Artist's acrylic work a hit at Comic-Con

A former Kalispell man’s weekend art business began when he painted a mural of comic heroes on his children’s bedroom wall.

Last week, that hobby gave him the chance to sell an original of Ghost Rider to Nicolas Cage as their worlds met at the Los Angeles Comic-Con.

Kelly “Junior” Hartman never expected to sell his original acrylic pieces at his first Comic-Con event — he intended to show up as his sister requested with prints to sell and originals on display.

He told his sister he would set up a booth in the chaos of heroes, villains and fans to see what would happen.

“My sister is the only reason I did this. I kept saying, the only way I’d sell an original is if Nicholas Cage himself walked up,” Hartman said. “I hadn’t ever done a Comic-Con before, I was just throwing an excuse out there. I didn’t know it would happen.”

Hartman sold the painting of Ghost Rider in flames for $5,000 to the actor who most recently played the Marvel role of a stunt motorcyclist who saved his father’s life by selling his soul to the devil.

During the week, Hartman works in a cubicle-style business at a communications agency. On the weekends, he makes his childhood favorite comic characters live on canvas.

Hartman has always been drawn to comics.

Within each story, fantasy ungracefully clashes with modern life. A rich bachelor decides to create his own justice as Batman. A teenage boy unintentionally alters his DNA and becomes Spider-Man. A scientist caught in the blast of gamma radiation transforms into the Hulk.

“It’s just fun to imagine,” Hartman said. “And as a father, my kids allowed me to hold onto that experience. Or gave me an excuse to.”

Hartman painted his children’s bedroom wall with a life-size mural of the Teen Titans on one side and the Justice League on the other.

But when the family moved to Texas six years ago, he realized it was hard to leave his work in the old home. So he transitioned to painting on large canvas instead of walls.

He finds an image of the character he has in his mind, then manipulates it to fit the way he sees that character using Photoshop. From there, he copies the computer-generated image by hand on canvas, starting in pencil, then filling it in with paint.

“It looks like paint by number, but I’m the only one who knows the numbers,” Hartman said.

His father, Kelly Hartman, said he began collecting his son’s work before he was out of school.

Like most fathers, he started by putting pictures on the fridge. Now, his Kalispell home office acts as a studio for his son’s work.

His two largest framed pieces are from his son’s childhood.

The wall starts with his son’s first comic drawing, a Batman piece he drew in junior high. The final in the series is a self-portrait his son finished at 7 years old. The crayon drawing shows a boy in an orange-and-brown striped shirt with a smile that takes up half of his face.

“Even then, I was really surprised and amazed at how good they were,” the senior Hartman said. “He developed his own style and we kept telling him, ‘You don’t realize how good you are.’”

He talked about how his son dressed as the Incredible Hulk most Halloweens.

As he talked, he looked at a print in the center of the wall, a close-up shot of the character’s green face, which took up every inch of the frame.

Without scaling out, the image showed strength and frustration — something that could be expected from a genius doctor who loses all control.

Junior Hartman said his work allows him to extend the stories he’s read and watched. And now those daydreams have become a part of his everyday life.

“My kids are the type of kids who get an action figure and never open the box. There might be something in the blood that keeps us there,” he said. “After my recent luck, I would love this hobby to turn into a career. But for now, it will be a weekend thing.”

To check out Hartman’s work, visit fineartamerica.com/artists/1+kelly+hartman.

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.