I recently answered some questions and gave a brief review to a young artist. I know it would help to see the art and questions, but privacy must be respected. Still I thought some of the info might be valuable to the community at large:

Re: The Tao of penciling

A pencilers job is to tell the story and give a loose fluid drawing for the inker to interpret. I see you are doing a lot of greyscale, but it doesn't really give the inker any pertinent information. Tone and texture is usually a colorists job, though sometimes an inker handles it if he works in greyscale (which I often do). I know I pencil digitally in tones, but I ink my own work in greyscale, and my work is the exception rather than the rule.

Comic art is primarily a balance of strong black and whites. It gets the information across to the reader quickly and efficiently. The x-men page is looking a bit "whispy." I would suggest looking at some Alex Toth art to see what a strong and fluid use of Black and white can do for the page.

Re: portfolios

Marvel has specific guidelines for submitting work. They typically choose to scout talent at conventions or find them through work of mouth. The best thing is to find a peer group of other artists who are trying to break in. They can help share networking tools and offer advice and support. Blind requests for portfolio reviews can sometimes be off-putting, but if you participate in art forums like gutter zombie or DA, and others you will run into pros who are willing to offer advice. The best thing is to go to conventions. I went to dozens before I broke into comics and my art got better every time. You can watch artists draw and see original comic art in person, get your portfolio reviewed, and make connections with peers.

In other news. We just got back from Europe and it was AWESOME!