This is another one of my 'Spotlight' blogs ...  Where I take a comics creator, whether writer, penciller, inker, colorist, editor, etc., and invite them to blog a little bit about themselves here. Almost like having a 'Guest Blogger' for the day!

"Hi, my name is Jeff Balke.  I live in the great city of Chicago where I have the greatest job/career, coloring/illustrating comic books.  I guess I’m kind of a big kid, but there’s nothing wrong with that.  My whole life as far back as I can remember I’ve always wanted to do something in the arts field.  Then I was introduced to comic books. 

  In the 6th grade (1993) I went to my first comic book convention and met Stan “THE MAN” Lee.  He really gave me hope by simply saying with a grin out of nowhere while getting my Amazing Spiderman #41 signed by him “Hang in there true believer, it will come.  Don’t ever give up”.  I never really knew why he said that to me until later that day when it hit me that I wanted to work in comics.  But, still to this day, I never gave up, and NEVER will.

In 2006 I stumbled upon this website called Myspace (you may have heard of it).  A few of my friends told me to post my b/w artwork up there.  So I created a profile and did just that.  To my shock, I had a few people comment.  I then decided to put up a couple pieces of my colored work to see what kind of comments (if any) I would get.  I got more comments on my colored pieces then I did on my regular b/w artwork.  One comment came from my first comic artist friend who told me to stick with coloring.  He clarified and said my coloring is very strong and that I should build on that.  I agreed with him and since then, I’ve been coloring and LOVE every minute of it!

  Recently, I’ve created something called Sketch Coloring.  This is where I take a sketch cover of any comic and color it right there on the spot with special markers.  This is my way of doing a sketch.  Since most colorists really don’t sketch “traditionally” (like Jim Lee, Micah Gunnell and so on…) I wanted to come up with my own way to give something to the fans so they can take home and have a “one of a kind”.  Sketch Colorings do just that.  No two Sketch Colorings are alike(even if I color the same cover 100 times for 100 people).

To view more of Jeff's work you should check out the following site:   http://www.jbalkesart.com/

Thanks Jeff for the background on your career in comics and what you are doing now!

BTW, Jeff Balke will be attending Zombie Con June 27th in Chicago... more info at his web site as to what he will be signing and sketch coloring!