Chattanooga: Comic book artist shows children secrets to drawing superheroes

Bruce Wayne may be the man behind Batman’s mask but Rod Whigham is one of the men truly behind Gotham’s protector. In fact, Mr. Whigham also is behind a dozen other superheroes.

A comic-book artist, Mr. Whigham has drawn the Flash, the Men in Black and the Justice League among his projects as a penciler, describing his job as the director of “movies on paper.”

He is sharing the secrets to drawing superheroes with children at the Creative Discovery Museum. He will lead 50-minute seminars at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. today and Saturday. Classes are limited to 20 students on a first-come, first-served basis. The workshops are free with museum admission.

“Everybody still having fun?” Mr. Whigham asked the 20 students gathered in one of his workshops Thursday before he drew a sour-looking sneer on his demonstration sketch of X-men character Wolverine. “We might actually learn something, too — I know that would be terrible.”

The students sketched the X-Men hero’s face along with Mr. Whigham as he explained the finer points of shading, details and symmetry.

“I like the part when we got to make the eyes,” said Brody Hamby, 8, of Chattanooga, who attended the class.

“I’m going to put it on my refrigerator,” said another attendee, Dalton Manning, 8, of Dalton, Ga.

“Everything goes to the refrigerator,” said Dalton’s mother, Jackie.

Mrs. Manning said she cleared off the refrigerator last week but Dalton and his twin brother Dillon already had covered it again with sketches of various caped crusaders.

At the end of the class, Mr. Whigham asked all the students to hold up their sketches. He said the finished project is one of the more rewarding parts of the program for him, and that he hoped the children would continue to use their creativity.

“Because they think I’m a lot cooler than I am because I draw comics, they give me the benefit of the doubt, pick up a pencil and are surprised with what they walk out with,” Mr. Whigham said.