Breaking Into The Comic Book Industry: A 101 Crash Course with Mike Spicer, Karl Moline, and John Tyler Christopher (Collective Con 2024 Panel)

Breaking Into The Comic Book Industry: A 101 Crash Course with Mike Spicer, Karl Moline, and John Tyler Christopher (Collective Con 2024 Panel) - The Short Box Podcast Ep. 421

00:01
Intro music plays

00:30
Shameless plug aside, by show of hands, who here is an aspiring comic creator, whether that be a writer, artist, or anything of the sort? Any aspiring comic creators, okay? By show of hands, who here likes comics, who enjoys comics, who reads comics, who collects it? There we go, my type of people, I love it. All right, well.

00:48
Depending on how much time we have at the end, we'll try to save some space for Q&A. So if you have any burning questions that we don't cover during the panel, save those for the end. I'll have you guys come up, we can ask some questions. All right. With that said, the goal of this panel. Yeah, come on in. We got plenty of room. I see it's awkward now. You got to come in. Come on. Got him. He's like, I was looking for the Bantalorian. This is the bathroom.

01:16
The goal for this panel is to have you leave here with new insight and a new appreciation to what it takes to not only make it into comic books, but as well as working in comics, which is notoriously known as one of the hardest artistic industries out there. It's extremely challenging, but also extremely rewarding based on what I know and what I've heard from different comic creators.

01:38
And to help us with this mission, we've got three of the most recognized, respected, and certified comic artists in the industry for us today who are going to share stories from their careers about working with some of the biggest publishers in the world, as well as working with some of the most beloved and most iconic characters and IPs of all time. Collect Vakon, allow me to finally introduce you to your panel today. Here on mic number one is a Harvey Award nominated illustrator from Lafayette, Indiana.

02:04
His work has appeared on the covers of Marvel's Avengers, Star Wars, Spider-Man, as well as in tabletop and video games and film and television. Collective Con, let's welcome John Taylor Crisper to the panel. Good dog, y'all. Oh yeah. Next up, we've got a comic book artist, Cat Whisperer, Eagle Scout.

02:25
and Dragon Slayer. His talent and line work has graced the pages of Marvel, Dark Horse, and CrossGen comics. He is also the co-creator alongside Josh Whedon of Frey, the futuristic vampire slayer of the Buffyverse. Collect the comics, give it up for Karl Moline.

02:44
Carl, you're looking at me like I'm crazy, but that is the bio that I found for you online. I wrote it.

02:52
And last but not least, our guest to the far right or far left of the stage has done colors for comic publishers like Marvel, DC, Skybound, and many more. He has worked on hundreds of titles, including action comics, Wonder Woman and Mad Max for your road, just to name a few. You can see his mastery of colors on full display in the current Transformers series by Skybound with a longtime collaborator, Daniel Warren Johnson. Collective Con, let's make sure we give it loud and proud for Mike Spicer. Let's give it up for Mike Spicer.

03:24
Good stuff, good stuff. John, I'm going to start with you, because I had a little exercise this week to kind of get ready for this. I wanted to see how many covers of yours I could find, and I lost count at about one million. You've got a lot of covers out there. And I was curious, when you were first trying to break into the industry, how did you define success? What was making it in the industry? How did you define that? What was the goal? To get paid to do what I love doing.

03:54
There we go. You know, like straight up it wasn't. I mean, I think you moved the goal posts. But initially it was like, I'm a farm boy from Lafayette, Indiana, man. Like, I'm used to get paid for gettassel and corn. So the idea of getting paid to do art was pretty bad ass. Oh, yeah. Do you recall when you felt like you made it? Like, what was the moment or project that you got that it was like, I made it. I'm here in comics. Well, it was actually a really long one. I'm pretty conservative when it comes to making.

04:22
substantial leaps in my career. So, you know, I'd done work for like Dungeons and Dragons. I'd done work in like some TV shows. But the moment I was able to say like, I'm going to quit any other nine to five jobs, I was, you guys have go to the Home Depot and you see those stupid little flyers that sell hammers for 9.99? This guy. For like seven years, I made, I made advertisements for the Home Depot.

04:47
And the moment I was able to say, I'm going to quit doing that, and I'm going to draw Iron Man for a living was the day I was like, all right, cool, let's do this, man. Oh, yeah. Let's give it up for dreams. Come on. And accomplishing those dreams. Carl, same question to you. How did you define success in comics? Like, what was making it in the industry to you? Yeah, basically, I was just shooting to get published. At first, I thought I made it a bunch of times and, you know, sort of petered out. But.

05:12
working with Joss Whedon and you know our first issue is on the cover of Wizard. It was like alright I think I'm in now. I made it officially this time so yeah. Good stuff. Mike same question to you. Well I wanted to get out of the restaurant business. I wanted to get out of the restaurant business. I was a bartender and my back hurt. So I wanted to have a job doing something creative. That was a goal.

05:40
And I wanted to be home with my family. That was the priority. I wanted a job where I could be home, work at home, and get out of the restaurant business, which I was in for a long time. Hell, yeah. And I guess, Mike, I'm going to keep it with you here, because I think for a lot of people, when they define making into comic books, it's to work for Marvel in DC, to play in their sandbox, to play with these characters. But I think one thing I found.

06:07
real fascinating about your career as well as Carl's, is that both of you are creators and co-creators of original characters, of tangible IP that you guys own. And I was curious if you could speak, as well as Carl, if you wanna chime in, to the importance of creating and ownership in comic books. Because that's something that we could have a whole separate panel on about just.

06:33
That whole aspect about ownership and what it means to be working with pre-existing characters, et cetera, et cetera. I could pass it to Carl real fast. I could say that I don't own any of my stuff, but the people I do work with that illustrate it like Dan, Daniel Warren Johnson, he owns a lot of his own stuff. And I could tell you, it's probably better to own your own thing because let's say you want to make an animated movie or someone approaches you about that. You control everything, every aspect creatively about it as well. Yeah, I would say the same thing. I...

07:01
Don't own any of the stuff. I mean, Root666 got sold to Marvel after CrossGen went under. As far as Frey goes, I don't, I mean, I get credit online as being co-creator, but I can't even get an answer as to who's got the license for that character at this point. I know Buffy got sold to Fox or from Fox, and I'm not really sure who's got that now, but.

07:26
I will say it is definitely better to own your own stuff. I mean, that's my focus now is trying to create my own stories so that, you know, I do have ownership because it's as cool as it is to work for Marvel and DC and I still, you know, don't mind doing projects for them. I, you know, it's like, well, you're slaving away to give them your hard work and stuff. It's really important for people to understand because a lot of people don't know this. So for example, let's say I'm drawing a cover for Marvel.

07:55
Or let's say Marvel's even like, and I draw some cool looking character in the background of a cover. Just because I'm feeling frosty that day. Marvel owns that character. They could turn into the next Deadpool and I will get zero dollars from it. And zero credit for creating the character. Like, I would argue from a starting into comics, when we were getting into it, there was a huge push of like, the only way you could get recognized was Marvel, DC, Image, CrossGen at the time.

08:25
I think I was probably the last generation of people where that was the smartest avenue of getting published. For any young creators now, make your own stuff. You've got the internet. You've got an entire audience of people that you will own 100% of it. Whatever you do, never give away your back end rights on anything. I'm kind of jumping to the, like putting the cart before the horse here as far as conversations, but like

08:53
You could sell a million copies through Marvel and make, and I'm making up numbers here, don't quote me, but you could sell a million copies through Marvel and you might make $3,000. Whereas if you sell 10,000 copies through your own distribution house at $3, you're making $30,000. Guess which one's smarter? Simple math. And it's easier than it's ever been to self-publish and put out books. Yeah.

09:22
It's easier than it's ever been to self-publish, put out books, print books on demand, however you want to do it. But there's tons of ways to just create your own thing. Go to cons, sell it there. Direct connection to your audience too. And once you've made that connection, you know, through email lists or whatever, you can keep them forever and, you know, build your own audience. Whereas with Marvel or DC or Dark Horse, you're kind of reliant on their marketing team to kind of get you out there and, you know, hope that people keep showing up.

09:52
My background is in marketing and advertising. That's like I said before, that's what I used to do for a living. So I came into comic books in a whole different angle than most people did. And one of the old adages that I saw going in the early 2000s that I think I can't stress enough to young up-and-coming creators is if there's a way to quantify a fan, a fan is someone who will gladly give you a $100 a year of their money.

10:21
Like, if you're a diehard, over an entire year, you'll give 100 bucks. If you can find 100 people, or I'm sorry, 1,000 people to give you $100 a year, congratulations. You're making six figures. Life's good. 1,000 people on the planet. It ain't that hard. I mean, it's not easy, but it's not this monumental task to achieve. And I think it's so important now

10:51
business model of success in comics is, yeah, I wanna keep Marvel happy. I wanna keep Hasbro happy. I wanna keep the people that are paying my checks happy. But my success I've found has been because I kinda skipped that line and I'm like, how can I make my fans happy? Because if my fans are happy, they're gonna keep Marvel happy and Marvel's gonna keep me happy, but then I can come to shows and my fans are gonna make me happy and everyone gets to win. So.

11:18
And I'm glad that we pivoted to that way, because that was the goal of bringing up that question, is kind of emphasizing the importance of building your own brand, your own characters, having that control very early on, which leads me to staying kind of in this field here. What are some common mistakes that you guys see in aspiring and up and coming artists? And whether that be maybe creatively, artistically, but maybe if you could cater that more so to the business side of trying to break in. What are some common mistakes that you

11:48
you know, what you've seen on the internet or maybe people approaching you. Mike, if you want to start that? I can just say, like, if you're on socials, don't, like, just randomly tag your favorite creator in your artwork. They can't stand that. Me personally, I'm like, whatever, but some people, they'll automatically, like, won't even look at it and they'll block it. So careful on socials, you know, you follow them, but, you know, maybe, like, DM them for, you know, permission to, like, tag them or ask if they're even interested in seeing your artwork.

12:18
As far as that aspect because social media is a big aspect of our life now, right? And in person, I don't know like if you was like if you Mistakes is that what it was the question? Yeah, like common mistakes rookie things that you see I Have to toss it off. I can't As far as making the comics, I'm not really sure there's a right answer especially with Kickstarter and you know webtoons, I mean any style goes any

12:46
I've seen the most abstract, surreal art and the most detailed superhero-ish stuff make it. What about from an artistic standpoint? The actual drawings and things. Do you see any rookie mistakes that would separate a rookie from possibly breaking the industry? I could say one thing about that real quick. Don't think you know it all. I find when I was first starting out, I knew way more than I know now. I thought I was way better than I am even now. Right. Yeah.

13:16
The further along I get, the less I know, actually. Yeah, but yeah, that's a good point. Don't take it personal. Don't be precious about your stuff. If somebody has a critique for you, they're probably saying it for a reason. Of course, you own 51% of your own stock, but you should always listen to critique. And everybody has room for improvement. Michelangelo had room for improvement. So don't stop learning. Try to listen to what people are saying and just look at it like a...

13:45
like a skill that you're trying to hone. Critiques are also opinions. Sorry, I just want to pass it back. Critiques are also opinions too. One guy looks at your artwork and may hate it. Another one looks at it and may love it. I had a guy literally look at my colors and go, pfft. I was like, wow, okay, that's awful. Sorry, pass it back to him. I think you guys nailed it right on the head, man. Okay, things that frustrate me when I'm giving critiques. If you are starting out, you don't have a style.

14:14
If your style is, your anatomy is wrong, good luck with that. But you need to work on your anatomy. Art is a journey with no destination. No matter how far you get down one side of the road, you're going to want to possibly have to pivot later on. If you're super realistic, somebody's going to want cartoony. Can you accommodate that?

14:35
But don't get so up your own butt that you think that, well, my style is this. It's like, be flexible, especially if you're starting out. Like, it took me, one of my missions when I started doing comics was, I acknowledged it is a Spider-Man cover by John Tyler Christopher. My goal was, when will Marvel start having John Tyler Christopher's Spider-Man covers?

14:58
And the moment I made that, that's another one of those, like, I made it. When I started getting on my check that it wasn't Spider-Man, it was JTC Spider-Man. Hey, that's pretty cool. Like Marvel's got a division with my name on it. The other big thing, and this is the boring crap, learn about taxes. Yeah, there's a lot of that. There's a huge difference. Look. I quit trying to paint my feelings a long time ago. I am a professional artist. My daughter is going to go to college because of my art.

15:28
It is a business. Learn business. It is the crap they don't teach in art school. And this goes for really anything. I mean, healthy restaurant industry. It's like, congratulations, you make a bitch in souffle. Like, got to pay taxes on that souffle, brother. But you're a terrible accountant. You know, be open. Because even myself, like, here's a little stupid story about your style. I used to go speak at universities. And I would.

15:55
go on and on about how awesome Rembrandt was and how he was the greatest painter ever. When my daughter started elementary school, I gave the exact same speech and this little kid in the back raised his hand and he's like, I think Rembrandt's terrible. And I'm like, well, who do you like? And he's like, the artist from Yu-Gi-Oh. The kid's right. Yu-Gi-Oh's the greatest artist, art in the world, to him. And as a professional, it's my job to figure out how can I accommodate.

16:19
those people. So yeah, I might really, really groovin on my style, but like, I got to be flexible and accommodate. So breaking into the industry is find a niche, move with it. Do not be an imitator, be an innovator. Because when I first was I when I was in high school, dude, I was a Jim Lee clone. I'm a 90s kid, man. X-Men is the greatest comic book that ever came out, never change. Cool. But guess what? Jim Leo just draws on frickin covers. He doesn't need me.

16:47
So I had to find a way to differentiate and separate myself from that. I will also say, just to touch back on the Internet, avoid politics in your social media. I've seen quite a few artists just get completely canceled on taking one side or the other. It has nothing to do with your artwork. I don't know why you would bother. Right. Everyone has opinions, but no one.

17:07
I'm there to see your art. Everyone has buttholes too. They all stink. No one wants to see them. They all stink. That was good. Yeah, because you can look terrible online just by saying a couple of things. It doesn't matter who your audience is or what your beliefs are. You're there for your art. You have a public perception. Well, there's a big difference. My name is John Christopher. John Tyler Christopher isn't just some pretentious asshole three-name thing. That's like my art identity. It's my middle name. But it's like. Sure.

17:35
I'm a deeply political person. But John Tyler Christopher has never said word one about any of that kind of stuff, because I hate social media with passion. So if you've ever seen me on social media, it ain't me. As a bartender, I learned a long time ago, you don't talk about politics, and you don't talk about religion at the bar. And I just carried that throughout my whole life. I have my beliefs in politics and stuff, but I don't need to share them anymore. Good life advice. Michael, I want to start with you, and we'll work this way. I want to hear, what is the most?

18:04
What is the most difficult thing when it comes to making comics and working in comics as a full-time artist? And what is the most rewarding aspect of it? The most difficult thing? Getting there, I guess, like it took me a long time to be able to leave the restaurant business. And you kind of lose hope, you know? It's hard. It's a hard road. And you just got to keep your head up and keep your head down, keep working, keep on trucking.

18:33
I think that's really difficult. And, you know, making connections with people, and again, it goes back to like socials, like you want to make connections with people, you don't want to be too off-putting. Editors are online and they see artwork and they see all that stuff. Making connections, networking is difficult. You know, you go to conventions, you get to talk to other artists, you make friends with people that come up to your table and stuff like that. You never know who you're really talking to.

19:02
Getting your artwork out there for people to see is really difficult, especially when you're starting out. I did a lot. I put a lot of work on DeviantArt, it was a website. I would ask people if I could use their line art so I could color for practice and post it. I would always ask them and they'd usually be cool. So I post that stuff and that led to some gigs, you know, starting out early. The most rewarding thing for me...

19:28
I don't know man, I color transformers, that's pretty cool. I just did a Batman book, I mean this is awesome. You know, the little kid in me is like, just gets so excited thinking about that stuff. Even when I'm working on it, I'm like, man I freaking love this. But for me it's like being home man, I like being home, my family, watch my kid grow up and stuff. That's the most rewarding part to me. I have a career, that I got a house, and you know, that's to me that's like made it, you know. That's a good one. Let's give it up for Mike, that's a good answer right there. Thanks Mike.

19:55
Carl, I wanna adjust the question slightly for you. I wanna hear, what is the proudest thing, when you think back about, when you think of your comic career and your career in comics, what is the proudest thing to you? And maybe that might differ from what people know you from most. Like, do you have a personal, like this thing that you're most proud of that you can hang your hat on at the end of the day? Yeah, I've actually done a few stories for a Medal of Honor series, which is for the...

20:20
Association of the United States of America and they're telling all these military stories about the recipients of the Medal of Honor. I got to do one about Mary Walker who was like the only female recipient to ever get it and she was just this amazing character. But I'm about to do a third script with them but it's kind of a really cool situation to get to honor somebody who's so amazing and did like these incredible things with their lives. So that's probably the proudest but yeah.

20:49
And I like that answer because it shows that, you know, despite this being a comic book, a panel about the industry, it is interesting to see how...

21:02
that talent, you know, at the end of the day, your talent is creating art, drawing, and how that's applicable to different areas. You know, it's not, yeah, this isn't for Marvel DC, but this is something that you're proud of that will have an impact. And I think that's always interesting to highlight that your ability is, you know, it can be compatible with a lot of different projects. So that's what's cool to hear. John, for your question, I want to hear, I would like to give an insight into the day-to-day of a full-time artist. Like, could you describe how many hours, even, you know,

21:30
considering where you're at now in your career, how many hours are you putting into? That is very ominous. If I answer, people aren't going to want to get into comics. I think they got to know the reality there. So yeah, can you talk about your day to day and how much hours and work that you're putting into still crafting and honing your skills? Yeah, so my schedule is really stupid, just because like I said, I work in comics because I love comics. I love comics. I love Marvel. I love working on Star Wars.

21:59
But I do so many other things, right? Like I said, I work in film. I work in video games. I do a lot of the toys for Hasbro, like anything. So I have to juggle a lot of stuff. Plus, I own my own comic book store and business. So I do my own exclusives and blah, blah, blah.

22:18
I wake up usually at about 7.30 every day, go into work at 8. On the days that are pretty mellow, I come home around 4, 5 o'clock, have dinner with the family, go back into work at 8 p.m., work until about 2, 3 in the morning every day, come home, repeat the cycle. Over the past two years, I was finally able, for the first time, to start taking weekends off for seven years. I worked 363 days a year. Two of those years, I worked 364. I took Christmas off.

22:48
But that was the grind, man. I hated it. But like I said, I made a vow that I was going to take care of my family. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. That's a luxury that not many people get to have anymore. My daughters were able to send them to whatever school we want to send them to. I'm able to take them on trips to Jacksonville, Florida, which is pretty bad ass. The city's great. Let's go ahead and give it up for that right there. Yeah. Go Jaguars. Can you talk about?

23:16
your tools. What's in your toolbox when it comes to creating art? Do you have specific programs? Do you enjoy your regular tools, pens and pencils? What are you using? Yeah, I use pencil on traditionally what I like to use. I use Bristol board instead of traditional comic book paper. I do ink. A lot of times I'll just use standard ink pens, but any more with my schedule and trying to bust things out, I find that digital has just become more and more Photoshopped traditionally when I'm doing certain design elements.

23:46
I do like logos and things for movies or like graphics for the films. I use Illustrator a lot. But you know, it's really just, it depends. I mean, is digital still a bad word? Like I know when I broke in, like that was a bad, like people were like, oh, you're not a real artist. You use Photoshop. And now it's like, you're not a real artist to use AI or whatever, you know, and it's like, dude is always moving, man. Like I hate to be that guy, but.

24:14
Mike, could you talk a little bit about the tools that you use on an everyday basis? Sure. First, I just want to say about the time, how much time I put in. Man, I've been waking up at 430 for weeks to like 6 o'clock. It's just been crazy deadlines. Tools, yeah, I use Photoshop. I had the cheapest tablet, the cheapest Wacom tablet, like the small one for like 15 years. And I finally got myself a really nice one that you draw on the screen and stuff. But Photoshop generally.

24:44
I'm trying to do a little bit more mobile stuff. I got my iPad here and I'm trying to figure out some programs. It doesn't really work that well, to be honest. But yeah, Photoshop for the most part is the easiest for me. Carl, it's about the same for you. You got anything different you use? No. Pens, pencils, Copic markers for commissions, but I'm still using Manga Studio 5, which is like a super outdated program. But it's free. I own it, so I don't have to pay a monthly rent.

25:12
program, which is cool. But yeah, no, that's basically it. You could do illustration. There's a lot of artists now, you're going back to this digital bad work. I see a lot of illustrators, the guys that draw the stuff. They're digital, just only. That's all they use is digital. And you could totally make a career out of just going digital. And it's really easy to change stuff on the fly to reddits.

25:33
Sounds like there's a wide variety of tools that you could use to, whatever it sounds like, whatever gets the job done, whatever you prefer. And to your point, John, at this point, it does feel like digital no longer has that negative connotation to it because it's so ingrained and standard in the industry today. Like you know what I'm saying? It's like people are sending their files digitally via email and Dropbox, things like that. Really quick, I want to say, does anyone have any questions? We can start opening up the Q&A. If you guys actually want to line up here, that'd be a lot easier.

26:02
Actually, you know what, I'm gonna come to you. Just for time's sake, all right. Say your name and go ahead and give me your answer, buddy. Jeff, question was, I know you guys mentioned the time that you put in, and I'm sure, Carl, that you have crazy hours as well. Is there any time when a part of you resents how much time you have to put in, and is your love affected by all the work that you have to do? Carl.

26:29
Yeah, as a matter of fact, I felt kind of guilty as these two are slaving away because years ago, I'd say about seven years ago, I just got completely burnt out. I thought about leaving comics altogether, decided I wanted to focus on doing the whole process rather than just being a penciler. And I learned to ink and color. And I tried to focus on indie books and covers and things that...

26:54
had a little easier deadlines for myself and now I'm lazy. I wake up kind of late, I watch a movie with my breakfast, I exercise, I work for three, four hours, go pick up my kid from school, spend a couple hours with her, come back, work all night, but end of the day, I'm putting in, I'm not gonna lie, probably less than eight hours. Now, my pay has...

27:17
significantly reduced, but I've also, you know, sort of chopped my life down to where I don't need it. I mean, I just wanted to enjoy the process and it was definitely burning me out to where I hated everything I was doing. And it was like, I got into comics because I wanted to draw all day and I didn't like drawing anymore. So I've sort of rediscovered the joy and now I really enjoy what I'm doing and I make some time for writing and, you know, trying to do other stuff.

27:42
I've reached the point in my career where it's not as important to make it. I mean, I kind of did that part already. Now I'd like to do my own stories and, you know, branch into something else. But, um, yeah, I'm kind of lazy now. Yeah. Like John said about the weekends is really a big deal. Like forever. I did not have weekends off. And just recently up until I, I've been on crunch for deadlines and stuff. That's why I've been waking up so early, but getting like Saturday and Sunday off was a big deal.

28:09
Because I just work seven days a week. And again, coming from the restaurant business, I was fine with that. I could work every day standing up, no problem. But family, weekends. I do work every day. I heard Stephen King say that he works every day except his birthday and Christmas. But he actually works on his birthday and Christmas. And I do the same thing. But it's because I want to. You know what I mean? It's not.

28:35
It's not like I have to because of deadlines anymore. I just, what else am I going to do? That's fun for me. So I still work. Yeah. It's good insight. Was there any other hands for questions? I've got two more.

28:51
I want to give us your name. My name is Patty Wright. This is for Carl. As a mom of an Eagle Scout and a mentor of six more, I was wondering how that influenced your going in career-wise and what you learned from that that I could pass on to the boys. I think it's important just because it teaches you to set goals and follow through on accomplishing stuff. I think Scouts long term really just

29:20
taught me to be kind and like help other people and that's something that served me my whole life and I got to do so many things that I think most people don't ever get to touch on you know white water rafting or spelunking and caving or you know crazy stuff that just most life experience never leads you to.

29:39
As far as being a leader, I guess I have been in some ways. I had to be sort of the quarterback at CrossGen and work well with others. But it's definitely pretty important for teaching you to be sort of an individual thinker and work well with others and kind of guide a group if you need to. So, yeah. All right. We have one. We got a question over here.

30:05
What was your educational and training background, and how did you transition that into a career?

30:13
Well, my background is I have a dual major in theoretical math and philosophy. Well, actually I shouldn't say that. I don't have a degree in it. I dropped out a semester before I was going to graduate because I was like, what the hell am I going to do with this degree? So I made the bold decision to move out to Seattle and become a 3D animator, because I wanted to get into video games. I hated 3D passionately.

30:39
So I became the concept artist at the Art Institute of Seattle for all my buddies that were making 3D models. And then again having like

30:49
Funny enough, I was, I take a lot, something I take pride in, I was the number five seller at Bath and Body Works in the entire company when I was in high school.

31:01
I gave salt scrub demos that made women weak in the knees. And I learned a lot about how to sell and how to market and how to move stuff. And I transitioned that skill set into advertising. Again, that's when I was doing work in the advertising field out in Seattle. That led to the work at the Home Depot. So I've actually never learned how to, I've never been taught how to draw or color. I'm completely self-taught. But I learned how to talk.

31:29
And I've found that in this industry especially, when there's a lot of people that are very introverted, and that's a common characteristic in artists, I'm the guy that's like, let's go out and have a cup of coffee, let's go have a drink, let's like, I'll talk your ear off. And knowing the communicative skills of, I can talk to Marvel about like, okay, how do you want to handle these ratio variants? Okay, what is our demographic we're trying to target with this book? Oh, okay, cool.

31:58
When I, my first comic book cover ever was with Top Cow, I did Witchblade. They asked me to do a cover for Witchblade, very standard. Got an email. I submitted 50 thumbnails with a paragraph description on each thumbnail as to what each one represented, who I think we could target with each cover, what was their metric they were trying to reach with the book. They were so blown away that Comic Book Resources published an article called How to Create a Witchblade Cover by me.

32:28
Okay? What was cool about this was that article that they interviewed me for and I explained everything, an editor at Marvel was looking for another artist in that Witchblade, on the Witchblade book, saw my cover, then read the article and they're like, why in the hell are we not hiring this guy? Like this is somebody that we can actually like, he gets, it's a business. And I got an email after that Witchblade covered, like do you want to draw Iron Man? And I have literally not had a day off since.

33:01
As far as, what was it, education, as far as being taught, I could tell you something that might not shine me in the best light. Like I finished high school with like a 1.5 GPA. I wanted to go to like art school, I never could afford it. I did like two classes in community college, and eventually I just kind of like gave up on art completely.

33:25
But then one day, like I always thought about doing stuff, you know? So I just started teaching myself how to, well, it was a weird situation, how I got into coloring comics, but I taught myself. I watched DVDs. I got books on color theory. Anything online I could find, looking at other people's. Reading comics is a great way to learn how to do comics as well. If you want to make comics, read comics.

33:54
But yes, self-taught, but you gotta be motivated. Even if you're like, even if we were talking about this earlier, even if you graduated from the highest school or whatever, art school, you still have to go out there and make a career for yourself. You still have to be a hustler and go to conventions and show your artwork and stuff. So, you know, education's great, you can learn a lot of things. Like, one of the things is terminology, which I used to get people that would email me and be like, yeah, can we get local color on all these characters? And I'm like, ah, Google local color.

34:22
is that? Okay. So you just had to learn it myself. But education is great, but you could do it on your own too. Might take a little longer though. Yeah, I agree. I did get to go to art school for a couple years, Mike, Maryland Institute College of Art, but it was super expensive and we couldn't afford it and I ended up dropping out after like two and a half years. And I did learn a lot while I was there about life drawing, about graphic design. I always worked really hard at it

34:52
But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. You're getting work based on your portfolio. And like Mike said, your hustle. And I just waited tables and did samples all night and sent to editors and went to conventions and got critiques and eventually met somebody who liked what they saw and gave me a chance. But even going to art school, it's not like I ever. Back then, comics were still kind of.

35:20
brand new in terms of being considered like an art form. They didn't have classes at my school, they do now.

35:26
at that school, but I'd never had any classes on drawing comics or telling stories, you know, panel stories in a visual way. But yeah, you just have to read a lot and learn from what others have done and make your own mistakes and see what works and keep plugging away at it. Yeah. No one in advertising and film agencies, Marvel, no one has ever asked me where I went to college. Not one person.

35:56
It's your portfolio. That's all they care about. It's set.

36:00
All right, we have less than five minutes. I'm going to have to toss one more question out before we get kicked out. But I think it's going to be a nice bow to this whole conversation. Because you guys are talking about the hours, the grind, the hustle, being away from family, the joy of being with family, being where you guys are at with your career. And I guess it boils down to just one very simple question. But I think it kind of unites all of us. And that is, why comic books? Knowing how hard this industry is, how much work goes into it, all the stories and the heartbreak

36:30
What is it about this medium that has warranted all of this work, sacrifice, motivation and drive? John? Alright. See how I put this. The last movie I did, in six months' time, I bought myself a pool, hot tub, outdoor kitchen and completely renovated my courtyard. I do not do comics for money.

36:57
Comics, comic books, the more Marvel pays me, less than a tenth of what I make a year. But here's the beauty of this stuff, man. This is why comics are awesome, especially for breaking into comics. When I work on a movie, nobody sees my stuff. The work I do in a video game, nobody cares. It's EA, you know, it's MGM, the movie, whatever. Comics, I'm the rock star.

37:25
It's John Tyler Christopher. I got a job. I drew one of the first romance video games to come to America outside of Japan. I referred to it affectionately as the hot guy game. I drew hot dudes because some CEO in Japan thought I drew an attractive Captain America. I landed a Buku big money video game because I drew hot Captain America. Zynga called me one day.

37:53
And they're just like, can we back a semi truck full of cash to your house to work on Farmville? Never would they have come to me. I would have gotten paid standard zinger rates. But they're like, would you like to draw Farmville? Not really. I'm too busy drawing Guardians of the Galaxy, I think was the time. And they're like, we really like your work. We'd like to pay you for it. And I'm like, no, no, no. OK, that's a good number. Yeah, I'll draw Farmville. And I mean, it was at the time I was working 20 hours a day on comic books.

38:23
If I was working 18‑hour days, I was probably working 10 to 14 hours a day on comic books and four hours on Zynga. Three months that Zynga paid for probably I would say probably two or three years of comic books. Like, I ‑‑ unless you own your own comic book, there's really not that much money in comics. I'm just going to be bluntly frank with you. But I do pretty well.

38:52
Sweet. I stay busy. Okay, and that's awesome. But I only do comics. I have found financially for myself, it's, but comics are the one thing we're gonna, it's me and it's only me. And that's a really cool thing and that affords me those other opportunities. So I get to work on something I'm passionate about and I love doing because at the end of the day, like I said, I'm not working in comics for money. I'm working in comics because I love it.

39:20
get to draw Darth Vader for a living. That is badass. Let's give it up. Yeah, I think to answer the question, like when I was a kid, like tracing John Byshev's artwork and stuff, you know, now I get to like actually work on actual comics and that's a big part of why I do comics all the time. It's rewarding. It really is. Yeah, it's amazing. I fell in love with it as a kid. It's a meditation while you're doing it. It's

39:46
super cool to be in charge of yourself and to be at home with your family. He's absolutely right. I've paid all the bills and I have a place to live and my belly is full and my kids going to school. So it's enough. Right. I mean, how much do you need? Like I get to do something I truly enjoy all day and I feel pretty lucky to have that. So. Damn right. I couldn't think of a better way to end that. Collective Con, let's give it up for our panelists.

40:16
Thank you so much. Do me a favor, these guys are located pretty close to each other on the main floor on the left-hand side if you enter through the main doors. You guys have a good rest of your convention day and thank you so much for joining us. Thanks guys. Be well. Take care. Thanks for coming out guys.

40:38
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41:04
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41:33
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42:02
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42:31
And most importantly, take care of yourselves, read a good comic, and continue to make mine and yours short box. I'll catch you soon.