Meet a DMV Cartoonist: A Chat with Jeremy Vinar

by Mike Rhode

StoryBox Comics Fair, organized by Adam Griffiths, was held recently in a brewery in Silver Spring, MD. Along with some stalwarts of the DC Conspiracy, I met some local cartoonists new to me. Jeremy Vinar, and his wife Ashley of Perilous Adventures Studios were selling collections of their comics. Ashley is the writer of their new book, Roll Your Way, while Jeremy is the cartoonist behind it and the studio's other comics.

 What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

 We currently self publish the Perils and Roll Your Way graphic novel series.  The Perils series starts with Perils Ahead with a story that follows Neil, a dungeon janitor of sorts, tasked with cleaning up after adventurers and resetting the traps by the mysterious dungeon master. Things change for  him after a certain adventurer enters the dungeon and stirs things up.  The sequel in the series is also available and titled Perils Below.

 The Roll Your Way series is a choose-your-own adventure style book, but instead of choosing you roll a 4-sided dice to determine what page to turn to at different points in the story.  There are currently two books, each self-contained stories about two different adventuring parties trying to complete their quest. Depending on how well the reader rolls, the characters may or may not get a good ending. 

 How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?

 I’ve switched it up a little for each book but it's always a combination of the two.  Typically drawn and inked on paper then colored in the computer.  For Perils Below I did ink washes on the paper as well.  It just kind of depends on what I’m into at the time. 

 I’m pretty sure for the next book though I will try full digital using Clip Studio.

 When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?

 I was born in the 80’s in Maryland.  Raised in Germantown and later moved to Frederick. My wife and I now live in Frederick County, MD.  We both went to high school in Frederick (rival high schools) and met when we were teenagers working at a craft store.

 What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

 I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design.  Graduated in 2004 with a degree in Illustration, but originally went because of their sequential art program.

 Who are your influences?

 Being a child who grew up in the 90’s, that era of comics had a huge impact on me. It is the reason I love making comics so much.  Although stylistically I suppose I’m much more cartoony then traditional comics.

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?

 This is a tough one.  The thing I always think of first when I think of regrets is going into so much debt for art school.  It's been a massive weight on me for my entire adult life.  But it’s really hard to say how things would have been if I hadn’t.

 I also regret flip flopping my goals so much early on.  I went to art school to learn sequential art (comics) but half way through I thought I should do something that would have more of a chance for a paying job (since i was racking up so much debt).  So I switched to illustration, but even that didn’t really make sense.  What I actually ended up doing after college was working as a video game artist.  Ultimately after 11 years of that and layoff after layoff I decided that my dream was always comics and I need to refocus on that.

 So I have a regular day job now to make ends meet and work on comics in my spare time.

 What work are you best-known for?

 Ha I wish I knew!

 What work are you most proud of?

 Really any of the comics we’ve put out in the past 8 years.  I just love it.  The Perils series is very personal to me so I really like that one.  But the Roll Your Way series is special because it was my wife's idea and she writes it.  So we get to work on it together. It seems to be our best seller because it's such a brilliant idea.

 What would you like to do or work on in the future?

 I have a third Perils book idea I’d like to finish some day.  We also have a third Roll Your Way we have been on and off working on for years and would really like to get that going too.

Outside of our own work, it would be amazing to fulfill that childhood dream of drawing a comic for Marvel someday.  I imagine that is the dream of most people who are my age.

 What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?

 Take a shower.  It’s the best place for your mind to wander.

 What do you think will be the future of your field?

 Gosh I don’t know.  I don’t know if it's a widespread trend or just me but I’ve gone back to buying mostly physical copies of books.  For a while it seemed like digital was going to be the new way to read comics, but for me that didn’t last.  And I like having a physical copy of a book to sell to people.  Something about it is just nicer.

 What local cons do you attend? The Small Press Expo, Awesome Con, or others? Any comments about attending them?

 We have done SPX a couple times in the past and it's been a very good show for us.  It's just hard to get into with vendors being chosen by lottery vs. being juried like most other conventions.  We have done Awesome Con and Baltimore Comic Con for many years.  They are usually okay for us, but it's hard to table at those types of conventions for self-published comic book sellers.  People there are mostly looking for the big properties they know and love and not new indy comics they’ve never heard of.

 What comic books do you read regularly or recommend? Do you have a local store?

 Lately I’ve been reading the new Gargoyles comic that picks up after the cartoon from the 90’s.  It's written by the creator of the show Greg Weisman and it's really fun.  That was a favorite show of mine from my childhood.

Do you have a website or blog?

  Our website is perilousadventurestudios.com

 How has the COVID-19 outbreak affected you, personally and professionally?

 At first it wasn’t really a big change for me because my regular day job was work from home already.  Sadly though it ended up being devastating as I lost my father to COVID in early 2022.