10 Questions for Kevin Mellon

Kevin Mellon has quickly developed a reputation as a top-notch artist, and is now making his move into writing some of his own material. You may have seen his work on GearHead (Arcana), Thirteen Steps (Desperado), Teddy Scares (APE), Ghosting (Platinum), GunPlay (Platinum), Comic Book Tattoo (Image) Antoine Sharpe, The Atheist Vol. 2 (Desperado), Hack/Slash (Devil’s Due), and This Is A Souvenir: The Songs of Spearmint and Shirley Lee (Image, 2009).

You’ll be able to see more of his work in Hack/Slash #20 (Devil’s Due). He’s also currently working on a graphic novel for AiT/PlanetLar with his Gearhead co-creator Dennis Hopeless. Plus, he’s writing and drawing a series called Suicide Sisters planned for 2010.

Kevin lives in the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs, Missouri, which also happens to be the home base of ComicsCareer.Com. In fact, he lives just a few short blocks from where this is typed. If you can’t invite him over to house like we have, you’ll have to settle for learning more about him from his website, www.kevinmellon.com.

Question 1: When did you first decide that you wanted to create your own comics for a living?

Hmm. Either when I was 12, or when I was 26. Depends on how you look at it. I started making up my own stories and drawing them out at the age of 12 and made several hundred pages of comics throughout middle and high school. I went to the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art for college and graduated in 2002. After screwing around for a few years after college, I was 26 and I decided I needed to actually give making comics a formal go and got to work on making comics and finding publishers.

Question 2: Who has had the biggest influence on you outside the comics industry, and how did they affect your life?

Outside? Good question. One of my good friends who has nothing to do with comics, but has always supported me in everything I’ve ever done; she’s been a constant and heavy influence and support system. Other than that, my grandmother on my mom’s side was a huge influence on my going to college and doing something with my art.

Question 3: Who has had the biggest influence on your comics career, and how has that person changed your work?

Someone I don’t know: Dave Sim. His “Letters from the President” in the front of Cerebus during the 90’s that later became the “Cerebus Guide To Self-Publishing” was so life-changing and scope-broadening I don’t know how anyone gets along without knowing at least some of the things he talks about in there.

Someone I know, met, or studied under: I don’t know that I can narrow it to one person. Phil Hester, Ande Parks, Steve Lightle, Richard Corben, Dennis Hopeless, Tony Moore, Steven Sanders, Joe Kubert, Frank Teran, Charles Perkalis, Fernando Ruiz, The Joe Kubert School graduating class of 2002, and the list goes on. There are so many people and things that have been too influential in me being where I’m at now to just short-shrift it to one person. The last two years have seen the amount of people I know in this industry grow so fast that they all have had some kind of influence.

Question 4: What do you do to recharge your creative batteries?

Walk away from the work. Sometimes the best thing can be just doing something else for a bit. Letting my mind focus on something else so I can come back with a fresh perspective.

Question 5: Describe your typical work routine.

Heh. The only really typical thing is sitting at the desk. But to generalize, I get up and make coffee and answer emails and mess around on the Internet for a few hours. I find it next to impossible to start work within two hours of getting up, so I don’t. I might watch some TV, or run errands.

After being up for about four or five hours I can usually get to work. Then — depending on what needs to be done — I will vary how I work throughout the rest of the day. If I’m doing thumbnails and layouts then I try to keep as focused and concentrated as I can, no music, TV, or other distractions. If I’m penciling or inking then I’m listening to podcasts or albums. Usually I try to find things to listen to that are really long so I don’t break my concentration by finding something new to listen to all the time. I try to take a short break every hour or so and walk around the house to get away from what I’m doing for a second. I usually pencil and ink in batches, so I’ll pencil a couple of pages a day for a week, then ink them the next week.

I try to stop every workday at a good point in my mood, regardless of how much or little I’ve gotten done. If I’m getting frustrated I’m more apt to quit sooner rather than later. Working through stuff like that only happens sometimes. Other times it’s best for me to just come back to it another day or to switch to working on another page.

Question 6: What writing, drawing, or other tools do you use?

For writing I use a G4 Mac tower and Google Docs, Mac Stickies, and Text Edit. I write for myself to draw or to convey broad notions to other people, so I don’t have any word processing software on my computer. Plus, Google Docs does everything I need at this point and keeps things way more organized than I would ever think to. Plus they add new templates for formatting all the time so there’s that.

For penciling I use blue mechanical lead and whatever .05 holder isn’t pissing me off that week. I hate mechanical pencils but no one makes good blue lead for drafting lead holders yet. For regular lead I use Turquoise HB and 2H in a lead holder since I also can’t stand wood-cased pencils. Since I ink myself most of the time now, I pretty much don’t use regular lead anymore and just pencil in blue all the time. I have some wrist problems and erasing is utter hell on them so being able to drop the blue pencil out in Photoshop is a lifesaver.

For inking I’m kind of a whore, I’ll use whatever will get the job done, but I do have a few standby tools. I’m in love with Winsor-Newton Series 7 No. 2 brushes. I had one that lasted me eight years then I accidentally snapped the handle. I’m on my third one in the course of a year because I keep losing them. I’m sure W&N appreciates the business though. I use Hunt 108’s every now and then, and have been using Hunt 107’s a lot lately. I used to use Micron 02, 03 and 05’s a lot, but the 107 is replacing all of those and with less hassle. Plus, bottle ink is pretty much always superior to marker ink. Speaking of which, I was using Higgins Super-Black and Dr. Ph. Martins Black for inking up until a few months ago. I now use Yasutomo Sumi Ink that I buy in the big bottles and then poor into a smaller container as needed.

Paper: Strathmore Bristol 300 ply Smooth. I buy the pads of 20 sheets at 14″x17″ and then cut off the 3 inches on the side to make them 11×17. I scan in my thumbnails and turn them blue and then re-size them to 10×15 and print them out myself so it’s way more cost effective to buy the pads of paper than to buy pre-lined board.

Question 7: What element of your work gives you the most personal satisfaction?

Conveying mood and emotion on the page in an effective way. Also, drawing people who look like they are alive on the page.

Question 8: What has been the most rewarding project in your professional career – in or out of comics – and why?

Each of my creator-owned things I’m working on has had it’s own new set of rewards. Gearhead was my first book, and it was also my first published work, so I guess that will always have a special place.

Question 9: We’ve all met very talented newcomers who are trying to get their first professional projects. What’s the best advice you’ve ever heard given to a promising new creator?

Do the work. Nothing in this world, let alone this job, comes without working extremely hard for it.

Question 10: Time to get philosophical: What’s the most important “big idea” that you’ve learned in life – in or out of comics – and why is it important?

We’re all connected. We are all human and experience the same emotions, and we all go through a lot of the same things in life. It’s our nature to feel utterly alone and completely connected all at the same time. Telling stories to each other through creative means allows us to bridge both of those gaps.

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10 Questions for Travis Fox

2009We’re blessed here in Kansas City to have a daily newspaper that embraces and supports local cartoonists. For years the Thursday edition of the Kansas City Star has featured the work of talented local creators (Hector Casanova, Josh Cotter, Daniel Spottswood, and Kerry Callen, among others) in a combination of short runs and ongoing features.

Travis Fox’s strip, Foxymoron, has been running for on Thursday’s for several years. In addition to his berth in the Star, he now also has a full page feature, Super Happy Fun Time in the paper’s weekly free distribution sister publication Ink which you can see at www.inkkc.com.

You can also review a whole slew of his past strips, along with the work of Casanova, Spottswood, and Cotter, on their joint blog at comicstripjoint.blogspot.com.

And, by the way, I’ve bl**ped a few choice words below to keep this blog “parent friendly.” Don’t let it get in the way of Travis’ point. And, yes, I see the irony.

Question 1: When did you first decide that you wanted to create your own comics for a living?

Well, let me make it clear that it was pretty much a pipe dream to ever really “make comics for a living.” I used to make mini-comics in middle school with my friend Jon Cox. We’d produce “special editions” with our logos cut out and the silver foil from Pop-Tart wrappers and the whole nine yards. He’d always tie his character Pauldo into situations with real trademarked characters like Batman and Jurassic Park and whatnot, but I was always afraid I’d get sued — you know, tons of lawyers prowl the middle schools to keep track of copyright infringement — so I’d stick with original adventures of Jerry the Wonder Boy and Axel.

The Wonder Boy was silly, with a kid in middle school who didn’t have much luck with the ladies and fought crime on the side, which never went well and ended up looking like an idiot most of the time. Pretty much my real life back in those days. Axel was more of the superhero fare with special weapons, lots of over-dramatic dialogue, and explosions. It gave me a chance to mess with perspective, cross-hatching, and basically made me feel like I was working on a “real” comic book.

It wasn’t until I got into high school, working on the school newspaper, doing more of a comic strip, that I realized I could really attempt this as a way to make money. More than the fifty cents we’d sell our comics for back in middle school, anyway.

Question 2: Who has had the biggest influence on you outside the comics industry, and how did they affect your life?

My high school art teacher, Gene McClain was the first to tell me that art was whatever you made it. Up until that point, I was worried about making it look like something other people would appreciate. Like drawing still life and worried about making it perfect, instead of just getting a general sense of the overall scene. He also let me pursue the comic aspect, which for an art instructor, was very rare. Most of them would ask, “Why do you have to give everything such a bold outline?” and things like that. I’ll never forget a professor at a community college who reminded me that, “Comics are low art.” That pretty much ended my relations with wanting to paint or consider myself an “artiste” with an inflated ego and all that baggage.

Question 3: Who has had the biggest influence on your comics career, and how has that person changed your work?

People around me get tired of hearing it, but I worship Matt Groening. Not because he gave the world The Simpsons and Futurama — although that would be enough on its own — but because to this day he still produces a weekly Life In Hell comic strip. He started it in 1977 and carries on for over 30 years later, not for the money, but the pure passion. It reminds me of what matters in life, and that even if I have to always have a second job to pay the bills, I’ll never stop doing comics.

Question 4: What do you do to recharge your creative batteries?

Unlike a lot of other comic artists I know, I check out lots of other people’s work. I know some people feel like if they look at other artist’s work, it would influence their own — but luckily I’m not talented enough to pull that off. I just enjoy seeing the ways creative people deal with pacing, punch lines, and page layouts. Plus I like spending time with my family, since they pretty much write a lot of my strips.

Question 5: Describe your typical work routine.

I am totally a “Wait until the last minute and stay up until 2:00 AM the night before the deadline” type of personality. Also, and this pisses off a lot of my comic friends, I tend to just make it up as I go along. Rarely, and I mean raaaaarely, do I actually have an idea laid out before I go ahead and set up the panels and structure of the comic strip itself. More often than not, I’ll draw four panels, and figure out how to set up the punch line after the fact.

I usually pencil out the characters and backgrounds, but never the dialogue. I always just freehand that after the rest of the comic is inked. Back in the day, I used to shade the comic with pencils and greytones, but now I add all of that in Photoshop. I’m pretty good with Photoshop, aside from when it comes to having to correct something within the word balloons. I can always tell the difference between what I hand letter and what I have to correct later with a stylus.

Drawing the comic usually only takes me about an hour and a half at the most, but cleaning it up with the computer and adding either greytones or colors can take another two hours easily. I tend to spend the majority of the time looking for lil’ mistakes and fine-tuning the strip rather than working on making it funnier before I even draw the damn thing. That’s probably why I’m not more famous by now!

Question 6: What writing, drawing, or other tools do you use?

I adore the Pigma Micron pens. I usually use an 08 to outline everything and a 01 or 02 to write the dialogue. I also still use mechanical pencils to sketch out the strips, regular old typing paper to draw on, and Sharpies to ink in large areas of black. And, yes, I know it turns to yellow a few years later!

The kneaded eraser might just be the most incredible invention ever. Besides being a wonderful conversation starter whenever I use it out in public — “Is this clay? What? THIS erases things?! No way!” — it saves me from having to push down hard with a regular old eraser and leave behind tons of those lil’ eraser bits everywhere on the drawing itself.

Question 7: What element of your work gives you the most personal satisfaction?

I like making political observations and nailing hypocrisy — which I rarely get to do in my comic strips. I used to do this more in my self-published Foxymoron comic books. I also love to curse. Like a sailor. F**k f**kity f**k. That right there felt awesome.

It’s always a balance of what I think is funny and what the editors will let me get away with. For instance, we had a incident at our house where I told my four-year-old son, “Do not push Mommy’s buttons today, she’s not in a good mood.” And then, moments later, he walks up to her, touches her boob and runs away going, “Dad! I just pushed her button!” I did a comic about it, and we settled on Lex touching her arm instead. Even though it wasn’t sexual in any sort of way, you have to remember that there are 90-year-old grandparents still read the comics page and consider Blondie to be the standard of what’s cutting edge. [NOTE: We’ve included the original version here.]

Question 8: What has been the most rewarding project in your professional career – in or out of comics – and why?

It never got published outside of my own mini-comics, but my wife and I did a joint collaboration a month after 9/11 of her photography and my drawings about visiting New Jersey. Even though we didn’t get near “Ground Zero” or even step foot on New York, the memorials we saw, the “Missing” posters that lined the streets, the American flags everywhere — it was unlike anything I had ever experienced in my entire life. I’ll try to post these on Comic Stripjoint soon, so other people besides the 7 idiots who bought my old mini-comics can actually see the collaboration.

Question 9: We’ve all met very talented newcomers who are trying to get their first professional projects. What’s the best advice you’ve ever heard given to a promising new creator?

You have to want to do comics because you want to. Never expect to get paid or make a “living” off them. And don’t feel like your only options are doing comics for one of the major publishers or newspapers around the country. Get yourself a blog or Flickr page and just post them on your own!

Don’t worry about what’s popular or what the latest trend is, focus on creating a comic that you, yourself would enjoy. Make sure you’re creating something you’re completely happy with, otherwise it’ll seem more like work than an expression of your passion.

Of course, this is all for creating comics for your own. If you’re wanting to submit something to a larger company, you don’t get to play by the same rules. My only suggestion for you on that would be to focus on sequential art instead of pin-ups. Everyone can draw a kick-ass Superman fighting a robot, but it takes extra talent to show them having a stimulating conversation before they brawl.

Question 10: Time to get philosophical: What’s the most important “big idea” that you’ve learned in life – in or out of comics – and why is it important?

The only “big idea” I can think of is not taking rejection personally. It really hurts to work on a submission or comic book, show it off to a publisher, and get a letter back saying they’re not interested. But I learned a long time ago that you can’t take it to heart. Same goes with seeing some of the crap that does get published and getting bitter about you struggling to get people interested in your own work. You have to just keep your chin up and work on making your comics better, not worrying about the other factors. Most of the time, things will happen when they’re supposed to and you remind yourself that you’re making comics for the love of it. Anything else that happens is an added bonus!

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10 Questions for R.A. Jones

R. A. Jones is a Tulsa-based writer and editor who got his start in the comics business in the 1980’s. During that time he served as Executive Editor of Elite Comics, wrote for a wide variety of comics news magazines, including Amazing Heroes and Comics Buyer’s Guide.

He wrote a tremendous amount of comics for Malibu Comics, including Dark Wolf, Fist of God, Scimidar, Merlin, Sinbad, White Devil, Protectors, The Ferret, Pistolero, Prototype, Night Man, Air Man, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

He also wrote for other publishers: Dark Horse (Harlan Ellison’s Dream Corridor), Image (Bulletproof Monk, Automaton), Innovation (Straw Men), Humanoid (Metal Hurlant), DC (Showcase ’95), Marvel (Weapon X, Wolverine & Captain America).

R. A. is also a long time friend of ComicsCareer.Com. He was interviewed with Rob Davis in Comics Career Newsletter #21 way back in the Jurassic era. We’re delighted to have him back with us here in the 21st century.

Question 1: When did you first decide that you wanted to create your own comics for a living?

I knew I wanted to create my own comics shortly after I first began collecting them – at age twelve. By age 14, I was writing and drawing my own comic book stories, and had written an ongoing comic strip for my school newspaper.

Question 2: Who has had the biggest influence on you outside the comics industry, and how did they affect your life?

On a personal level, my greatest influence would have to be my father, James Francis Jones. Mostly by example, from him I learned what it was to have a dream; the importance of honoring obligations; how to age without growing old; and how to try your best to do what’s right.

Professionally speaking, but from outside of comics, my biggest influence probably came from the action-adventure authors I was drawn to as a boy: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Robert Louis Stephenson, Jack London and the like. My life-long love of movies also influenced my approach to storytelling.

Question 3: Who has had the biggest influence on your comics career, and how has that person changed your work?

As far as my influences within the comics industry, first and foremost would have to be Stan Lee. It was his work – and his contagious, boyish enthusiasm – which inspired me to want to tell stories of my own. The very first comic book I ever purchased for myself – Avengers #17 – was written by Stan and immediately hooked me on comics for life. I still possess that worn, tattered, well-read and well-loved comic.

After Stan, Roy Thomas had a deep impact on my approach to writing comics. He brought a literate slant to his stories such as I had never seen in comics before – and his evident love of all things mythological matched or exceeded my own.

It could be said that Stan and those who followed him changed the entire course of my life. Before them, I had not yet developed any particular yearning for a specific career path – and without them, there is no telling what other path I may have followed instead.

Question 4: What do you do to recharge your creative batteries?

I am extremely lucky in that — knock on wood — I have never, ever experienced a serious case of writer’s block.

As for “recharging my creative batteries”, it has always been my experience that virtually everything I encounter – a comic, a book, a song, a movie, a woman glimpsed in my rearview mirror – can be the catalyst that sets my mind spinning in a new direction that will usually lead me to my next prospective story. And nothing recharges the batteries like the prospect of taking on a new project.

That having been said, it is also undeniable that both mental and physical fatigue can set in when you have been going at a fast pace for long periods of time. When that happens, you just have to do what any other sort of worker would do: try to find some time to just relax, unwind and get your mind off work for a few days. Then you’re usually ready to get back in the saddle.

Question 5: Describe your typical work routine.

One of the things I like about being a writer is the fact that you don’t really have to have a “routine” – unless that it what you find works best for you.

For myself, if I produce six pages of usable work, I would usually consider that to be a good day’s work – regardless of how much or how little time it took me to do so. At the moment, like many writers at many times in their careers, I have a “day job” outside of writing, so I have to fit the writing around that; I often write on my lunch hour, for example, and in the evenings at home.

But the bottom line for me is: what is the deadline on this particular project? Knowing that, I do whatever I need to do, for as long as I need to do it, to meet that deadline.

Question 6: What writing, drawing, or other tools do you use?

Being a writer, the main “tool” I use is my mind, my imagination.

In terms of physical tools, like pretty much every writer today I use a computer. I don’t, however, compose on the computer. Maybe it’s just because of my age – my first scripts were produced on a manual typewriter – but I still insist on writing my first draft longhand; I like the feel of a pen in my hand, and the feel of that pen sliding across paper.

Research materials are a must. Again, nowadays much of that can also be done on the computer, via the Web, but I also make frequent use of books, magazines, newspapers – and even videos and television.

Question 7: What element of your work gives you the most personal satisfaction?

Mark Waid once told me that he loved developing the idea for a story, and he loved having written a story – but he hated actually writing the story! Any writer could empathize with that, and probably agree with the sentiment.

Given that, it probably won’t be surprising if I say the satisfaction tends to come after the work is not just finished but actually published. Seeing your name in print is great validation of your efforts. And the knowledge that thousands, or even millions, of people are going to read what you have written and be touched by it in one way or another, produces a high that never grows stale and that no drug could ever hope to match.

Question 8: What has been the most rewarding project in your professional career – in or out of comics – and why?

The most rewarding aspect of my career has not come from any professional project alone, but rather from the opportunities that this career has afforded me to use my talents and contacts as tools to aid in various fundraising efforts.

In the years since I turned pro, I have been able to help raise thousands of dollars for everything from the Shriners’ hospitals to college scholarships for deserving young men and women.

I’ve always felt that if your life and/or career puts you in a position to give a little something back to the world – you should feel obligated to do so.

On a purely professional note, it gave me tremendous pleasure to write the Wolverine and Captain America series – both because it was for Marvel, whose books are what sparked my desire to be a writer, and because Cap was one of the characters in that very first comic I ever bought!

Outside of comics, an especially rewarding project, was a book entitled 2001 Memories: An Actor’s Odyssey. This was actor Gary Lockwood’s [Star Trek; 2001: a Space Odyssey] memoir, which I helped him write.

Question 9: We’ve all met very talented newcomers who are trying to get their first professional projects. What’s the best advice you’ve ever heard given to a promising new creator?

The first, and possibly best, advice you should give to anyone who aspires to a career in comics is: Run away! Don’t do it!

If they follow that advice, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t have made it anyway. If they ignore you, there’s hope.

The best advice I’ve ever heard, because it holds true for every discipline, is simply: Do the work. If you want to be a writer, write. If you want to be an artist, draw. Repeat as needed. And network as much as possible; it’s as important in comics as it is in any other business.

Question 10: Time to get philosophical: What’s the most important “big idea” that you’ve learned in life – in or out of comics – and why is it important?

Like most native Oklahomans, I’m part Indian, and have read a fair amount about them and their historical way of life. One philosophy, which was certainly widespread among the tribes of the Plains, is one that I have tried to embrace in my own life. Simply phrased, it is this:

A man should be measured not by how much he possesses – but by how much he gives away.

I believe it is an idea that if striven for, in all cultures at all times in history, can’t help but lead to a better life for all.

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