An interview with *zet, one of the many comic artist and cartoonists we have here on DA

Tell us a little about yourself?

My name is Michael Lunsford, I’m 21 years old. I live in the USA with my family, who are very kind and happy to let me make very little money while I start off in the business I love. I always find the question “How long have you been drawing” odd because I don’t remember ever not drawing. I dream to someday make a comic or story that people will remember me for (I like to say I seek immortality through my creations, bwhahaha). I went to the Joe Kubert School of Comic and Graphic Art (I wouldn’t be where I am without them). I grew up reading Sonic the Hedgehog Comics and watching almost every 90's cartoon I could, Batman the Animated Series, Tiney Toons, and Freakazoid for example. After going to JKS I got into comics a bit more, reading Ultimate Spider-man, the Ultimates, Street Fighter and Darkstalkers, Nextwave, Deadpool, among others. My favorite TV shows are Dexter, Entourage, and Firefly.



What made you decide that comics were what you want to do and what inspires your work?

I always wanted to tell stories through my work, and while I didn’t get to read too many comics when I was younger I knew it was the way to go. When I was very young I thought animation was the way to go, but in the end I didn’t like how animation was created, I wanted it to be more personal than it is. This was pointed out when I was in Disneyland and got to see the large room of 20 animators all animating the same thing. That wasn’t the field I wanted to go into. Comics was where it was for me, where you have one person drawing, one person writing, etc. sometimes more, sometimes less. It’s really hard for me to get inspired sometimes, I try to look at my favorite artists work and listen to new music or watch a movie I haven’t seen before, but that doesn’t always work. Eventually something will get me to start doodling and after a few tries in the planning stages I’ll get something that looks good. Thats one of the things I like about comics though. You can do whatever you want. The limit isn’t budget or dealing with censors or pushing through the chain of command. It’s making what you love and selling it, the limit is your imagination.



Are you self-published/online or do you work for a major comic label? Can you share some of your experiences with us?

I’m just starting out so I haven’t done much work. For an artist starting out you don’t really need to focus on one subject though, I’ve done character design, book illustration, comic books, commissions. Anything to get my work out in the public’s eye really. I’m on issue 2 of a comic called Horsemen that iss doing pretty well as an Independent comic. I haven’t had too many problems yet, the Joe Kubert School prepared me for the business of comics and pounded into my mind “Get paid first” so with all that I haven’t had much trouble. I’ve had to deal with a few troublesome people who don’t understand the difference between a personal commission and a product they’re going to make money off from (which would mean a MUCH bigger payment to me), but with some careful business it all works out for me in the end!



What mediums do you prefer to work with and why? What mediums/artists do you admire?

I do all my planning with pencil in a sketchbook, then the rest is done with Photoshop and a tablet I love computers so much possibility. What I mostly love though, is “undo” of course that’s just one reason. I like to play around a lot with the way my picture is set up, positions of things and such, and doing that on paper is just tedious. In this business, speed is king, and to get my work done as fast and as clean as possible, I need my lovely computer machine to help me. It of course has its problems, not to long ago I lost a bunch of my files and had to re draw some comic pages, but it was only a weeks worth of work, and it taught me to super back up my files! Something I should have been doing already. One thing I really wish I had was one of those monitor tablets, that lets you draw right on the screen...but that will have to wait quite a while. My favorite artists are: Mike Wieringo, Adam Hughes, Nick Bradshaw, Masashi Kishimoto, Kohta Hirano, Bruce Timm, Alvin Lee, Andy Kubert, Terry Dodson, Will Eisner, Juanjo Guarnido...Look em up!



When working with a writer, what is involved and how does your approach to drawing the comic change as compared to writing and drawing your own ideas? As a comic artist who else would you need to work with and how closely do you work with these other artists?

I love working with a writer. I don’t know about anyone else but its very hard for me to continuously be entertained by my own ideas. Working with a writer is like watching my favorite TV series use my style. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next script and I’m excited to find out, and when I get the script finally the ideas start buzzing about how it will look. When working with my own ideas I know exactly how I want it to look, exactly how it will end, and there’s hardly any excitement to it. So I take a writer’s script with a huge grin on my face, like getting a new video game to play with. As a comic book artist, if you’re working for a company, you’ll have to deal with a writer, a penciler, an inker, a colorist, and a letterer. You should be friendly with each part of your band and give as much information to each one as possible, so you can all make the best product possible. My teacher Joe Kubert would say for pencilers: make your pencils good enough so that the inker knows exactly what he’s supposed to do, and send a color thumbnail to the colorist to show him what you were going for. It’s a team effort, they all have to help each other.



Do you still use reference material such as stock or from life for poses, buildings and other props and item when drawing out comics? How do you come up with the poses? Are you ever unsatisfied with your work or have an artist’s block?

Of course! You should always use references, but don’t let the reference rule you, play with it, make it your own, don’t just make a photo copy of what you see, work it into your picture, don’t work the picture into your reference. Poses are hard, I don’t get them right on the first try usually. I have to play around with the posing of limbs for a bit before I get it where I want it, remembering to make it look interesting, I hardly ever go with my first idea. Sometimes if I’m really stuck, I’ll use photo references of poses, but I wont draw the exact pose, in fact some times I’ll use different pictures to piece together the pose I want. I always think about what I could do better, and only half the time am I actually “satisfied” with my work. I’ve had some bad artists blocks before, sometimes they’ve lasted weeks. All I can suggest for that is to rest, deal with your personal life, then start doodling, don’t plan anything, just start drawing without thinking or planning, something weird will probably come out, but just roll with whatever you feel. That usually helps me out a lot.



Thank you very much for taking the time to share you experience with us!

No problem! It was my pleasure. Just remember everyone, keep pushing through and getting better, and never ever be satisfied with where you at. The artist never ends, it only continues to learn, and gets stronger every day.