The Quarter Bin

In Artist Confidential, TheQuarterbin features lesser-known, independent, or self-published comic book writers and artists we think you need to know about. Today we’ll be featuring Jake Zeck, a writer and artist that we spoke with at last weekend’s Wizard World Philadelphia. Hit the jump to read a full interview with Jake, as well as checking out some of his amazing artwork. Don’t forget to click the pictures to view them in Expand-O-Vision!

As far as self-publishing goes, what method are you using to publish your comic right now?

Well, it’s still in the works. There’s a couple of places online that are apparently fairly cheap and fairly quick as far as getting comic books and posters and other merchandise printed for you.

Right now you have your work online as a digital comic?

Yeah, right now it’s all on the web, it’s a webcomic. I upload it whenever I finish a page. It’s all on webcomicsnation.com/postapocalypticjake. My comic is up there, and there’s also a sketchbook gallery with all of my other artwork.

With IRON GENESIS, what style of comics can people expect when they come to the site to check out your work?

It’s like a sci-fi, kind of superhero but more like an ordinary superhero, kind of like Batman… it’s not like a Star Wars kind of sci-fi, it’s set on Earth, it has plausible technology. It’s sort of a real, gritty type of sci-fi, I guess.

So who’s your main character? What’s he do, and what is he looking for?

Well, in the thing I’m working on now, it’s like a short story set in the grander scheme of things… it’s sort of an intro to Pirate, which is the main character [in IRON GENESIS]. He and his two associates… they’re all regular people, no augmentations or superpowers, but they’re mercenaries or special agents that are subject to this program by this desperate weapons company to make them something more. That company starts this chain of events… and Pirate is trying to deal with that.

He comes to this town called Larvadale where people have been going missing and he tries to get to the bottom of it. He has this ability to help, so he does.

With penciling and inking everything yourself, how often do you get a page done?

At my fastest… probably a page every couple of days. I have sort of a different process, I guess. All of the finished artwork is done on the double-thick illustration board. To start the page, I draw it all in pencil on regular sketch paper, none of the line art, just the rendering. Then I take that and I transfer a clean line art image onto the board and make the lines on there. With the clean page, I go in and do the ink rendering from there.

Usually anything done in ink is done first in pencil, but I tend to do all of the shading straight on in pen.

Do you have any plans to add color, or do you envision this completely in black and white?

I don’t have any plans to make it color. I personally really like black and white artwork, aesthetically speaking. Printing wise, it’s cheaper to do black and white, though I guess it’s getting cheaper and cheaper to do color. If I ever do use color, it’ll be watercolor, I’ve got a couple of watercolor pieces too. Just a little bit of highlight color, some splashes of watercolor here and there. But I plan on doing it all in black and white.

Where do we see this comic going over the next couple of years, and where do you see yourself in the process?

Well, it all depends on how much time life will allow me to work on it. This past year, I haven’t had time to do much of anything with the comics, but several months before that I got a lot done, and I’m getting back into it now. Both times I’ve been at a convention, people from larger companies have come by and expressed interest in when I’ll have a book done. I don’t know if that’s something they tell everybody or not, but it’s exciting. This year a guy who’s in charge of purchasing brands for Diamond Distributors, which is a pretty big company, came by on the first day and then the second day with someone else he worked with… I really gotta push to make sure I get the book done and have a finished product to send them.

When we see you next year at Wizard World, what do you think is going to be different about the standing of IRON GENESIS?

It’ll all depend of what people think. I think I’ve got a pretty good book coming together, and I hope that people like it. I’ll definitely have the book done by then. I’m making a list this year of stuff to have for next year, sort of a dream list, so we’ll see.

Thanks to Jake for taking the time to talk to us. You can check out more of Jake’s artwork, as well as more preview pages from IRON GENESIS, at Post Apocalyptic Comics.