By David Doub What got you into comics? What got you into making comics? I started collecting comics at a very young age, my father gave me his collection from the 70s. It was mostly Batman and X-Men books. I got into making comics after seeing how easy it was to make a high quality book, it seemed easy enough I just needed to have the right artist. What is the Totally Rad Life of Violet about? What inspired you to write it? Violet takes place during the mid 1980s it's about a recovering drug addict who loves to have a good time but also wants to clean up the streets. The story follows our character as she overcomes withdrawal and grief over the lost of a close friend. She trades in drug addiction for sex addiction but in doing so uses it to help her achieve her goals of taking down the local drug kingpin. I was mainly inspired by my love for the 80s but also in my personal life I had a few junkie ex-girlfriends that helped bring my character to life. Why start with a Mature book? Texas isn’t know for being forgiving toward adult focused comics. The simple way to put it is: “sex sells” But I make a mature book in a way that it's not all just sex there's a meaningful message in my book about staying off drugs and being able to forgive yourself during those dark times. Can you describe your process in writing a producing a book? I have a pretty easy process. Most of my scripts I come from my imagination. I use the same artist for most of my books so I write out how each page should look and 99.9% of the time my artist and I are on the same page visually How was your experience doing crowdfunding? My experience so far has been outstanding, being just a average guy who had no pull in the comic book industry no fan base when starting. I've been really fortunate in how quickly I've achieved success and I wouldn't have it without the loyal fans who buy all my products What support and inspiration have you gotten from the Indie Comic Scene? Same questions but with the North Texas Nerd Scene? I've gotten much love and support from Wendy Steen Shaner (Naughty Fairy Stripper Assassins), Cara Nicole and Alfred Trujillo (Firebitch), Dan Mendoza (Still ill) & many others. In North Texas I've gotten much support from a few cosplayers (Captain Ameridad & BCharrlotteD) What are some local creators that you’ve been enjoying? I've been enjoying Chris Hays (Forgotten Isle) and Luis Torres (Ace & Starlet). It's so amazing to see their work come to life and be enjoyed from all over the country. If you could write any character or property, who or what would it be? If you could work with any creator living or dead, who would it be? I'm a huge movie buff so I would really love to write some movie based comics like "The Warriors", "Critters" and "Army of Darkness" to name a few. I would love to work with Gil Kane or Steven Hughes those are definitely my top 2 favorite artist of all time. If money and time was no object, what would be your dream comic to create? I'm technically already making my dream comics but if money wasn't a object I'd be able to put it all out alot faster. What other comics do you have coming up soon? I have quite a few. Cherry #24 from Cherry Comics "Strange Cosmic Tales" coming at the end of April A Totally Rad Life of Violet star wars parody story for May the 4th Totally Rad Babes from Outterspace #1 Totally Rad Life of Violet #3 Neon: The Next Victim #1 coming this summer. What are some of your favorite nerd events in Texas? I really love the North Texas Comic Show as well as the Dallas Comic Show https://www.facebook.com/totallyradcomics19/ By David Doub
What inspired you to make Beast King? I wanted to go for something that felt familiar but was also different. I feel like we need more main characters that are more human and relatable. But a good chunk of my inspiration comes from the Hulk and Wolverine. What was the process like making Beast King? I would say it is just like anyone else making a comic. Run into unfortunate setbacks, make progress and then suddenly you’re to broke to make progress, and then when you’re finally done it feels like it took forever to get there. But it’s always worth it to see the finished product. How was your experience doing Kickstarter? Well I’ve now had around 5 successful kickstarters so it’s not that difficult for me. But in the beginning it was very confusing as I didn’t know anyone or know anything. So I was pretty clueless but managed to fund my first one as I met other creators and learned the way of things. Crimson Gate Comics now has several different titles now. What was that process like doing multiple books? It can be tedious at times. Especially since one of the series, Crosser’s Gate, isn’t mine. I have to make sure I have the funds to keep mine going while also making sure Crosser’s Gate is making enough for Trevis to be able to justifiably keep the series going since he is a full time artist. The ultimate goal is to release about two new issues of each series a year at least so I am hoping we can get there soon. How has the experience been doing shows and store appearances to promote your books? I would say fairly good. I can usually manage to sell a good amount of our comics wherever I am at. I think I have only ever had one bad experience but that was just because nobody was showing up at the comic shop that day. I am hoping at some point I can start doing more conventions as I have only been able to do one or two a year. If you could work with any creator or on any character who or what would it be? I would say I would want to work on Wolverine or The Hulk as those type of stories I feel are where I do best. I like working on characters that are flawed in some way. Plus they are my top two favorite Marvel characters. What are some upcoming comics you have coming out? So this year we are releasing a new series called Ungodly Champion hopefully no later than April. It’s a story of a tournament of the gods held in modern times where gods choose their champion to fight in the tournament. It could be described as Avataar the Last Airbender meets mortal Kombat. Hopefully by June we will be releasing Beast King #4 as well. https://www.facebook.com/CrimsonGateComics/ http://crimsongatecomics.com You Can Read Part 1 Here - https://northtexasnerd.weebly.com/home/shop-spotlight-tobi-padwick-part-1
By David Doub There is a lot of nerd shops and activities going on in DFW and North Texas as a whole. How do you see all that going in the next few years? What trends are you noticing? "Nerd shop?" Excuse me? I'm going to pretend that the question was about comic book shops and gaming shops all of which seem to have very cool people coming in to buy things. t's an interesting question. I have a lot of friends who are shop owners and we talk about it all the time. As a community, comic shop owners tend to be a fatalistic bunch constantly sensing an impending collapse. And we've seen plenty of economic slowdowns that have destroyed comic shops right and left. And yet there are still comic shops. There are still gaming shops. I think as I've gotten older, I've sort of taking the view that the shrewder comic shop owners will hang on for quite a while and might make a little bit of money at some point, but eventually they get sick of dealing with all of the nonsense that comes with owning a comic shop. The less skilled comic shop owners like I was in my first iteration and we'll see if I am in this one, simply fail. But there's always someone else who wants to take a shot at our shared childhood dream. I would say it's not as easy as it looks. You heard the saying "the grass is greener"? I think a lot of comic shop owners look at gaming shops and think the grass is definitely more dead over there and gaming shop owners look at Comic Shop owners and think the opposite. I am hoping if my shop succeeds it will prove that there are several different ways to make a functioning business involving these product lines, so you don't have to sell your soul to one distributor or another in a blind hope for success. So other upcoming shop owners of any sort in these product lines will realize you don't have to sell your soul to one distributor or another in a blind hope for success. You can look at a community and evaluate what it has and what it needs and see if there are product lines that fit what do you enjoy. You should enjoy what you're doing in life, because you'll drop dead soon enough. As far as future Trends and stuff. I'm not Nostradamus. If you listen to the predictions, you'll never open your own business. They tell you that people won't buy back issues. They tell you the Marvel and DC are going to electronically distribute their comics and you won't have new issues. They tell you that magic the Gathering will no longer be profitable because Amazon is coming to steal that market. Where else are you going to make money??? LOL! At some point you just have to say, "f*** it. I'm doing this and if I have to adjust my plan, I'll adjust my plan." I've been open since January 31st and my plan has evolved from selling Magic and Pokémon cards to not selling them. By this point next year maybe I'll be selling ice cream cones. Who knows? You may try and fail miserably but you'll never become successful if you don't try to be. And that's probably going to be in changing your plan a month or two in. Hell, if my shop Fails this time, I will have more knowledge about a comic book shops pale than just about anyone! I'll write a book and make millions! What are some local events, talent, or shops that you think deserve wider recognition from people of North Texas? I love this question! I actually have a semimonthly "artist of the month (+)" in my shop. I keep a certain amount of the wall space open and when I find an artist, I really dig who I think has something really special going I invite them to come in and set up in my shop for a little over a month. Right now, they ran for about a month and a half or until I get tired of looking at their stuff. 😉 Our first artists of the month was Madison Henline who is phenomenal. She set the bar so insanely High that I really struggle to find artists who can match that level. Madison handline is an artist who does a lot of what I would refer to as folklore art. She creates these fantastic creatures with pull a little bit from Japanese mythology and a little bit from European folklore. They are wonderfully imaginative. That alone made me likely to like her. But she is actually extremely precise in her brush strokes and she has the rare quality among artists where she knows when to quit working on something. Check out her stuff online she is amazing! Are second artist of the month was Phil Martinez a skateboarding no-goodnik from the Mean Streets of Fort Worth. Phil is one of those guys who goes around stickering stop with his art. If you ever saw Miles Morales in Spider-Man into the spider-verse, that is Phil Martinez. He pulls all the Cosmetics off society and takes a look at the raw people who make up our world. The best compliment I can give him is that I never seen an artist like him before or since. I'm talking to a lot of folks about being artist of the month in the coming year and I'm a little overdue with a couple of guys who I thought I would have this artist of the month towards the end of last year but some things came up that prevented that. One guy who I think is absolutely astounding is Brad W. Foster. If you Google him you'll find that he's not a young unknown artist , he has been a dominant Force for years now. I hope that I can schedule him in this year. His art speaks to my sensibilities ....very highly detailed, a magnificent sense of design and a mature understanding of how much black space to use in pieces for optimal effect. He is truly a master. Bryan Kelly is another artist I have talked to about having them display in the shop. He's a Denton artist and a truly brilliant creator. I would classify him as a "Cartoonist" with no intent of slandering him. To me you have to have an understanding of Comedy and storytelling and a variety of other mediums to be a true cartoonist. The man is exceptionally brilliant. Brad sent me his way to see his negative space monster and oh my gosh is that insanely cool. I would not mind having that as a permanent poster to sell in my shop. It is exactly why you should pay attention to Bryan Kelly's art. He comes up with an amusing and thought-provoking concept and then executes it to perfection. If you stop and think about cartoonist who can actually pull that off on a consistent basis it's not a long list. That list includes people like Dr. Seuss. Good company. The artist of the month has been a great program for me because it gives me a chance to feel like I'm giving back. If I can help raise the awareness of residents in the Metroplex of the elite artists who live in this area it will only serve to see them create more art. I feel like that's a big win for the Metroplex. As far as events, I would strongly encourage people to consider attending the two shows that I mentioned earlier each time they come on. The value for your money is quite good at both of those shows. At the last Dallas Comic Show, the little girl who played Tony Stark's daughter was there walking around and meeting people. She was an absolute delight. In addition, Mark had some pretty crazy good comic creators including Al Ewing the writer of the immortal Hulk as well as Cullen Bunn, quite an exceptionally strong comic book writer in his own right. Chris is no slacker either with the amount of quality creators he brings in. Last year I was reduced to a blubbering fanboy by the presence of the great Peter David. This year Chris has another pallet full of insanely good comic creators including Neal Adams, Bob Layton and, Greg Land. DFW has a lot of quality smaller shows as well including the North Texas Toy Show --- a great place to pick up Transformer figures, the Dusty Attic Toy Show on the south end of DFW ---- a great place to pick up Hot Wheels and Star Wars stuff, because I'm Texas comic and toy show in Arlington is a great place to pick up Pops and all kinds of toys, and the Toy Show at Louisville's Music City Mall is always a good time. David your own thematic conventions, the Texas Latino Comic Con and the Women of Wonder Con are especially worthwhile conventions that everyone should attend. The area also has handful of really cool Library shows like Cozby Con. In terms of shops there are a lot of great shops. The first comic shop I worked in in Dallas was the Atomic Age, a Keith's comic shop located in Carrollton Texas. Keith and his wife Cindy run some of the Metroplex's best community shops. Jeremy's Titan comics is a fantastic place to pick up back issues. Duncanville books has become a legendary shop over the last 20 years. The collected guys do a really good job with their shops. Doc's in Frisco is a pretty cool shop. Some of the best shops are relatively new though. Comic Warriors in Keller is a fantastic new shop that's exactly what was missing in that Keller Southlake area. They are one of the best in the Metroplex dealing with alternate covers. Tommy also comes across a variety of cool Silver age Comics that he prices to sell. That place is a hidden gold mine. My buddy Shawn owns a shop called Sanctuary located on MacArthur about two miles north of 635 that has an amazing back stock of comics. He has roughly 150 long boxes of comics on his sales floor... usually one copy of each issue. It's very impressive. He also is extremely dedicated to building up a gaming following, with his shop being open well into the night most nights for gamers. https://www.facebook.com/WMWBDenton/ By David Doub
Out of all the artistic mediums, why comics? And specifically, for you, why crazy humor comics? Drawing is simply the most fun way for me to pursue storytelling, and the most natural. Comics offer so many versatile ways to tell stories and you can do it all with just ink and paper. I lean towards crazy humor comics as those were what got my attention as a kid. I’m not a very serious guy and just naturally want to be silly and make fun of stuff, so humor comics fit me like a glove. What are some of your influences? Why informs your wacky art style? My biggest influences are MAD Magazine (especially artists Tom Bunk, Basil Wolverton, Al Jaffee and Sergio Aragones), The Ren and Stimpy Show and Gary Panter. I also derive a ton of inspiration from old Fleischer Bros. cartoons, Looney Tunes (especially Tex Avery and Chuck Jones), MTV’s Liquid Television, and tons of New Yorker and National Lampoon cartoonists (my absolute favorites being Charles Addams, Sam Gross, B. Kliban and Virgil Partch). What are some local creators that that influence you? Kit Lively, Miguel Aquilar, Hector Cantu, Richard Ross, Halo and Terry Parr, and Tyson Summers are all amazing artists and just plain awesome human beings. What are some of your favorite books you’ve worked on? I’ve been lucky that I’ve gotten to work on a lot of very fun properties such as SpongeBob, The Simpsons, Adventure Time and Garfield, so it’s hard to pick a favorite. But SpongeBob Comics was such a unique comic book to work on as the artists and writers were given a pretty fair amount of creative license, which is pretty rare. If you could work with anyone living or dead, who would it be? I would have absolutely loved to have gotten to collaborate with Jim Henson, a true creative genius. Since that obviously can’t happen, I would kill to get to do something for another one of my heroes, “Weird Al” Yankovic. If you could work on any character or property what would it be and what would you do to it? My biggest pop culture obsession is monster movies, and Godzilla in particular. So if Toho would let me (they of course won’t), but I would write and draw an insane Godzilla story in my style that would just have crazy monster fights and super weird monster opponents. I’m doing an original story now that’s basically this but with my own original characters, but to get to have my way with Godzilla would be insane. Are there any local creators you’d like to work with? Man this is tough as there are so many amazing local creators that would be amazing to collaborate with, but my friend Miguel Aquilar and I have talked forever about working on a project together and I would love to make that happen someday. What are some up coming projects you’d like to talk about? I can’t reveal much about what I have coming up, but I have several book projects in the works that are just a blast and should be appreciated for fans of weird and gross humor (mwahaha!). I’ve also been working on an animated series for Augenblick Studios that has allowed me to totally indulge in my love for horror movies and comics, so that will definitely be something to look out for! For aspiring North Texas creators, what advice would you give them that you wish someone had given you? I like to confirm to aspiring artists not to ever get discouraged in your creative endeavors by people that will tell you that it’s not worth pursuing. It’s a tough business to break into (it took me about 10 years to get my first big break), but I would still be drawing for fun if I wasn’t able to make it my full time job. I got tons of rejections and people telling me that I wasn’t any good, but I’m glad I used that to fuel my drive to get better instead of just giving up. https://twitter.com/daviddegrand https://degrandland.com/ https://www.instagram.com/daviddegrand/ By David Doub Please Introduce yourself and your craft My name is Ellen Natalie, for the past decade I've been creating comics that explore ideas about religion, faith and life via furries, in the webcomic 'Furry Experience.' What got you into your Creative Medium? What schooling and experiences help lead you there? What do you do to continue to learn and improve? I've been obsessed with comics since childhood - there are notebooks you will never see filled with attempts to re-create Sailor Moon, Garfield, and the surprisingly difficult to draw Archie. However, I didn't learn about the furry fandom until college - and was amazed. Slice-of-life comics in the furry fandom seemed to flawlessly swing between extreme comedy (due to being cartoon animals) and extreme drama (being set in a grounded, realistic setting.) The concept got me excited to share my own stories, and I tied every college assignment I could into also learning about creating and publishing comics. What are some of your favorite works? What do enjoy about creating? What are some pet peeves? I'm a huge fan of Amy Mebberson, Marty LeGrow and Amy Reeder. All three of them take concepts we're familiar with (Disney characters, living toys, high school romance,) and find new perspectives to re-imagine those ideas! For myself, the most satisfying part of creating is finishing a project. Seeing the writing and art come together into a story that other people enjoy. Even if the project didn't turn out like I'd hoped, it was always worth finishing. As for pet peeves, the only ones I can think of at the moment are the same hazards that come from just being a woman on the internet - but there's no reason to let those forehead-smacking moments stop me from drawing ~ Who are some local creators who you enjoy their work or are just generally awesome people? Please explain why. I met Pamela Buchunam at last year's WoW Con - I love how her art is so dreamlike, yet still has a sharp edge. She was very kind at the show, and it's been fun following her twitter adventures the past year. I've also loved watching Eliamaria Crawford's career progress! She not only shares her work, but she also makes an effort to help artists connect with each other. Also, her vlog series reviewing local conventions is a valuable resource for any new artist! What are some of your favorite local conventions? Can you share any particular fun memories? The shows I always want to attend are Furry Fiesta and Furry Siesta! Last year, I got the opportunity to attend at both, it was inspiring to see the dedicated staff working to put on two great conventions. But my favorite memories are of the kids, excited finally got to show off the heads, paws and suits they'd been working on through the year. Few sights are as joy-inducing as watching everyone enjoy their characters come to life in parades, dances and party games. What do you look forward to for Women of Wonder Con? What do you hope people can take away from Women of Wonder Convention? I'm looking forward to meeting amazing local artists! It's easy to feel isolated when making your art, I hope all creators who attend this event will leave with the confidence they are not alone - they are part of an amazing, growing community that's looking forward to what they have to share. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EllenNatalie Twitter: https://twitter.com/EllenNatalie87 Shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/komiku/ The Dallas Public Library hosts the 3rd annual Women of Wonder Con on Saturday, March 7th at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library from 10am to 5pm!
Press coverage about WOW Con 2019: http://kabooooom.com/2019/03/women-of-wonder-con-2019-report/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjXshtdnTEY https://dallaslibrary.librarymarket.com/events/women-wonder-con-2019 More information about Women of Wonder Convention can be found at: http://www.womenofwondercon.com https://www.facebook.com/WomenOfWonderCon Beast King
Crimson Gate Comics Written by Shane Morrison Art By Trevis Martinez Blur - Beast King is a comic book about Jake Stephens. He had his DNA modified in the womb and had his combined with animal DNA giving him the powers he needs to avenge his parents and discover the truth he seeks. Writer Shane Morrison is originally from Cleburne TX and his comic Beast King is set around Fort Worth TX. When I read this book, it feels familiar to me. Yes it feels like a fight Shonen manga but it has a more familiar taste than that. It reminds me of the manga and anime Guyver - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio_Booster_Armor_Guyver Basically both have the same strengths and weaknesses. The setup is all in service of the fight. This comic is about brutal and bloody fights and that is what this comic does best. I also said weakness as well because there isn’t much outside of the fight against the evil organization. The only other note I would make is seeing the artist’s work on Crimson Gate’s other book Crosser’s Gate, I would totally love to see the artist’s work in Black and White. Their artwork, especially the monsters and the bizarre is pretty darn cool and I want to see more of the line work in the story. crimsongatecomics.com https://www.facebook.com/CrimsonGateComics/ Other Local Press for Beast King - https://www.fwweekly.com/2019/10/30/fort-worths-monster/ |
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