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3DTotal: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me Andie. Now, just so the readers know, we met very briefly at the Birmingham Comic Show where you were drawing at the ‘Draw the World Together’ charity organisation table. How did it go, and can you tell what you normally hope to achieve by attending the comics shows?
Andie: No problems at all. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.
The ‘Draw the World Together’ event was actually my first. I’d been intending to participate in this event for the last few shows, but missed out because I got fairly swamped at my table and I ended up failing to make it to their booth. So this time, I specifically took part in the event and participated for both days without any interruptions or worries about getting back and attending my own booth. From what I heard from the organisers, we did okay. We pushed the cause a bit further and gave it a little more time in the spotlight, which is always good. I would definitely contribute again if they would have me. I usually attend the shows and conventions so I can meet people that have the same interests as me. To connect, to find out if my work is good and appreciated, or to get feedback and see what I need to improve. It also gives me the chance to pass my work around; to put it out into the public arena and let it reach those that don’t know me or follow the books that I draw. Because comic creators tend to work 24/7 in solitude, (most of the time we only communicate via email or phone), conventions and shows are also an opportunity to catch up with fellow creators, mingle, be merry and to talk about other things besides comics. |
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3DTotal: I know what you mean about not seeing much of the outside world - it’s the same for us running our internet business. Do you have any tips for staying sane while working this way!?
Andie: Well, go out whenever the opportunity strikes. Organise your work schedule to give you a free weekend, then head out and treat yourself. Meet up with friends, even just to have coffee. Join the gym, go to dance classes, so you can meet people. Not really great tips but practical ones, I suppose. When I’m working, I usually have music or an old movie or anime that I’ve seen before playing in the background. I guess when you love the job you do, you tend to stay sane no matter what the circumstances. Your social skills just tend to suffer a bit in return! I live with a great friend and my dog as well, so they keep me sane by talking to me. No, really, my dog talks to me. Honest. |
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3DTotal: Tell us a little bit about your background and some of the projects you’ve done, such as the ‘The Architect’.
Andie: Well, my background is actually in Multimedia and Graphic Design but I’ve been drawing since kindergarten. I’ve always loved drawing; it started as a hobby when I was young and then I was doing it part time for the nine years that I worked as a designer. It’s only recently that I was able to give up design completely to concentrate full time on comics.
Even though I wanted to be a comic artist at an early age, I didn’t think it was possible with the centre of the comic industry a world away in America and Japan. I thought I had to live in those countries in order to be a comic artist, so design seemed like the next best thing for me and I guess it was also more financially viable. I figured if I did end up chasing my comic dream and failing, at least I could fall back on designing. (This remains my current plan!) |
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Not that I wasn’t doing fun stuff in design; I was creating screen and film presentations for some high profile identities. At the end of it though, I loved drawing the human figure too much and unfortunately I
just wasn’t getting to do that via design. I liked the traditional hand skills of putting pencil to paper, but in design I was mainly working with a mouse and keyboard. So in 2000, when I discovered that you could do comics from anywhere in the world via the World Wide Web and email, I started pursuing my dream of becoming a comic artist. It’s taken me seven years, but I’m finally working full time in the comic industry. The challenge now is to remain there - and that will probably be the hardest task yet!
In retrospect, working in design was a good move because it gave me a steady foundation for which I could pursue my aspirations as a comic artist. You end up using a lot of the same tools in comics that
you do in design. Applications like Photoshop, Illustrator and Painter are not easy programmes to learn
if you’ve never used them before. It can be quite daunting. Being a designer introduced me to those skills and I still use them today in comics. Having the background understanding of resolutions, dpi, CMYK, scanning, etc, saved me from asking a lot of basic questions when I made the move into comics, especially as a lot of corrections, file transfers and communications are done digitally nowadays and these questions are sometimes hard to find answers to. |
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So since my inception into comics in 2000, my portfolio of work has come to include covers and sequentials for the titles Spectacular Spiderman UK, Batman Strikes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Khenan: Mad Secret, Starship Troopers, Noble Causes, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and pin ups in Blade of the Immortal and Bloodrayne. I’ve also done commercial work for DC, Warner Bros, Nike, Mforma, Universal, CBS, Hasbro’s Duelmasters game, including illustrations for Whitewolf’s “Exalted” fantasy gaming books and 80s homage magazine, Cereal: Geek.
I got involved with The Architect after a comic project that I invested a lot of time and energy into pretty much blew up in my face. That was my first humbling introduction to the world of comic publishing. After that, I was fishing for a more guaranteed project that would definitely see print. I did a few anthologies for small publishers just to get my name out there. Then I got introduced to Mike Baron by a fellow creator. I knew Mike’s work but, shamefully, I didn’t know Mike. After some Google researching I found out he was practically a legend in comics, so meeting him was too good an opportunity to pass up and I was completely honoured that he would consider me as an artist for one of his projects. |
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As I was still working full time as a designer at this stage, and the project was an unpaid collaboration, it took me close to five years (with several breaks in between) to finally complete The Architect. I ended up working 18 hours a day, almost 7 days a week and it was taking it’s toll on me. Mike ended up scouting for publishers that could supplement paying us upfront for the project and that’s when we landed on the doorstep of Big Head Press. Mike and the whole Big Head Press crew were extremely patient with me, bless them. By this time, I was on the verge of giving up design all together and to just concentrate on comics so it was perfect timing. They ended up paying for all the pages finished previously and worked out a feasible deadline for me to finish the rest without interfering with the other regular comic gigs I had going on. Within two or so months, I had completed the rest of the pages.
The Architect was definitely a good learning curve and the biggest project I’ve undertaken to date. Since the book’s been published I’ve been itching to do a bigger, badder graphic novel, but with my current work load, it’s just been impossible to even consider it. Hopefully one day soon. |
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3DTotal: That’s a great tale with a happy ending! If you don’t mind me asking, when did the book go on sale and how successful has it been in terms of copies sold?
Andie: The Architect finally hit the shelves around August 2007. I don’t know the actual figure of sales, but according to Big Head Press we did okay. For actual figures it’s best to speak to the head honchos themselves, Scott and Frank Bieser. |
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3DTotal: You have a very impressive list of company names that you’ve worked for on your CV. Did these companies come to you, or did you have to work hard to get noticed?
Andie: Thank you. However, I still think I’ve got a very long way to go! Hopefully the list of companies will expand as time carries on. I feel like I’m only scratching the surface at the moment, but It’s always good to know I’m heading in the right direction. So thanks!I think you always have to work hard to get noticed in this competitive industry. There are a lot of talented guys out there and I’m sure they all want what I’m doing. Having been in the design industry for quite a while, I’ve gained a sense of reality as to what working in a creative industry is like. I’ve come to realise that no one is u-nexpendable. So yes, I work hard everyday; I try to meet my deadlines and keep up to date with the networking and contacts. It’s so important to maintain your contacts. Almost 90% of my gigs have come about because I was recommended by a creator buddy or by word of mouth. It’s not an easy juggle sometimes as there’re simply not enough hours in a day.
When I first started out, I was just posting my artwork up on art forums via the internet. Eventually I got noticed by Whitewolf and got offered to do illustrations for their gaming books. I also got approached by several small press publishers through the internet and slowly but surely, I started doing more and more comic work. |
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How I got the Spectacular Spiderman UK gig was a story in itself. I was at the Bristol comic expo, sitting at my table, and I had my folio open. It was supposed to be showing a Spidey drawing I’d done a while back in my spare time, but someone had gone through my folio and flipped the pages to some other random artwork. The editor of Spectacular Spiderman UK happened to walk past at the very moment that I noticed my folio page was no longer on Spidey. (I didn’t realise at this point that he was any sort of editor, of course. I just thought he was a random comic book fan!) Seeing some of the other random artwork that I had in my folio, the editor was about to walk on when I flipped back to the Spidey page. The editor literally performed an exorcist head turn, saw the Spidey piece, walked back to my table, offered me a card and told me to call him when I got the chance. And as they say, the rest was history. So it was literally the right moment, the right time. If I had flipped the page a moment later, I would probably still be a designer to this day.
The lesson I learned that day, was that conventions are truly important if you want to really move forward in the comic industry. No matter how many people tell you how talented you are, (or how talented you think you might be), showing your work online, or what not, pales in comparison to when you meet an editor at a convention and get to show him your work personally.
I guess that for an editor, it’s maybe easier to hire someone if they’ve met you and you know. From that first impression, they can probably tell if you’re an upstanding guy that’s likely to deliver on the deadline, or if you’re a talented, but a flake. I suppose ultimately everyone wants to be able to work with someone they can rely on, especially with looming deadlines on the horizon. Of course, this is just my theory on why conventions work. Believe me, before the conventions, I had been bombarding publishers and companies for years to try and get work, with little success. So yes, if you’re an aspiring comic artist, comic conventions are gold!
…And that sounds like golden advice too Andie! |
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