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The 11x14 foot oil painting was such a hit with friends that he decided to try this style using other famous artists' paintings including Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper," Grant Wood's "American Gothic," Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" and Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze's "George Washington Crossing the Delaware."

A stick-figured Norman Rockwell piece is in his plans.

"Someone bought (the Gogh painting), and I've been selling the prints ever since," the 52-year-old Hamtramck resident said. "I use a Sharpie with black felt tip, and scan them on the computer and do painting effects."

Ten of his "Stick Figure Masterpieces" will be on display beginning Wednesday at Gallery 194 in Lapeer as part of its new exhibit Comix At Large: Cartooning Around. The exhibit will feature cartoon artists from the East Coast to the Midwest with a mix of traditional style comic art to more independent stylings.

Gallery director Carolyn McCarter said the idea to showcase comics came from the PIX Arts Council prior to her directorship. The more it was discussed, the more they realized an exhibit like this would open up doors in the gallery for

all ages.

"There's a certain energy people have about comic art and comics," she said. "People connect with comics. As I researched this, I was amazed at the level of detail and creativity in cartooning art. It kind of merges visual art with storytelling and literary art."

Feazell does more than just stick figures of great works of art. From 1997-2002, his own comic strip of stick people "The Amazing Cynicalman: America's Laid Off Superhero" was published in a short list of Michigan newspapers including Orbit Magazine and the Detroit Metro Times. His books include "Cynicalman, the Paperback," "ERT!", which is a collection of mini-comics, "The Amazing Cynicalman" and his recently finished graphic novel, "Death of Antisocialman." His Web site is www.cynicalman.com.

"(Antisocialman) is a big villain in the Cynicalman universe," Feazell said. "He's got a girlfriend, and a toxic waste truck. It's about life, love, friendship, work and the choices we make that lead to life and death."

Prior to the magazine's cancellation in 2007, Feazell contributed a monthly feature in Disney's Adventures Magazine for six years, illustrating the "wacky adventures" of the Disney Adventures staff between issues in a full page comic.

Husband and wife Jane Irwin, 34, and Paul Sizer, 44, from Kalamazoo, will also be featured in the exhibit. Sizer is a freelance graphic designer and comic artist who self-publishes his own graphic novels, including the all-ages "Little White Mouse," and the American Library Association award winning graphic novel "Moped Army," which both will have selections on display. He is well at work on his next full color piece titled "B.P.M." (Beats Per Minute), which

tells the story of a girl disc jockey in New York City. He hopes to have it released this summer.

While he has been a professional for 15 years, Sizer has been drawing cartoons all his life. He evolved from the simple to the more complex comics.

"When I was a little kid, I taught myself to draw by copying and emulating Charles Schulz's 'Peanuts,'" he said. "When I grew up, I had a steady diet of superhero books like X-Men, Teen Titans, The Avengers, and stuff like that.

"When I got more serious about pursuing it as a part of a career, there was the advent of when more serious and more ambitious comics were being made where people were questioning 'Can we tell stronger stories or tell more emotionally complex stories. Can we tell things that have a real impact instead of superheroes beating each other up and running around in their underwear?'"

An illustrator and a painter, the serious comics life didn't strike Irwin until high school in the early 1990s when she started reading Art Spigelman's "Maus" and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's comic series "Watchmen."

"I really started seeing the medium and wanted to pursue it with my own artwork," she said. "I started investigating it as a storytelling medium. (In 1992) is when the ball really started rolling."

Her inspirations include sci-fi comic "Finder" by Carla Speed McNeil, and fellow gallery exhibitors Feazell and Hamtramck cartoonist Sean Bieri, who created "Jape."

"Sean is an absolute genius, and so is Matt Feazell," Irwin said. "They are really masters of their craft. Every time we go to comic conventions, we don't care about the pros. We climb over everyone else to get to Matt and Sean."

Irwin will have 15 pages of her most recent book "Vogelein: Old Ghosts" at the exhibit. This book is the sequel to her first one entitled "Vogelein: Clockwork Faerie," which will also have pieces on display.

She is currently working on her newest book, "Clockwork Game," which will be released as a Web comic possibly in March or April. This mostly non-fiction piece will center around a clockwork, which was an actual chest-playing robot that existed in the 1700s.

Sizer and Irwin can be visited on the Web at www.paulsizer.com and www.vogelein.com, respectively.

"One of the things Jane and myself are interested in is helping to break down and expand people's ideas about what comics can be about," Sizer said. "We want to get away from the Pow! Bang! and Biffs!, and show them they can be a very diverse medium able to be a powerful storytelling vehicle that allows a wide range of people to tell a wide range of stories."

Other artists to be featured in Comix At Large will be Matt Manning, who is a writer for DC/Marvel comics in New York City. His Web site is www.matthewkmanning.blogspot.com. His colleagues from New York will also contribute work: Steve Uy and Jacob Chabot. They can be seen on the Web at www.steveuy.com and www.beetlebugcomics.com, respectively. Martin Hirchak of Detroit will exhibit his "Pop Art Funnies."

A panel discussion, book signing and cartooning workshops with Manning, Feazell, Bieri and more will take place from 1-4 p.m. Jan. 19 at the gallery.

"They're all amazing, creative, and very down to earth," McCarter said. "Each of these artists has a story to tell and its fascinating how they got connected in cartooning in the first place. A lot of people in the community all over either enjoy reading comics or doodle themselves. People can connect to it in a lot of different ways."

A "reading room" in the gallery will include mostly browsing comic books and graphic novels pulled together from private collectors in Michigan. Books from exhibiting artists will be for sale.

The exhibit will run through Feb. 8 and is sponsored by Comic Explosion; print sponsor is The County Press. For more information, call the gallery at (810) 667-1495. It is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

Jeff Hoard can be reached at (810) 664-0811, Ext. 8127 or jeff.hoard@lapeergroup.com