The other question is: ‘what do you need to become a successful comic artist or author?’ While again the phrasing might change, the answer to this question is almost always the same: you need to truly love making comics.

Robin Thompson is a comic illustrator, writer, and instructor currently living in Vancouver, BC. And he loves making comics.

Thompson teaches comic illustration workshops for kids and teenagers, and works as an instructor at The Emily Carr University of Art and Design, where he teaches similar content to an adult demographic.

“Starting next week I’ll be doing a comics course for teenagers,” he says of his summer teaching plans, “It’s part of a program that gets kids ready for art college so they know what to expect.”

In addition, he has been illustrating indie, self-published comics for over a decade. In 1998, he responded to an ad in the local paper from someone looking for an illustrator for a comic they were working on.

“It was for this comic series called Champions of Hell,” he says, “and the writer needed something dark and scary, and so I did a few sample drawings for him and we’ve been great friends ever since. His name is Ira Hunter, and that comic series is still going on.”

The first comic books that Thompson can remember taking a serious interest in were Alpha Flight and The X-Men.

“I always loved John Byrne’s art,” he says, “I used to sneak my brother’s X-Men comics out of his room when I was younger, and I would read those without him knowing. I used my allowance money to buy Alpha Flight issues from the racks at a local corner store.”

His first-ever foray into self-publishing was a title called The Highlanders, which he worked on with a group of friends from school. (Note: No relation to Christopher Lambert’s movies, other than a recurring theme of decapitation)

“It was about a group of Scottish vampire hunters, ” Thompson says, with a laugh, “It was a hand-made, photocopied zine style book, and we’d bring it to school and try and sell it to people.”

Outside of Champions of Hell, Thompson says he has quite a few projects on the go. His ongoing goal in comics is to challenge himself to continually produce work that’s both innovative and different from his previous projects.

For example:

“I’m a big fan of sharks and there’s no shark comics out there,” says Thompson,  “so I thought, I’m gonna do one! Right now I’m sitting on a shark story that I’ve completed and will at some point in the future be a new book.

I’ve also recently wanted to do a bit more writing and less drawing, so I needed a project for that. I watch a lot of really crappy, crappy movies, and out of that I did a book called the ‘Fifty Worst Comic Book Movies Ever Made’. It consists of my reviews of these horrible comic book movies, and of course I have illustrations throughout the book.

I made that and then a new one that I want to do is nerds of film. Kind of a review book about nerd films.”

Thompson maintains a firmly positive belief in the Do-It-Yourself approach to print publishing, which is reflected in the wealth of projects he currently has on the go. In an era when digital comics have taken a front seat for new comic creators and mass distribution is all but impossible for the indie self-publisher, his optimism is refreshing.

“There’s always a decent market for self-published stuff,” Thompson maintains, “Especially if you’re dedicated enough to getting your stuff out there. That’s what I love about the DIY approach, because you have that opportunity. Not only does it reward hard work, but you can inspire others into adopting their own DIY approach as well.

The more people that get involved, the stronger the DIY market becomes. Of course, we’ll always be the underdogs to the major distributor stuff. ”

When asked about his beliefs as to why this is, his answer comes as a familiar, two word response. If you guessed ‘reverse synergy’, you probably haven’t read many articles here on the Fabler Blog before.

“Diamond Comics,” says Thompson, “If you’re just starting out and trying to get your stuff out there, Diamond Comics will ruin you. By telling a self-publisher that if they don’t sell X amount, Diamond won’t carry their product, they’re basically telling the new generation ‘if you’re not part of the big boys, then don’t even bother.’”

Oddly enough, Diamond Comics’ position in the market actually had a direct hand in Thompson’s decision to start teaching comic art.

“Thanks to changing distribution patterns,” he explains, “It’s not like when I was younger and I could take my allowance down to the corner shop to buy a comic. Now you have to go to a comic shop, and most kids don’t live near comic shops, and their parents don’t often take them there. They might borrow something like Bone from the library or pick up an Archie comic, but that’s about it.

It’s really nice to be in a position to introduce kids to something new that they might never have known they’d like. Sure enough, over the course of teaching kids about comic art and what’s out there, you really see them develop personal tastes of their own in terms of art style and characters that they like.”

Thompson says that another motivation for getting into teaching was that it would provide a venue where he could share his love for the art:

“I decided to put a proposal out there to a community centre for a  drawing class, and they accepted, and I started a drawing class for kids. Word just got around that this is what I do, and I got offers from other community centres to do illustration/cartooning classes with kids heavily focused on comics.

From there, it went from teaching kids to teaching teenagers, and now of course teaching adults at Emily Carr.”

Thompson says the focus of his courses is generally on narrative storytelling, drawing techniques, and inking techniques.

“I don’t want to assume that everyone has the same interest as I do in comics,” he says, “so I try to keep it broad and more general.  Sometimes on the first day I have a slide show with a little bit on the history of comics.

There’s a lot of stuff that a lot of people don’t know. For example, Santa Claus was originally designed from a political cartoonist. They think that Coca-Cola created that image, but it was actually Thomas Nast.”

In his experience teaching, Thompson says he finds that most newcomers to the field don’t realize how much work actually goes into making a comic.

“I tell them to look at all of the names that are credited on their favorite comic book. Oftentimes, they don’t realize that someone’s doing the penciling, someone’s doing the lettering, someone’s doing the inking, and so forth.  When it’s all done by one person, it can be a really daunting task.

Sometimes people can be put off when they realize how much work goes into it. But then, those who put the time in can find it extremely rewarding.”

Thompson’s most important advice for aspiring comic artists?

“Draw every day, and don’t let comics be your only influence. Most comic artists are influenced by something outside of the comics field. For example, I would go sometimes to the art gallery and use the sculptures as models – which I would then draw, and use those sketches in my comic art.”

For more from Robin, you can visit his personal webpage or visit the Champions of Hell website.

-Written by Kevin de Vlaming

Check out the entire line up here: http://sequential.spiltink.org/?p=4044

Also featuring great work by Salgood Sam, and Howard Wong!

Thanks once again to our friends at Sequential!

Appearing in the video: Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics, Fiona Staples of North 40, Vicious Ambitious, The Anthology Project, Jay Korim, artist of The Sundry Seven, and – of course – the team behind the Fabler. Also featuring cameos from Ryan Sohmer, Richard the Warlock, and Scarecrow.

Dig it:

I find it interesting, as I’m diving deeper and deeper into the business; I would like to clarify two very major points. I will say that my friends, Riley Rossmo, of Proof, Jim Zubkavich, of Udon Entertainment, and Salgood Sam, of the Sequential blog (and various other cool works), helped me realize this during my adventures in Calgary, to the east in Toronto, and quite recently in the last few hours as I wake up in Montreal, coffee not quite yet in hand, before I write this.

The first note I want to point out is that in all of this is the point of thefabler.com. We are trying to create a place to both enable and maintain Creator Owned Comics. There seems to be muddy lines in “indie” comics, where print on demand, print quality, poor cartoonist artwork, expressionistic visual storytelling, etc, seem to leave a bad taste in some peoples mouths, and for that matter make it relatively difficult to define. In fact these mediums and outlets aren’t low quality at all. I recently purchased a book in a Montreal store (Planete BD), called, “Drowtales: Moonless Age,” by a team of very skilled fabler’s who come collectively all around the globe. Salgood Sam also did a very good job and pointing my nose to some mainstream comic artists and writers, including himself, that create very awesome black comic self published books such as the very rare, “Revolver.” The guys at Transmission-X have created an opportunity where they can tell their own stories in the midst of their more sanctioned works. These in fact help push the boundaries of visual storytelling and can become opportunities for trade paperbacks you may see in the future. Will most of these see the light of the high volume offset press then to the big screen? Maybe not in the very near future, but they do help fuel the passion for this unique industry by everyone from the upper escalon to the outskirts.

Despite all the flash, dazzle, alternative press, distribution opportunities, blah blah, we may throw your way, our goal is to adhere to your best interests always. I’ll make a point that we’ll do our very best to support and you as creators, small press, fans, and retailers in your path to success. I assure you also that we will probably get it wrong. I say this because it’s important that you, our community knows, that you have a voice and we do, and will continue to listen, to your ideas, suggestions, or even concerns. That’s not to say we can implement the farm, but we will do our very best to remain conscientious of that which we do put in place.

Secondly, there is no secret war between what would be “indie” and mainstream. I want to thank Diamond, Marvel, Red 5, Arcana, and the guy down the street from my house. If you take a hard look at the playing field, you’ll realize that one evidently could not exist without the other. Creator Owned Comics, allow new talent opportunities in the books from mainstream that you may very well read religiously. I’d have to say that one of my favorites so far is “Proof,” by Alex Grecian, and Riley Rossmo. The dedication and passion of these two rising stars is astounding. Marvel closing their open submission policy wasn’t a slap in the face to upcoming talent, but a way of saving costs through economic turmoil, to an industry mechanic that wasn’t functioning as intended. They are right when they say not everyone can be at the top. Otherwise we’d all be there. But don’t give up hope. A friend said to me recently, discover and know what your good at, but let passion drive and define you (okay I interpreted and paraphrased a little. Thanks Jim). To make it to the top takes a complex combination many elements including little luck. Understanding however in your journeys as a cartoonist, a comic artist, a writer, a retailer, an events creator, etc, regardless of your current professional stature, though we can’t all be Scott McCloud’s, Todd McFarlane’s, or Neil Gaimen’s, there is a place for you somewhere in this industry.

As The fabler, we may open a few doors from time to time. Thanks to all you loyal fans that frequent our pages, and for you new guys out there, expect to see some interesting things as even we The Fabler, find our place in this sea of opportunity.