America mail-in

For years despite wanting to draw comics I never drew comics. I drew sketches and pin-ups, anything but actual comics. I had the idea that how you 'broke into' comics was to mail in samples and keep mailing them in until you proved your desire or fortitude or something. So I put off sending anything off. I felt like once I started sending work in I had send in samples every month and I didn't have that in me, not yet. But the 2002 had changed all that. Meeting C.B. Cebulski and getting good feedback from him had fired me up. It all seemed possible, I could make this happen. C.B. had given me his card and I would make it happen. But I did the worst thing I could possibly do, I didn't follow up with C.B. Oh, I drew pages and sent them off, but I didn't tell him who I was or how we met or anything. I just sent him the same letter I sent every other editor. Dumb move and only a little good luck would fix that. Here's the next sample I sent off. This seems to me to be a step backward from my previous art and I was tempted to switch the two and show I got better and better all the time. But I know this was done later and art isn't digging a ditch, with continual progress. It's something you keep against all opposition even if sometimes the thing holding you back is yourself.