You mentioned a little bit about the Planet of the Apes project earlier on. What was that experience like and how did you get the opportunity?

It’s kinda wild. I graduated from art school in 2000 and I was kinda testing the waters before I got out of school. I had a friend that worked for Darkhorse, the company that I got the Planet of The Apes stuff from and they do toys, comics and a bunch of other things. They had a contract with 20th Century Fox [where] pretty much anything that 20th Century Fox put out as far as movies Darkhorse would do comics for like Terminator and Planet of The Apes. So I went to a convention that specialized in that kind of stuff where the companies, publishers and editors were at the show and I showed them my portfolio, left them a copy and followed up with them a couple times. When I followed up one more time they remembered me, liked my work, and a buddy of mine was already working with them so he put in a good word for me and that got the ball rolling and they gave me a shot at doing the Apes stuff. It’s exactly like trying to break into the record business, its who you know. I was fortunate because that was really big and I didn’t have to worry about being broke drawing.

Working on a comic as a designer knowing how many other people can be involved how much influence do you have on the storyline?

A whole lot. I just did a new series (Galactic) and me and the writer did all of the creative designs for it. I did all the character designs and the plot for it and the writer helped with the descriptions, personalities and abilities and gave details of the story. If you look at the credits, you’ll see created by me and Jim Krueger and you don’t get too much of that where a guy gets noticed as a creator of a comic. If you look in a Spiderman book or a Hulk book, you’ll see the artists’ names listed at the bottom but you won’t see created by because a lot of it is really a conglomerate of four or five artists and they pass it on where a lot of people have influences on characters.

Tell us about the Galactic series and how the first two issues have done so far.

It’s this interplanetary force sort of like a galactic army. The purpose of that army is to liberate the planets that have gone awry and have a lot of corruption. It’s up to the [team] to either wipe it out because it’s so corrupted there is no saving it or try and save it. If that means wiping out half of it to save it then so be it. It’s kinda similar to what we’re doing to Iraq. We’re going in to get out corruption and its gonna be messy, but with these guys they go a step further and if you want to fight they want to really put it to you and tear the whole place down and save only a handful so that life of that race can still exist. They put them on a desolate planet that they can live almost like a prison because they don’t have a home anymore. Dozens of different races exist on this planet and they reserve a handful for this planet and another handful they feel were most capable to join their army. Earth is the next target. They see Earth as really messed up for obvious reasons so they are either going to save Earth and bring it up to their standards or destroy it. The [main character] is one of the few they are gonna pull off because they feel they can use him and that’s the overall premise of the story. It’s been a really great response to the whole thing, but it’s just like doing an album sometimes you can come out the gate and everything’s running on all cylinders but all it takes is one thing for them to go we don’t have the money for it or it didn’t hit the numbers that we thought. No matter how hot it is it’s in their hands.

What other projects are you working on that people can look forward too?

I got this hiphop book coming out next July that’s gonna be really big. I’m gearing up for that now and right before that I’m working on this book that is similar to an Archie comic only updated and made into hiphop. Its not super hero stuff, its relatable things kids can get into. I’m currently on that right now. The name of the book is called “Joe.” It’s a new line they are coming out with called Crossroads and it’s a bunch of comic book digests with hiphop related kids and their everyday life and some of the drama that goes on. One girl gets pregnant, one guy’s brother gets shot. Its real deep stuff, some of it will be funny, but a lot of it will be very relatable. I was excited about working on this project because its different and its something that’s gonna hit more than just those people who like to read comics. That one should be coming out in February.

Do you see any difficulties or face any hurdles being black and working in the comic book industry?

Right now I can’t say that there are really any. The cool thing is that there is a lot of diversity in comics. Recently Marvel put out a black Captain America. That caught a lot of people’s attention. That kinda thing shows comics are one of the few medias that are interested in taking a jump into different diverse things. Before it was just Spiderman swinging around [but] now they are hitting social issues hard. Its one of those things I’m happy that I don’t have to worry about. Nine times out of ten my editor probably isn’t gonna see me anyway since this is a freelance thing. I work in my studio and we just email each other once and a while.

What suggestions would you have for up and coming artists trying to break into the industry?

Know the craft of being an artist. I think drawing comics is the most challenging career out of all the artist mediums. Painting is challenging and computer graphics is challenging in its own right, but I think comic book illustrator is more challenging. It’s even more challenging than a children’s book illustrator because in children’s books you can hit the story with one picture. With comics, you have to do several pictures on every page. You’re drawing twenty-two pages with four to seven to nine frames in each page. That’s a lot of drawing. A lot of cats that I’ve seen at these shows say hey man I want to get into comics can you look at my portfolio and they’ll show me their portfolio and it’s a bunch of one shot characters standing there looking strong or whatever. And I tell them if you want to draw comics you have to learn to draw everything. You have to know how to draw a cat sitting at a table drinking coffee or a girl running in the woods all kinds of crazy stuff. Its way more than just drawing some guy flying around in the sky. I would say really learn how to draw any and everything so you can really set yourself up if you want to be on the artist side. There are other jobs in the comic book industry like the writer and colorist, but even with them you have to really know how to do those things because you have to know how to gel with the other artists.

Who are you listening to right now?

I like Little Brother, Gangstarr, MOP, De La, Wu Tang when they was the real Wu Tang, the original 9. I like that 94-95 era. I love Pharaoh Monche and The Roots. I love Black Thought’s lyrics. I can go really underground [too]. I like MF Doom, some of the Weathermen like Cage. I like Breeze’s stuff that he did with Prince Paul. I thought that dude was gonna blow up after that cuz he is so ill. He needs to have his own deal.

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Posted by Halftime on Monday, December 15th, 2003 and is filed under SLICK TALKIN'.