“Don’t wait for someone else to publish you. Xeroxing and print-on-demand websites mean that, if you make a comic, you can reproduce it and get it out at art fairs and local shops. That’s a good experience and leads to better work and new opportunities. If you have a book out, you will feel compelled to make another one.”
How did you get started as a maker?
Comics are the first thing I can remember drawing. As an eight year old, I wasn’t looking at too many oil paintings or marble sculptures, but I had this growing collection of comics, which were story and art gallery rolled into one. I tried to make comics, which turned into drawing a lot, which turned into going to art school, which turned into oil painting. And, by my teens, I was disinterested in comics anyway – putting away childish things and all that. This was the mid-late ‘90s, when the comic industry hadn’t matured into the diverse beast it is today and mainstream comics were just abysmal. As I went on with my art, I began gravitating toward more narrative work and book binding. And, eventually, I realized how important that primal experience of the comic as self-contained universe and comics as art gallery were to me. I like to hold that much text and image in my hand. By then – 2006-ish – I was already teaching comics classes and figured it was time to try it out. Over eight months or so, I drew the first issue of “Gumpop!” way, way bigger than necessary because I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m a big believer in the learn-by-doing school.
How does the process of creating a comic
compare to making fine art?
It takes longer, for one thing. My comics usually run 18-24 pages. And the individual pages are each composed, sketched, drawn, lettered, and inked to be compelling in their own right, but really only work in the context of the larger story. The comic is the piece and the pages support that. I never spent all that much time considering my fine art pieces. (Of course, I wasn’t that great of a fine artist.) In comics, you do the same kind of work that you might for fine art – creating the best image possible based on skill and formal considerations, but with this added necessity of telling a story.
I think all art has a narrative function or derives meaning from its status as an artifact inside a narrative. Comics bring the narrative function of art right up to the foreground and live or die based on communication. The story can be drawn a thousand different ways, but it always needs clarity and consistency. Drawing comics has made me a more disciplined artist. In a story, you can play to your strengths. But, eventually, you’ll have to draw something difficult – for me, it’s cars – and you can’t fake it. You just have to roll up your sleeves and figure that thing out. Otherwise, the story won’t make sense.
There is also the aspect of reproduction in comics. I always liked printmaking because, when you have multiples, you have a freedom that you don’t get from making one object or one painting. Comics are made to be reproduced, ideally cheaply, and that makes them so much more flexible than traditional fine art. I like being able to pass out copies of comics. And each one is “the piece.” It almost seems weird in the current moment to spend three months making one artifact that is designed to sit on a wall next to other artifacts. The question for me as an artist became: Aren’t there enough artifacts already? I was running out of things that I wanted to make paintings of.
Comics are wonderful for an artist because they are self-propelling, thanks to narrative. The characters and situations – the universe – that you’re inventing/describing have their own momentum. I always know what I need to work on next.
I think making comics at the local level is kind of like being a fine artist and kind of like being in a band.
Besides length, what are other lessons you’ve learned as you’ve dived into the world of comic-making?
Just start your story and see if you can get to the end. Planning is important, but you can spend all your time planning elaborate mythologies and not end up with anything useful. Don’t spend 30 pages on a prologue, unless you’re getting paid by the page.
Don’t wait for someone else to publish you. Xeroxing and print-on-demand websites mean that, if you make a comic, you can reproduce it and get it out at art fairs and local shops. That’s a good experience and leads to better work and new opportunities. If you have a book out, you will feel compelled to make another one.
Being a local cartoonist and making connections to your audience is so much more fulfilling than waiting around to draw Spider-Man. Go ahead and be an artist right here. I meet all kinds of great cartoonists, people who just draw beautifully, who only draw pin-ups of other people’s characters. That’s fun and a great way to get better, but it isn’t comics. Comics tell stories.
Sketch thumbnails of your story and keep a dictionary handy. Misspelling stuff is an excellent way to wreck your comic.
Oh, here’s a big one: Write your words first and then draw your word bubble. I was doing it the wrong way for longer than I’d care to admit.
I think people are hard-wired for narrative, which is a real advantage for storytellers of any stripe. In comics, it means that, if you can get someone to read the first page of your story, they’ll want to read the next one and so forth. Even if your story isn’t all that amazing or original, people like stories. And they like pictures, so comics have a lot going for them. You just have to find ways to get folks to read them.
What’s next for you comics-wise?
We have a 10-month-old son and I am in the middle of student teaching for grad school. So just making comics is its own reward and triumph right now. I keep working on my “Starbound” strip for the LEO, which is about to the place where I can put a book out. It’s been great editing our comic page because every time I submit strips is a not-so-gentle reminder to get it together and draw. I think it’s absolutely vital to set up commitments like that to stay working even when you’re busy. I’m in the middle of my second issue of “The Dragon and The Deep Sea,” which has some of my favorite work in it. I really want to get back to that. And I actually get kids asking me where the third issue of “Gumpop!” is. I kind of left on a cliffhanger. I’ve got over 10 pages of it drawn. And I will finish it, but other projects keep coming up.
And geez, the Louisville Cartoonist Society is trying to establish a bi-monthly comic for next year that I want to contribute to. Plus, our next big genre anthology (we’ve already hit horror and sci-fi) will be a children’s stories collection. I’m definitely going to be in on that.
Who is your favorite superhero and why?
The Marvel Universe. (Close second: the DC Universe.) I’m kind of cheating here. But I would make the case that the interconnectedness of the superhero universe – an ongoing saga developed by hundreds of writers and artists over the last 70 years or so – is a unique creation in art. Character, storylines, bad guys – all this stuff spills out of one book and into the next. The Hulk meets Ghost Rider and they fight an old Daredevil villain. That innovation – a modular, interconnected structure of references and history – makes superhero universes the largest fictional tapestries ever created. That’s the driving force behind the success of Marvel’s movies – not any one superhero, but the conceit of the shared fictional world. Also: Spider-Man.
If you could have a superpower, what would it be?
I’d fly. I’d fly like Superman can fly, just sort of effortlessly zooming along above everything with no motion sickness or bugs in your teeth. Superpowers can seem to be about power and strength, but I think they’re really about transcendence and freedom from constraint. Wall in the way? Break it down. Or float through it. Or crawl up it. Or fly over it. Either way, superheroes don’t get stopped by walls.
If you were a superhero and had an arch-nemesis, who/what would that be?
I’d want to be careful choosing my arch-nemesis because that’s a serious relationship. The Litter-Bug? Captain Apathy and his teen sidekick Lazybones? The insidious, racing hands of The Clock? Those things do bug me, but those are more like single-issue villains. I’d want somebody with a castle, henchmen, and some real gravitas – the whole works. Can I just say Dr. Doom?
Bio:
Makes comics and teaches art classes all over Kentucky. Has a young son named Archer.
Age:
32
Location:
Merriwether/Schnitzelburg
Contact:
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