A Chat with Nick Davis, a DC-adjacent cartoonist

Awesome Con photo by Rhode

by Mike Rhode

I was walking around Awesome Con with another local comics fan who wanted to check out the children's section. Since I know that some of the best cartoonists are making comics for children, and local cartoonists John Gallagher, Kata Kane, and Carolyn Belefski set up there, I was glad to follow along. With a British accent, Nick Davis introduced himself as DC-adjacent which was enough to get him a ComicsDC interview offer right there (we also do visiting cartoonists, so heck, anyone can appear here). Nick sent a very thoughtful set of answers to our standard questions.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

I write and self-publish fantasy adventure stories, featuring the Night Guardians, cuddly toys and kids who protect you from the monsters under the bed, and their master the Boogeyman. The stories are fantasy adventures, much in the same vein as the Amulet, or Wings of Fire and I consider them to be all ages adventures, written to appeal to kids and adults alike.

And if you are a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, especially their first appearance, I publish a series of books called Let’s Hunt Montas! Which is more cartoony violent, a lot like Rick and Morty, set in the same fantasy world as the Night Guardians.

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

Veronica Smith, the artist I work with on the Night Guardian adventures, works the layouts in pencil and then the final art in Manga Studio. The Let's Hunt Monstas! comic, that I exclusively write and draw, is drawn completely in Procreate.

There is a movement that digital art isn’t real art in the comic book community, but you don’t get to draw on these tablet programs without putting in the hours using traditional pen and ink methods. The skills transfer. You can’t cheat your way to good storytelling art, you have to put the hours in.

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

I’m generation X, the largely forgotten generation, the one that has to get things done, because we were left to it. I was born in the early 70’s in a small English market town called Melton Mowbray.

Why are you comics-adjacent to Washington now?  What  area do you live in?

I work in DC for a health care non-profit that overseers medical accreditation, when I am not in DC (which is a lot). I live in PA, right in the middle of Amish country.

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

None.

I am trained graphic designer, so I have art courses that are attached to that, you know form, life drawing, color theory, but I received no formal training in comic book storytelling. While schools like that do exist, you can only learn from reading comics and doing it yourself.

Who are your influences?

The biggest is the King himself, Jack Kirby, I used to dislike it, then I started telling comic book stories and the sheer storytelling power of his work, the mastery of his panel storytelling is the pinnacle. 

I grew up in the UK reading the Beano, 2000AD, Warlord, Battle, so I have a very heavy black and white influence. The book that really blew my mind was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it was unlike anything I ever saw before, and those turtle boys captured lightning in a bottle. 

So, I guess you can add Eastman and Laird to my influences too.

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change? Or rather, how are you hoping your career will develop?

You learn more from your mistakes, than you do from your successes. I try not to look back at things I do, as that isn’t the direction I am going in. Learn what works, apply it to future work and keep moving forward.

My career in cartooning? I would love it to develop to the point where I don’t have to work a day job and can live making comics. It’s an independent dream, few of us actually achieve it. Personally I would love to have the success the turtle boys had, but that was very much a time and place thing.

At the moment my goal is to keep telling good stories and having readers come back wanting more. So far, I’ve been mostly successful in that area.

What work are you best-known for?

The Night Guardians - Awakenings graphic novel was a work of a couple of years to get done and told one of my longest stories about four cuddly toys who have to journey into the realm of the Boogeyman to save their child. It hit all the themes I wanted it to, about courage, friendship and hope, and told a fun fantasy adventure in the dark fantasy voice (with a touch of whimsy) that I wanted it too. 

It was also my first real dive into the world of comic book storytelling and I am immensely proud how it came out.

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

I am working on two separate books at the moment, with my artist I am working on Dream Warriors, the tale of two children and their teddy bear spirit guide, who find themselves becoming the defender of dreams. And my Let’s Hunt Montas! Book, that allows me to play fast and loose with my Night Guardians world and inject some Tom & Jerry style humor into things. I guess LHM is very much my safety valve and allows me to release more of my 2000AD ID.

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

There is no secret to writing, except to write.

Accept whatever your first write is a pile of poop, once you do that, let the words flow until whatever story inside you is out. Then go back and turn it into something that actually makes sense. Remember it is your world, you control everything, and do not have to kowtow to realism. Let yourself go wild.

The biggest issue I have found with folk who want to write is they are scared of what they want to write, that it is silly, that is nonsense. Tell your story, embrace the absurd.

What's the story about the FCBD issue pictured here?

Every year the comic book store that hosts me for Free Comic Book Day, gets a complimentary FCBD book from me that is exclusive to their story. The book, in this case Adventures Ahead, is a compilation of extracts from the opening pages of Let's Hunt Monstas! Dream Warriors and TeamD, It's a fun little comic book that gives the reader an idea about my stories and gives the comic book store, an extra air of exclusivity.

The book will also eventually be available as a digital download via my Comix Well Spring online box store at https://cwsbookstore.com/store/nick/

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

That is tough, comics as an industry is largely stagnant, not shrinking, not really growing. You would think after all the superhero movies we would have a new readership. But the simple fact is can you find a comic book that easily?

Manga for example is everywhere, American style comic books are relegated to niche stories, that are mostly uninviting, and the books within tell stories for adults, into the wonder of superheroes and worlds beyond our own that we read as kids.

I fear that my generation is the last one that grew up reading all types of comic books, we simply had no choice because we read what we could get. Now, you can choose what you want to read, and the funny kind of freedom directs you into niches, or silos, and you inherit a fear of trying something new.

Comics are not doomed, they will survive. I think the Manga style is going to dominate in another ten years or so. I hope my stories can keep up and continue to grow.

I like to think the future is bright, but it's hard work if folk don’t recognize your work and the kids they are with want Deadpool.

What local cons do you attend? The Small Press Expo, Awesome Con, or others? Any comments about attending them? I know you were at Awesome Con - how was the show for you?

I just finished Awesome Con, which turned out good for me. I was a little worried at first, but folk came, brought my books and it was worth my time going too.

I would like to attend the Small Press Expo, which is dependent on their lottery system and my next big show is Four State Comic Con in Hagerstown, MD. You can view all my ‘tour’ dates on my website.

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

My local store is Comic World, it's a great comic book store, before that I used to pick up books at Collectors Corner, sadly they are no longer local to me. As for reading, I read all kinds of books. As you can imagine I am a huge turtles fan, and the Last Ronin stuff is a return to form. 

What's your favorite thing about DC?

DC is an interesting city, I love how walkable it is and you can always find something interesting to do, and it is surprisingly free.

Least favorite?

Traffic, really easy to get into the city, really hard to get out of it.

What monument or museum do you like to go to?

There are some amazing, breathtaking monuments in this town. I enjoy the American Art museum and the National Air and Space Museum, because I am a huge plane nerd.

How about a favorite local restaurant?

Gosh… There are so many good restaurants here.  One of my favorites is Sol Mexican, it's very much a hole-in-the- wall place on H street, but has the best Mexican food ever.

Do you have a website or blog?

Certainly do, you can find all my work and learn more about me at altworldstudios.com

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

The lockdown hit just as I finished the Night Guardians Awakenings book, I lost an entire year to market and sell the book and I’ve only just started recovering from that. You would think being locked in place would be a boon to a cartoonist, it really wasn’t because I couldn’t tour my work and lost a lot of momentum.

Thank you for this opportunity, cartooning is hard work, it's fun, get good folk around you, to play with and work with and it becomes more than just cranking out a page. Especially when folk start reading your work, everything takes up a life of its own.

Catching up with Alan Jenkins for 1/6 issue #2

by Mike Rhode 

Last year I spoke with Professor Alan Jenkins about 1/6, a serialized comic book about what if Donald Trump had succeeded in stealing the 2020 presidential election via insurrection. I encourage you to read that interview before carrying on here as Alan and I caught up via telephone about issue #2 which came out last month. 

 Mike Rhode:  1/6, issue number two, a double size issue, came out in January. This one's almost completely dedicated to recapping the reality of the events of the 2020 election, and then the insurrection, or riot or whatever happened in DC on January 6th. In our previous interview, you had said that you had hoped to wrap up the entire book by this January. So what happened?

Alan Jenkins:  <laughs> So events continued to unfold. We thought that we had the information we needed to fill this series out, but then came the January 6th House hearings, indictments, Supreme Court arguments, all kinds of real-life events, many of which we thought were too compelling not to include. And so [coauthor] Gan [Golan] and I found ourselves writing, and rewriting, and then eliminating, because at the end of the day, we want this to be a compelling, entertaining story, not, as our artist Will Rosado says, a lawyer's PowerPoint. We crammed a lot in, and then we had to scale some of it back and figure out the most entertaining and informative way to tell this story. A lot of the delay was due to that. And also to the fascinating process of comic book publishing.

Jamal Igle cover

Mike Rhode: <laugh>. Was this originally intended to be a double sized issue, or did it have so much material organically needing to be added to it? Or is it because of the mechanics of comic book publishing?

Alan Jenkins: We always thought that issue two would be more substantial, because we knew from the beginning that whereas issue one is set about nine months after the fictional successful insurrection, issue two was going to jump back to the events leading up to the insurrection and include a lot of real events. It's still historical fiction, but it includes a lot of documented events. And we knew that we were going to need space to tell that story and to also include our characters. So we always knew it was going to be bigger than the first. We didn't know what the exact page number was going to be, but a double issue seemed right to us.

Mike Rhode: Speaking of the true life events that are included, I was wondering about who suggested the varying panel styles for truth, assumptions, and straight fiction. A lot of times this is done in a comic with coloring, but I think it worked extremely well with the panel borders in this instance.

Alan Jenkins: I'm glad that it worked for you. We discussed a lot of different possibilities for distinguishing between these three categories: documented events, purely fictional events, and speculation. The speculation area is where we know that something happened. For example, Cassidy Hutchinson testified about conversations that were had in her presence, but we didn't know precisely who said what, what the room or the setting was. We wanted to be very clear about what we know and don't know, so we had those three categories. We did look at coloring for a while. We thought maybe we would over-saturate the fictional events and under-saturate the real events, but using different shapes of the panels, which was Gan's idea, seemed to work best.

Mike Rhode: When you start looking for it, it's pretty clear, but the story reads very smoothly too. In fact, it's probably one of the best reporting or nonfiction comics I've read recently. You talked a little bit about how much research went into the issue, but realistically I assume that this book had you reading quite a bit of legal documentation and then trying to digest it down for an average reader. Would that be accurate?

Alan Jenkins: We consumed a huge amount of legal information. We spoke with reporters and experts and others. I had two research assistants who helped us in making sure that we got the facts right. It was a hugely time-consuming process. Really interesting, and often very terrifying. To give you an example, we spoke with a wonderful researcher, KatherineStewart, who studies the Christian Nationalist movements. She gave us a lot of information about how they operate in the real world, and how they contributed (in her view) to the insurrection. She actually has a documentary film coming out, based on her book The Power Worshippers, that captures some of what's in her reporting. It was really scary once we started to look at what some of these folks are doing, what they did leading up to the insurrection, but we absolutely wanted to include at least hints of those real events in the book. We spent a lot of time collecting that information.

Mike Rhode: For your young man Travis whose father Clive survives him; the Christian nationalism is shown as they actually talked to a minister about whether or not Trump is really the president. I found that page quite interesting, as the minister was totally ignoring Christian values. <laugh>.

Alan Jenkins: We wanted to depict everyone, all of our characters, with empathy. Our character Clive, who is a MAGA voter and a Christian, was really grappling with what it means for religious leaders on the right to be advocating violence, and to be denying the truth of what we see with our own eyes. That was very much reflective of that research and of some of the conversations that we had with everyday folks.

Rosado art

Mike Rhode: The fictional characters did not get fleshed out as much as they did in the first issue, but I think everybody got a few pages right?

Alan Jenkins: That's right. We wanted to make sure that we were catching up with all of our people, our characters. As you say, we weren't able to give them as much ink in issue two, but for issues three and four, they're going to come roaring back and we're going to see a lot more of all of them and their interactions with each other.

Mike Rhode: What are your projected timelines for three and four?

Alan Jenkins: Ah. <laughs> I'm always loath to predict, but we're hoping to have issue three out around the start of summer and issue four out before election day.

Mike Rhode: Are you hoping to have it compiled before election day?

Alan Jenkins: I would love that, but I think realistically the way the publishing world works, it's going to be difficult to do that with a publisher. We might decide to bundle it ourselves, but I think the way you reach a much larger mass audience is to work with publishers. We'll see what the time frame is on that.

Mike Rhode: I noticed there are some additional artists with this issue...

Moline's Pence

Alan Jenkins: Yes, we brought on some new folks in addition to our core team. I want to shout out Karl Moline, who really filled in a lot. We had more work than Will, our main penciller and inker, was available to do. Karl came in and did some really good work to fill out the book. And we added a number of other folks, mostly because it was a lot of work to do in a relatively short period of time. So we had to build the team.

Mike Rhode: It looks like the book's artwork was divided up between people, because I can see a difference in the penciling. I'm assuming that one person individually penciled some pages and the other person penciled others.

Alan Jenkins: It definitely took a village. Will has really perfected our characters, and so he did most of the work with our characters throughout the book. And Karl has a particular talent for capturing real people. When you look at Vice President Pence, Senator Cruz, and some of these other folks, Karl took those and did a great job of making them, for the most part, instantly recognizable.

Mike Rhode: Anyway, I didn't find the switch in artists to be disruptive. It read smoothly, which doesn't always happen when you switch an artist in the middle of a book.  One of the things that you said back in the first interview was that "Trump doesn't get much ink. The book is in part about Trumpism and the transcendent threats to democracy and equal dignity that he represents. But, if Trump went away tomorrow, those forces would still exist. That's an important theme of the book." That appears less true in the current issue. I think Trump, we could argue, is one of the two major characters in this issue. Although, surrounded by all his sycophants, maybe he's not in there as much as I thought he was. Anyway, this one focused more on Trump. How did you feel about that <laughs>?

Alan Jenkins: This is historical fiction, but part of our goal was to establish a record of what happened, especially when you have a lot of people trying to deny the truth of what happened or mischaracterize it. We wanted to convey that the insurrection actually had three parts, and we have a diagram in the back indicating the three parts, but we also have to tell the story. So one part was absolutely the violence, and that was the most shocking. It also is the most visually striking.  But there was also the strong-arming of officials -- state and local officials, and Mike Pence, the vice president at the time. [Third,] there was the sending of fake electors to states, which is not visually interesting, but absolutely a crucial part of the plan to overturn our democracy. We wanted to explain those elements in ways that were visually interesting and entertaining. And yeah, Trump was very much at the center of that. We didn't want to give him more ink than we thought his role deserved in part, as I said last time, because we think Trump hasn't gone away, but even if he went away tomorrow, we would still be left with his legacy. We didn't want to make it all about him, but he was at the center of what happened.

Mike Rhode: I think you did a pretty good job, as opposed to our current mass media who continues to treat him as if he should be a legitimate candidate. Going slightly off topic here, but do you have any feelings about whether or not he should be on the ballot? <laugh>

Alan Jenkins: You may have seen that in issue two, we have a petition that readers can scan and sign to remove all Insurrectionists from the ballot.

Mike Rhode: The page that's labeled 'Make your voice heard.'

Alan Jenkins: Right, exactly. Pursuant to the Constitution, to section three of the 14th Amendment. My own view, and I teach the 14th Amendment, is that Trump clearly engaged in an insurrection after swearing an oath, and I believe that he's covered by that provision of the 14th Amendment. But the case is currently, as we speak, before the U.S. Supreme Court, and they had oral arguments on February 8th and expressed some skepticism about the idea that he can be barred, at least by the state of Colorado, from running. So we'll know. We might not know by the time this interview is out, but we will know this winter what the Supreme Court thinks the Constitution says, and their word goes, while mine doesn't.

Mike Rhode: I don't quite understand because it's not like [a candidate] can [automatically] be on the ballot of every state. Normally you have to get a certain amount of signatures, and then the state has to decide that to put you on the ballot. So I'm not quite sure why this suddenly became a federalized issue, just like Bush v Gore [where the Constitutional mechanism of using the House of Representatives to settle the issue was superseded]. I don't quite understand why he suddenly has the absolute right to be on the ballot in states.

Alan Jenkins: We knew it would get to the Supreme Court eventually, because at the end of the day the secretaries of state and the state courts are interpreting the federal constitution. So however it turned out there would be the ability to seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court of how the Constitution is interpreted. It would've been shocking if they had declined to take up this case. I think an interesting thing, at least for us law geeks, is that typically this very conservative Supreme Court believes strongly in states' rights. The states have a very important role in administering elections under our constitutional system. And now, at least in oral argument, we heard Justices say essentially the opposite, which is, "how can you allow one state to assume the power to enforce the 14th Amendment?" So it was fascinating, making strange bedfellows for sure. We'll see what they decide.

Mike Rhode: Getting back into your comic itself, are you at a point of still being able to cover your costs for the book? I know you had a Kickstarter [to start it]. Are you planning on another Kickstarter to finish it?

Alan Jenkins: We probably will do another Kickstarter. We've been fortunate to have been able to raise a lot of money, which means in turn, relatively speaking for the comic book world, we've been able to hire top-notch artists and produce a quality book. I'm well aware there are a lot of amazing creators who are not able to put together the resources to do that, and unfortunately the end product suffers. We've been fortunate there. We almost certainly will do another Kickstarter to finish up the series and also to make sure we get it out, because it's [also] an infrastructure of distributing comic books, which costs money. We've been very fortunate to have an amazing printer and distributor, Sun Print Solutions in Utah. They're a union printer, which was very important to us, and they’ve just been fantastic. Not only in printing the book, but in helping us to get it out into the world. We’ll be going back to them and they’ve gotta get paid, so we’ll, we’ll be raising some more money.

Mike Rhode: You spoke about the difficulties in distribution and I imagine you’re still looking for mechanisms to get it into comic bookstores. Since the distribution market in American comics is continuing to shatter, have you’ve found a distributor yet?

Alan Jenkins: No.  We’ve sold thousands of copies of issue one, overwhelmingly through Amazon and our Shopify site, which is https://onesixcomicsstore.com. We have reached some comic bookstores that are selling the series largely through shoe leather—literally walking to stores and showing them the book, letting them see that it's a quality book, both in terms of the art and storytelling and in terms of the quality of production. Most of the places where we've handed them a sample and said, "Hey, do you want to sell some of these?" they've said yes.  But that can't be our distribution model. We can't be [going] everywhere. And many of the places where we most want to sell the book through stores are in the Midwest and the South. We are reaching those places through Amazon and Shopify, but we really want to also reach those people who just come into the comic bookstore looking for something interesting and new and see our book. Not because they're interested in the insurrection per se, but because they want a good story. That [audience] we have not yet been able to crack via stores.

Martinbrough variant

Mike Rhode: Another part of the comic book market that you've advertised in both issues is variant covers [on of which is by local cartoonist Shawn Martinbrough]. Are those available yet?

Alan Jenkins: The variant cover for issue one is available, and we're making them mostly available through stores at this point because we want to make sure we're limiting supply. The variant cover for issue number two is not yet done, but will be a very familiar riff on a popular series when people see it.

Mike Rhode: Just to confirm, the varying covers are in fact not available on shop on your Shopify site?

Alan Jenkins: That's correct.

Mike Rhode: Alright, because that of course is a great way to make money off comic fans. I know you're a comic fan and I personally would give you guys more money by buying the varying covers just because I believe in the project.

Alan Jenkins: I won't bore you with the details of setting up new sales channels, but we have to figure out when it's the right time to do that.

Mike Rhode: Is there anything that I have not asked you that we should talk about?

Alan Jenkins: I would just say that this is the moment for this story, and we really want to engage as many people as we can. I hope your readers will consider reaching out to their comic book store to say, "Hey, we wish you would order this. " We are definitely marketing, both email and mail, to comic bookstores. We are also making hundreds of free copies available, as we did last time with issue one, to public libraries, to school libraries, to colleges and universities, to pro-democracy organizations, and that's an important part of this effort. That's, in part, the reason we raised outside money -- so that we could get the story out to people who might not otherwise have the resources, or even the access, to purchase it. We want it to be in their hands for free. That's an important part of our mission as well.

Mike Rhode: Speaking of freebies, did you send it to members of Congress again with the second issue?

Alan Jenkins: Yes, we did. We sent it to all of the election deniers in Congress, of which there are over 150, and also sent it to some of the constitutional heroes from 1/6 in Congress in both parties.

Mike Rhode: Did you hear back from anybody this time?

Alan Jenkins: No, haven't heard. I met at, San Diego Comic-Con, Robert Garcia a congressman who actually took the oath of office on [the Library of Congress'] copy of Action Comics number one. He expressed interest, so we'll see whether there's something we can cook up with him.

Mike Rhode: Last time we talked about the comic's African-American component, but it's much less present this time, since the Republican MAGA are a largely white phenomena, so I'll just hold that question until we talk about issue three.

1/6 #1-2 are available now at https://onesixcomicsstore.com/

Meet a Local Cartoonist: A Chat with Aayesha Ejaz

 by Mike Rhode

This year's DC Zinefest at the MLK Library had a handful of cartoonists tabling. One of them is Aayesha Ejaz, new to the DMV area. Her self-titled graphic autobiography is about growing up in India in an observant Muslim family, not fitting in, and succumbing to depression before overcoming it and moving to America. I recommend it highly, as well as her food-focused zines.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

I mostly draw autobiographical comics to make things digestible and comforting for myself, and
the viewer. I share mundane things (for instance, how to make a makeshift pizza as a broke
college student!) in an endearing manner with humility and humor.

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

I work traditionally—I use a mechanical pencil for sketching, and then move to pens for inking. I  generally use a Pentel Fude Touch Sign pen for outlines, Paper Mate Flair Felt Tip pen for lettering and a Pentel brush pen for filling in. I prefer to color digitally on Procreate. Then I move to Photoshop for editing and InDesign for layouting.

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

I was born in 1998 in New Delhi, India.

Why are you in Washington now? What neighborhood or area do you live in?

I recently moved for work from St. Louis to Fredericksburg—one small city to another!

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

This is a long story! I did my undergrad from the Indian Institute of Art and Design in Communication  Design—a mix of graphic design, UI/UX, animation, etc. The program allowed me to test my waters. Towards the end of my undergrad, I realized that the projects that I enjoyed the most involved illustration and storytelling.

During my final semester, my brother shared with me about a comic making workshop with Gabrielle Bell. The online workshop helped me learn the A-Z of comics—terms like “emanata” and “pacing” and allowed me to create characters even if they were just stick figures. I was amazed by how much one panel could encapsulate and how relatable everyone's personal narratives were.

I would often struggle with translating thumbnails onto a bigger page for a picture book, but with panels, things didn’t seem that intimidating. So after the workshop, I decided to enroll myself in grad school for illustration. I was admitted into the MFA Illustration and Visual Culture program at Washington University in St. Louis. The program focused on both writing and creating, whether it was comics, picture books, editorial illustrations or infographics.

Who are your influences?

I devoured the entire Captain Underpants series as a kid which validated my quirky sense of humor. I love Lucy Knisley, Malaka Gharib, and Liz Prince—I enjoy the humanized nature of their style and the infographics in their storytelling always makes things more interesting. I’m always in awe of Raina Telgemier’s books as well. Her work is the warm hug my younger self needed :)

What work are you best-known for?

My Makeshift Pizza comic/infographic! All thanks to Dan Zettwoch’s mentorship, and my grad school cohort for trying the recipe the weekend after the class critique.

What work are you most proud of?

The graphic memoir that I wrote and illustrated for my MFA thesis. Never thought I’d be able to share my thoughts and feelings with brevity (in a long-form comic book).

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

I definitely see myself illustrating more stories. I’d also like to explore surface design more—making prints, products and patterns with animals and faces to give my sketchbook doodles a home.

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

I keep trying—I keep writing, drawing or looking at similar stuff that already exists. I also share whatever I have with a friend or family member. Going for a walk and changing my environment also helps.

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

Coming from Missouri, I’ve tabled at KC Zine Con, Cherokee Print Bazaar, SLICE and DC Zinefest. Tabling definitely gives one an idea about what sells, but the crowd has been different in all these places… I’m generally quite quiet at these events, but I’ve recently started interacting
with whoever stops by my table. 

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

I used to get my comics from Betty's Books (The best comic bookstore I’ve been to in the US so far) or the St. Louis Public Library. The summer of 2023 was my comics summer. Here are some of my favorites:  Blancaflor, The Hero with Secret Powers: A Folktale from Latin America by Nadja Spiegelman and Sergio García Sánchez; Swim Team by Johnnie Christmas; Snapdragon by Kat Leyh; In Limbo by Deb JJ Lee; Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed; Hey Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka; and Iranian Love Stories by Jane Deuxard.

What's your favorite thing about DC?

I’ve been here many times to visit my brother. I’ve always liked DC for its public transit, cleanliness and museums. And all the ice cream parlors, especially Pitango!

El Burro Loco from At The Edge of My Comfort Zone

 

How about a favorite local restaurant?

Pupatella!

Do you have a website or blog?

Yes! It’s www.eyeshacreates.com

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

I think COVID-19 strengthened my belief in drawing as a career option and creating for the greater good of humanity.

Meet a Local Comic Book Artist: A Chat with Sean Damien Hill

by Mike Rhode

On September 16, 2023, comic book artist Sean Damien Hill was signing his new X-Men collection at Fantom Comics. He chatted with a small crowd for about an hour, discussing the business of comics, his influences, and how he worked. I thoroughly enjoyed it and bought the Bishop comic, as well as the DC Blood Syndicate collection that he had work in. Hill said he works a full time job, is a father, and does his comic work late in the evening. He also talked about being influenced by bodybuilders when it came to drawing superheroes. I appreciate him taking the time to answer our usual questions.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

I think I can describe it as super hero and fantasy illustration. At least those are my biggest influences in my work.

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

I’ve gone back forth on digital and traditional, depending on  the project I’m doing. But right now I’m experimenting with doing digital thumbnails, printing it on Bristol board and going traditional from there.

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

I was born and raised in Washington DC. Petworth is actually my old neighborhood.

Why are you in Washington now?  What neighborhood or area do you live in?

Nowadays I live in Alexandria Virginia. I’ve been there for about 8 years now. I like it here though it is a bit quieter lol.

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

Well I had a mentor I met in elementary school, his name is Kofi Tyus and he is an artist that taught classes around the city back then. He also did a lot of cartooning for independent publications around the city at the time, along with doing them for his own greeting card business.  He was teaching a comics and cartooning class when my school art teacher introduced me to him because she knew I was hugely into comics. He helped us make our own comic that he actually printed and would  help us sell them to our friends, families or neighbors.

Who are your influences?

That is an pretty big list but from very young I used to read through my mom's books and two of my favorite were Stephen King's The Stand with art from Bernie Wrightson and Milton’s Paradise Lost with all the amazing artwork from Gustave Dore. My grandfather and mom were into comics and they introduced me to a lot of books at the time. Artist like Will Eisner and Jim Lee stick out, though I’m sure not many link those two names together as an influence too often. Right now artists like Mshindo Kuumba, Ivan Reis, a dozen others really have a big influence on me.

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change? Or rather, how are you hoping your career will develop?

Looking back I think I would have made my own book first before doing any freelance stuff, and tell my own stories. Freelancing can be fun, as it does allow you to add your voice to an already-made world and [you can enjoy] seeing how it looks with you playing around in that world. But making my own thing has always been on my mind. One of these days I gotta do it.

What work are you best-known for?

I think for right now it might be for Bishop War College for Marvel Comics.  

What work are you most proud of?

It’s between three books that I still feel pretty proud of: The Hated with David Walker; Dark History of Okemus with TJ Sterling and Isnana the Were-spider: Drums of the Ogunm with Greg Elyse.

Those are all Indy titles though.

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

I hope to continue to do a lot more black-centric characters in the indies and continue to work for Marvel and DC. I’d love to do some X-men stuff again and for DC I’d love a shot at a Bat family character. Hopefully I get myself together and do my own thing too.

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

I don’t want to say I never have a block, but sometimes I wonder if it’s just me being too hard on myself about what I should produce. I firmly believe in every artist there’s 100 bad drawings and you gotta get through them to get the good ones. So I kinda just take it easy on myself, go ahead and work through all my trash ideas and play with them until I get something that works.

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

It’s gonna be interesting for sure, right now  I’m seeing a small influx of Indy creators being picked by Marvel and DC more and more. And a lot of more established creators going into business for themselves. This tends to happen in comics a lot but it looks like we’re having another small wave  happening now. I think crowd funding for Indy comics will continue to scale up; it’s starting to look like the best business model Indy comics has ever had. In the past the success of an Indy publisher would be to push themselves until they can  mimic the business and distribution model of established publishers, but it’s got its own way now to build and sell to an audience and overall I think that’s great for comics.

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

So I am absolutely terrible at attending cons. But I have been sneaking into Blerdcon over in Alexandria in recent years to sign books with creators I’ve worked with there like TJ over at Rae comics and Isnana the Were-spider with Greg Elyse. I haven’t been to Awesome con in awhile and I’d love to see Baltimore Comic Con again.

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

I’m usually buying a lot more Indy stuff lately, I think the most recent think I got was a book called Crescent City Monsters from Dreamfury Comics. I’m also looking to get the collected edition of Fall of X too pretty soon. Sadly I don’t get as much time to read as much as I used too.

What's your favorite thing about DC?

I think DC has the benefits of a small town, but in a metropolitan city. I’ve had friends I’ve known here since I was a kid and I would still run into them sometimes now, even though we’ve both moved in different places of the city probably several times over. There’s a strong sense of community here if you willing to invest in it. Plus we have THE best looking city flag in the nation.

Least favorite?

The Metro, it tough when you slogan is “getting back to good” it’s like your openly advertising your bad.

What monument or museum do you like to take visitors to?

For me it’s either the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Monument, I’ve always love the monument. My wife and I had our engagement photos there.

How about a favorite local restaurant?

I think everyone in DC should experience Ben’s Chilli Bowl at least once, even if you're visiting but I don’t have an absolutely favorite place though.

Do you have a website or blog?

Yes, my website is www.seandamienhill.com [ed note: some original art from Bishop is for sale on his site]

 

Meet a Local Cartoonist: A Chat with Jonathan Roth, a Children's Book Graphic Novelist

Roth with Beep (courtesy of Roth)

by Mike Rhode

Jonathan Roth appeared recently at the Politics and Prose flagship for the second book in his Rover and Speck series. Rover and Speck are sentient planetary rovers (Rover is the one from NASA, while Speck's origin is a mystery) that meet on a Mars-like planet and then explore a water world in their second book which came out recently. After having his own event that morning, Roth came back for Roz Chast's talk and Bruce Guthrie introduced the two of us. Roth's children's book bio can be found on his website.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

I write and illustrate almost solely for kids these days. My first graphic novel series, Rover and Speck, came out in 2022, with another book just released and book 3 slated for 2024. I’ve also created chapter books and picture books.

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

I do rough planning and character design in pencil first, but the finished art for my graphic novels is rendered and colored digitally.

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

I was born in Detroit, too young to remember the first step on the moon, but I was alive for it.

Why are you in Washington (aka Rockville) now? What neighborhood or area do you live in?

Though we first settled in Ellicott City in the late 90s, so my wife could go to acupuncture school, we moved to Montgomery County when I got a job teaching elementary art here in ‘99. We’ve been in Rockville most of that time, for the past 10+ years in Twinbrook. 

When and why did you live in Zaire and the Virgin Islands?

I deferred college a year to live in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) to join my father and his wife (remarried) who were high school teachers at the American School of Kinshasa. They later taught on St. Croix, so I dropped what I was doing (not much) to spend a year there too.
 

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

Like so many others, I started by copying characters in comic books and strips as early as 5 years old. But by the time I went to art school (Cooper Union), I was of course, like my peers, too serious an artiste to draw cartoons. But shortly after graduating I knew I wanted to write and draw above all, with a humorous bent, and my path back to cartooning (and then children’s books) was natural and fun.

Who are your influences?

Though I was addicted to Marvel and DC as a kid, I don’t see much lasting influence there. My cartoonist’s heart was mostly shaped by newspaper strips like Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes and Doonesbury. Works such as the early Star Wars movies and the Hitchhiker’s Guide books certainly taught me a lot about longer narration and humorous voice. The Simpsons, too.

Roth at Politics and Prose; photo courtesy of Bruce Guthrie 

Tell us about your alt cartoonist days in Charlottesville and other newspapers please.

In the mid to late 90s, I had hundreds of strips published by weeklies and magazines such as the C-Ville Weekly in Charlottesville (a weekly strip for a couple years), Communities Magazine and the occasional acceptance in the Funny Times and similar. But the tone of these strips was much gentler than edgy, and I don’t think the alt-scene was where I belonged. I really yearned to do more mainstream newspapers and began submitting to the syndicates. United was briefly interested in one strip, but it never went anywhere. At the same time, I was also developing my interest in writing for children, which is the path I eventually took.

Roth at Politics and Prose; photo courtesy of Bruce Guthrie 

Where did you get the idea to do a book series about planetary rovers?

I’ve followed Mars landers and rovers since I was a kid, but didn’t have an idea to make them characters until 2019, when I saw that the long-lived Opportunity rover had ‘died’ after an unprecedented 14 years on the Martian surface (it was supposed to last about 3 months, ha!) I immediately had an idea about another rover finding a fictional Oppy and bringing it back to ‘life’. Thus Rover and Speck were born!

 How did you pitch it, since you would be a new graphic novelist? Was it on the strength of your previous children's book series?

My agent did the pitching, so I don’t know all the details. Because so many publishers are looking for good graphic novels now, I doubt my chapter book series had much sway either way. This one sold as an initial three-book series. Book one takes place on a rocky world. Book two is set on a water planet. And, for the first time in kid’s sci-fi that I know about, book three will take place within the cloud layers of a gas giant! I wanted to try something especially unusual for that one.

Will we learn more about Speck's origins?

Not in book 3. But maybe if there are more books down the line!

The rovers are obviously not possible to engineer yet, in spite of AI advances. Beyond the alien life such as rock creatures, is the science in your books accurate?

Maybe a wee bit more accurate than Star Trek, haha! I do try to make the specifics more plausible than fantastical, but the more factual science connections are peppered throughout in the ‘Fun Science Facts.’

How do you decide which science panels to include?

There are cool, interesting facts about all aspects of nature, but I try to tie these panels into pertinent things happening at that point in the story. My editor usually has good suggestions around these too.

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

Roth at Politics and Prose; photo courtesy of Bruce Guthrie 

My first agent, who was shopping my middle-grade novels around almost 15 years ago but knew about my comics background, wondered if I could do comics for kids. For some reason I wasn’t thinking in those terms yet, though if I was, I could have possibly been on the ground floor of the current kid’s graphic novel boom (I met Andy Runton at SPX around then, and books like his Owly were definitely spinning gears in my head).

What work are you best-known for?

For my work an art teacher! I mean, I teach 500+ kids a week, each student body continually replenished for 25 years. In the wider world, my Beep and Bob chapter book series is probably still the best known of my kid’s books. 

What work are you most proud of?

It’s such a longshot getting any work traditionally published in children’s books these days, so I’m grateful for all my books. If I’m proud of anything it’s my perseverance, because that’s been the key.

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

Another graphic novel series. And more picture books. No lack of ideas! Just time…

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

Go for a walk or bike ride. Most of my ideas come to me while not in the chair (though sitting and composing is the only way to work them out). Active bodies are active brains!

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

So bright, people will be wearing shades! Not likely me, but someone.

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

I’ve been attending the Small Press Expo for about 20 years, since back when it was in a hotel in Bethesda (now at the Mariott convention center closer to me). Anyone into comics, especially those beyond superhero, should definitely go! I attend occasional other cons, but most of the events I attend and/or appear at are book festivals: the Gaithersburg Book Festival, Fall for the Book, the Chesapeake Children’s Book Festival and more.

Roth at Politics and Prose; photo courtesy of Bruce Guthrie 

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

Just about all the kidlit and adult comics I read can be found in good indie bookstores, like Politics and Prose (where, in the last week alone, I attended talks by creators as diverse as Stephen Pastis and Roz Chast; I also spoke there too, smiley face). Sadly there are no indies in Rockville (boo!), but the new People’s Book in Takoma Park has a cool comics selection, and I’ll travel to NoVa for Bards Alley, Scrawl, One More Page or Hooray for Books (why is NoVa so much better than MoCo this way? Discuss). And MoCo Libraries has built a great collection.

What's your favorite thing about DC?

That I can ride all the way from Rockville to the Mall on beautiful bike trails (Rock Creek Trail, Capital Crescent, C and O) to visit some of the best museums in the world. For free!

Least favorite?

That there’s such a profound equity/wealth gap.

What monument or museum do you like to take visitors to?

The National Gallery is my happy place. Great Falls is a spectacular outdoor spot.

How about a favorite local restaurant?

I’m boring about dining. The Silver Diner is our main bag.

Roth at Politics and Prose; photo courtesy of Bruce Guthrie 

Do you have a website or blog?

www.beepandbob.com

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

Such a strange, surreal time! Fortunately we found a way to keep schools (and teaching jobs) going during the pandemic, so for me it was more of a mental than financial hardship. I wrote and sold a book in 20-21, and my series has survived, so I’m grateful there. Plus somehow I still haven’t had Covid myself! But with all we should have learned, I’m worried we aren’t going to be prepared for the next pandemic.