Nightcrawler by Bridgit Scheide.

I continue my interview with Sketch Charlotte and its members: Rich Barrett (RB), John Da Costa (JDC), Tom Davidson (TD), Derek Davis (DD), Henry Eudy (HE), Dan Morris (DM), Brandon Padgett (BP), Eraklis “Herc” Petmezas (EP) and Bridgit Scheide (BS). In this part we delve into the comic’s background of each of the members.

How long have you been drawing comics?

RB: I’ve been working on my own comic called Nathan Sorry for about as long as I’ve been involved in Sketch Charlotte though I’ve really only been putting it out there and moving full steam ahead on it in the past year. I’ve always wanted to do my own comic and the idea for it had been in my head for a while but I really have to thank the encouragement (and constant prodding) I got from the Sketch Charlotte gang otherwise it might be something I was still just thinking about rather than actually doing.

DD: 5 years.

DM: I’ve been drawing comics for years. I started in the 4th grade and didn’t stop after that.

BP: I’ve always drawn, even before I knew how to write I would sit down in the floor and draw for hours.  I’m 36 now, so I’ll let you do the math! It wasn’t until I got to college that I started focusing on comics. Now it’s pretty much all I draw!

BS: I’ve been drawing my whole life, but I really started getting into the sequential format in high school.

TD: Completed stories? Since 2004. But I’ve been cartooning since I was a wee lad.

HE: I’ve drawn comics and cartoons for my own enjoyment since childhood. In high school I drew stuff for the school newspaper but for some reason didn’t stick with cartooning as anything more than an occasional hobby. Late in 2007, after reading Jeffery Brown’s book Clumsy, I decided to recommit myself to cartooning and started making a serious (well, semi-serious) attempt at comics making. In spring of 2008 I Xeroxed off my first mini comic, Get to Know Me. It was actually pretty gratifying to see what a piece of ugly junk I had made. I’ve kept to the mini comics path and have made nine little books thus far as well as having contributed to a few anthologies.

Henry Eudy sketching at Sketch Charlotte.

How did you get into comics?

JDC: I had a friend in junior high who introduced me to comics. Before then I always dug superheroes and what not but I wasn’t really serious about comics. From then on I’ve drawn comics for kicks and giggles but it wasn’t until after I married and had my first kid that I decided to start being a little more serious about it.

BP: My Dad was big into comics when the Silver Age was booming. He used to tell me stories about them all the time, then when I was old enough he introduced me to the world of comics! As far as drawing comics, it was a natural progression really. I was in the fine arts department at ASU and I was reading a lot of comics at the time. It was bound to happen! After I dropped out of comics late in my college career (and transferring into another department) I stopped drawing altogether. As I slowly got back into comics I started visiting a lot of comics related forums. I found Newsarama and they had just started a weekly art group. I joined and jumped back in with both feet! That directly led to me producing my own sketch books. I’ve been doing that for four years running and plan to do it again this year!

EP: I think I initially saw them in a convenience store and fell in love with them instantly. I was fortunate to travel to Greece at a young age and be subjected to many great European artists that just blew my mind. After that I didn’t read as many superhero titles and got into the great Indy scene of the 80’s and 90’s. I’ve been writing and drawing since. I was fortunate enough to graduate from SCAD where I became friends with a lot of great artists. In the early 90’s I tried to “break in” (mostly as a writer) and had a lot of almosts, but nothing concrete. So I switched gears and did more illustration work. After not doing sequentials for so long I got the buzz again in the early 2000’s and have been doing comics since. It recent years I’ve been mostly self publishing and working on anthologies. I joined 803 studios as well. It’s been a lot of fun.

An unused Mr. Lune cover by Eraklis Petmezas.

TD: I learned to read thanks in part to cartooning; I’d stare at comic strips when I was super wee lad, getting the punchlines visually of Snuffy Smith or Andy Capp, and then eventually as I learned to read I was hooked into the daily adventures and dramas in Gasoline Alley, Hagar the Horrible and so forth. When I was 8 or 9 a friend of mine asked me if I’d seen comic books. “Hunh?” I had no idea. He gave me some Stan Lee & Jack Kirby Thor, Fantastic Four and Spiderman, as well as Captain America & Falcon and Daredevil and I was HOOKED, baby.

BS: I was always into creative writing classes in school, and I think the desire to tell stories, particularly through art, is something I’ve always had. Even when I was a kid I would draw really simple pictures, and then sit my parents down and share an elaborate story based on the image. While technically working on larger-scale pieces in high school, my mind would be working out a plot of why I was drawing this a certain way, or why a character was in a particular setting and what they were doing before they were there. I’d think up back stories or create futures for them while I was working on that single moment. But it took more than halfway into my high school year for me to actually commit to comics. (Most high school art teachers don’t want to tell their kids that comics are art, haha!) I’m so thankful for all the other comic geek friends I made in my college illustration classes. I met some really awesome art kids at UNCC and I think we all kind of helped inspire each other and encourage each other’s pursuit of it all.

DD: I had a football coach that got me into reading comics when I was about 9 and have been reading them ever since.

Baba Yaga by Henry Eudy.

HE: I actually have a pretty clear memory of my grandmother buying me my first comics when I was little fat boy instead of the big fat man I am today. Against my mother’s protests, she would frequently give me copies of Peter Porker, the Amazing Spider Ham and Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew. I think I could barely read at that point, but it fostered in me a deep and abiding love for humor, parody and funny animal comics. As a whelp, I was a dedicated reader of Cracked magazine and recognized Dan Clowes’ style right away upon seeing my first issue of Eightball as being the same guy who drew the Uggly Family. I drifted away from comics in middle school but was reawakened when a school chum somehow snuck a copy of The Killing Joke class. After that I was rabidly into superhero comics all through my teenage years. Then came the glut and excesses of the early nineties. The shenanigans and stupidity flowing out of Marvel and Image in those days drove me right into the waiting arms of DC and Vertigo. I got hooked on Sandman, went back and read the Alan Moore Swamp Thing run, chased down the Miracleman comics from Eclipse, discovered Fantagraphics, became an adherent of Hate, Eightball and Love and Rockets. Then, in 1994 I saw the movie Robert Crumb. I had a peripheral knowledge of Crumb, but I had never actually read any of his comics. Just like it was 1968, my head exploded with the greatness of the genre’s greatest line maker. I then got really into underground comics and quit reading current comics for a very long time. Then, in 2007, I walked back into Heroes after a very long absence and looked around. Comics looked very different from the way they had appeared in 1994. I felt very little familiarity with most of what was on the shelf. I did find these curious little books in the back that looked like they were made by a palsied eight year-old, however. These comics were crude looking, but really funny, extraordinarily human and they really spoke to me. I bought books by Jeffery Brown and James Kolchalka and I was suddenly back in the comics saddle.

DM: My first memories of reading comics were we my family stayed at my grandmother’s house in Connecticut. She still had the comics my dad read in his youth and college years in her attic. So my brother and I would read those whenever we went up there and of course, treat them like any child would treat them. However, I really started getting into comics around 4th grade. That was when CMS started their magnet school program and I went to one of them which meant I got to ride the bus to school, and it was a very long bus ride I should tell you. On the bus ride, there were these two brothers who let me borrow the comics they had which were generally either X-Men comics or the old Marvel Tales series which was this comic that reprinted old Spider-Man comics. To say, I was hooked is an understatement.

A recent Sketchercise by Brandon Padgett.

What were your favorite comics as a kid?

BP: Mostly Marvel, Amazing Spider-Man, G. I. Joe and Transformers and DC‘s Batman. As I got older and could afford more I started reading titles like Fantastic Four, Thor and Uncanny X-Men. Pretty much wherever my influences showed up I’d buy it!
 
What are some of your artistic influences?
Whew…there’s so many to name!  I’ll stick with the basics, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Albrecht Durer and Norman Rockwell laid the foundation and in the comics world John Byrne, George Perez, Art Adams, Walt Simonson, Jim Lee and a host of others built the house that stands on that foundation!

RB: The Chris Claremont/John Romita Jr. era X-Men. Also Howard Chaykin‘s American Flagg which I probably shouldn’t have been reading at the age I did.

HE: Um, I realize that I just told you my whole life story in comics so I’ll try to keep this one a little short. As a young kid I was really into funny animals and Harvey comics based on cartoons like Heathcliff, Richie Rich and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Then I was huge into Cracked and Mad and started reading Sergio Aragones’ Groo the Wanderer. In middle school/early high school it was all Batman and TMNT then somebody got me reading the Marvel X titles. I read X-Men, X-Force, X-Factor, New Mutants , Ghost Rider and Spider-Man pretty regularly. Really embarrassing time to be reading that stuff. When Image broke I read The Maxx and Pitt but found myself unable to get into WildC.A.T.S., Spawn or (God forbid) Youngblood. Gave up on Image really early on and read Sandman, Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol, etc. Got all indie soon after and read Eightball, Yummy Fur, Hate, Dirty Plotte, Love and Rockets, Meatcake, Trailer Trash, Frank, Jim, etc. After that, childhood was thoroughly crushed.

DD: My favorite comics as a kid were Spider-Man, Hulk, and Superman.

EP: Anything by Matt Wagner, Nexus, The Jam, American Flagg, Zooniverse (track this down now), Love and Rockets, Zot!, Hate, Lucky Luke, Dylan Dog etc. I really could go on. haha.

Batman mock-up page by Dan Morris.

DM: Definitely Jim Lee‘s X-Men run and the three or four years after that. That was really huge for me as a kid especially since the X-Men cartoon’s character designs were all based on those first 10 or so issues of X-Men. Calvin and Hobbes was another big one as was the Far Side. Later in my youth, Dragonball Z was a huge thing for me. Akira Toriyama‘s action storytelling really blew my mind.

JDC: I started reading in the early 90’s, so of course there’s the obvious Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane comics. I loved how they drew.

TD: Daredevil (Gene Colan rules), Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, The Spirit, Crossfire, Swamp Thing, and Tales of Terror.

BS: I read stuff like X-Men and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when I was younger, but I think the pinnacle moment for me was reading Maus in high school. I attended Governor School for art the summer of my Junior year, and indie comic artist Ben Towle was my professor. He introduced our class to a lot of great independent comic work, but Maus made me realize how intricate and diverse comics can be as a storytelling medium. Comics can have more meaning then simply guys with cool powers. Though that’s always fun, too!

What are some of your artistic influences?

EP: Matt Wagner, Mike Mignola, Philip Bond, Jamie Hewlett, Glyn Dillon, Hugo Pratt, Dupay & Barberiene, Nicolas De Crecy, Tezuka, Hernadez Brothers (all 3 of them), Yves Chaland, Pander Bros, Andrew Robinson, Doug Alexander Gregory, Zak Plucinski, Scott Fischer, Al Columbia, Pat McEown, Mike Allred, Kyle Baker, Dave Cooper, Eddie Campbell, Charles Burns, Gipi, D’isreali, and Lewis Trodheim. All of the Sketch Charlotte crew. Seriously, these cats are all amazing.

RB: This changes a lot. There’s a handful of comic book creators whose work is very important and influential to me. People like David Lapham, Daniel Clowes, Naoki Urasawa, Gilbert Hernandez and Cameron Stewart. But I also pull my influences from novels, films, photography and other things I come across.

TD: Egon Schiele, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri Mattisse, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Chuck Jones, Maurice Nobel, Gene Colan, Will Eisner, Klaus Janson, David Mazzuchelli, John Hubley, Lew Keller and Saul Bass.

DM: My holy trinity of artists has to be Mike Mignola, Osamu Tezuka, and Herge. Those three guys influence my work the most out of anybody.  After that Matt Wagner, Katsuhiro Otomo, Moebius, Miyazaki, The Fort Thunder guys, Los Bros. Hernandez, Chester Brown, and Shotaro Ishinomori are all really big artists to me. Those guys played a huge impact on my love and understanding of comics. Out side of comics, I really love the work of early 20th century artists like Piet Mondrian, Alexander Rodchenko and other Constructivists, and other artists that were very design and abstract oriented. I’d be remiss in not mentioning the big influence punk and indie rock have on my work. I don’t think I would be walking the path I do today artistically without that music. Finally, I want to give a shout out to three of my SCAD friends; Elena Diaz, Jon-Erik Garcia and Josh Santamaria. The four of us really kept each other going while we were all down there and I know I’m drawing the way I do now because of them. Oh and I definitely have to give a shout out to my Sketch Charlotte brethren.  Having them around has definitely made me want to up my game artistically.

Pinky and the Brain sketch by Bridgit Scheide.

BS: Vera Brosgol, Ben Towle, Mike Mignola, Doug TenNapel, Samuel Beckett, Ben Templesmith, Dave McKean, Caspar David Friedrich, Joss Whedon, Mark Brooks, Chuck Palahniuk, Gabrielle Del’Otto, Scott Campbell, Johnny Hart, and fairytales and folklore that are passed down but we no longer know the author.

DD: John Romita, Jr., Erik Larson, Todd McFarlane, and Jim Lee.

JDC: Today, that would be a wide gamut of inspiration. My friends at Sketch Charlotte definitely have some input in there because we push each other to grow as storytellers. Pros that still inspire me would include Sean Galloway, Humberto Ramos, Ryan Ottley, and Jason Howard. This list could keep growing.

HE: My stuff is a mess but I actually count some pretty talented guys as influences. Not that it’s their faults. First is Robert Crumb. I spent a lot of my life trying to get just the right sort of crosshatching that comes so naturally to Crumb. Then probably Jeffery Brown and James Kolchalka. Both these guys’ work is deceptively simple looking but actually boils down a visual narrative to its simplest and most honest components. Really helped me get over my Crumb worship. Gilbert Hernandez is a huge influence on my preference for brush inking and through his stuff I discovered Jesse Marsh. Berkeley Breathed (of Bloom County) was a big hero of mine and I used to study his strips intently as a kid. Then Raymond Pettibon is a guy I aspire to be a little like. I also wish I could ape both Sammy Harkham and especially Ted May.Both those guys are astounding.

What are you reading right now?

RB: The Passage by Justin Cronin. It’s not the kind of novel I normally read but it’s a really well-written Vampire-apocalypse novel. I’m also reading Pluto by Naoki Urasawa, among too many other comics and graphic novels to even mention.

HE: I finally read Roger Langridge’s Muppet Show stuff. Man, I should have got on that train a lot sooner. I follow Anders Nilsen’s Big Questions as they slowly come out year after year. I’ve recently read two issues of Paul Grist’s Jack Staff and enjoyed them, despite the superhero leanings. I like Ted May’s Injury comics which, I assume died with Buenaventura Press. Tales Designed to Thrizzle was pretty much designed for me and my enormous thrizzle habit. Like most snotty, pretentious people I read MOME each season, also Papercutter. I pick up Jeffery Brown’s Sulk books when they come around and read anything Dan Clowes does (sadly, didn’t love Wilson). Mostly however, I read mini comics as of late. My favorites recently have been by Joe Lambert, Matt Wiegle, Sally Bloodbath, Chuck McBuck, Joey Weiser, Josh Latta, Eleanor Davis, Julia Wertz and Anthony Clark. I also enjoy reading the comics of my fellow Sketch Charlotte alums like Herc’s Last Cigarette, Tom’s Circle City Tales, Bridgit’s Kindle and Rich’s webcomic Nathan Sorry.

JDC: Nathan Sorry, The Astounding Wolf-Man and Invincible. I don’t get a whole lot of time to read as much as I’d like to.

BP: Tons of trade paperbacks, sketchbooks and art books and anything by Darwyn Cooke, Chris Schweizer and our Sketch Charlotte members. I feel a lot more of a personal connection to their work and I like to support them any chance I get.

Dracula sketch Rich Barrett did at the Union County Library Mini-Con.

DD: G.I. Joe, Incredible Hulk, all the Star Wars books.

EP: I read a lot of the Vertigo, Image and Fantagraphics books. Of course all the books by the creators I listed in my answer to te previous questions. All the Hellboy books. Rasl has been real good too.

DM: Right now I just finished reading two graphic novels: Hope Larson‘s Mercury and Doug Tenepal‘s Ghostopolis (which was lent to me by fellow Sketch Charlotte member Bridgit Scheide). I really enjoyed both and I think that Mercury is definitely one of the best comics I’ve read so far this year. Another graphic novel I read recently was this Marshall Law book that Henry recommended. I was really surprised how much I liked it and now I really want that Marshall Law Omnibus that Top Shelf has. I’m really excited for the ending of Brandon Graham‘s excellent King City though also saddened that it’s ending but hopefully Graham’s new Multiple Warheadz series will start before the end of the year. I’m knee deep in the middle of Naoki Urasawa‘s 20th Century Boys. Urasawa is easily one of the best storytellers that the world has right now and his comics are essential reading for me. I was also reading his series Billy Bat but uh now that a certain website is down, I have to find somewhere else to read it. Also have been reading The Best of the Spirit by Will Eisner, which I originally bought for use in a class but it’s been really entertaining to say the least.

TD: Asterios Polyp, Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Sweet Tooth, The Muppet Show Comic Book and Scooby Doo.

BS: I just got finished reading Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel. It is the most beautiful graphic novel I’ve read yet. He is quickly becoming a huge influence to me. His storytelling is extremely smart, and the creativity behind his character selection is so imaginative. It’s so amazing how cohesive his stories are – his imagination and intention are so astonishingly linked. I laughed and cried throughout that story – never done that with a graphic novel before. (With the exception of the tears I shed for Rorschach during his “What are you waiting for?!” moment at the end of Watchmen.)

Stay tuned for Part Three of the Sketch Charlotte Interview!