Well, I can’t say that this at all surprised me. As a native New Yorker and a Queens resident Mr. Met has been one of my favorite mascots from the start. Listen, to be completely honest with you, I am not a big sports fan. Not because I don’t like the game of baseball. In fact, I’ve been to Shea Stadium several times for live games with the Boy Scouts. I love it!
However, my schedule as a working licensing artist prevents me from watching games for any team on a regular basis. There have been times w]hen a game that I actually want to see has been on and I was actually creating a drawing of Mr.Met for Major League Baseball! My love of the character actually comes from the actual design of him.
]Now there were at least 3 artists that contributed to Mr. Met’s creation but the main on was a comic book artist named Alfred Dean Avison. He actually worked for Marvel Comics on a character called ”The Whizzer”. I’ve always thought the design was super clean & simple. I mean the guy is a giant baseball.
Now, This seems obvious. On the nose even but speaking as a professional artist and character designer, something like this can go horribly wrong. To create a character that had the ability to not only stand the test of time but connect with the fans (who are actually New Yorkers) was nothing short of incredible.
So, my hats off to Mr.Avison for creating a design that I eventually got to work on and further a bit, adding on to Mr. Mets legacy in my own small way. I’m going to add a few of the things that I’ve done for you to enjoy below. I just hope that I’ve made Mr. Avison proud…
you can click here and here to check out some of the work I’ve done for the Mets!
See ya next time!
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