Illustration by Jim Callahan
Chris Pitzer believes we’re living in a golden age of comics.
“Any type of comic book you want to read is out there,” he says. “Horror, sci-fi, human interest, autobio, anything you want. You’ve just got to find it.”
And Richmond is just the place to find it, adds Pitzer, who founded AdHouse Books, a celebrated independent comic publisher that recently shuttered after 20 years. “I couldn’t think of a better place for a person who likes comics, with all of our comic shops and conventions,” he says. “We can probably thank the amount of colleges that are in this town — VCU, of course."
The talent has always been here, he says. Artist Michael William Kaluta, a prolific cover illustrator also known for work on “Batman” and “The Shadow,” and illustrator Charles Vess, who collaborated with celebrated author Neil Gaiman on the comic-book series “Sandman” and “Stardust,” both attended VCU, the former when it was Richmond Professional Institute. Today, there are many working comic artists living in the city, from veterans such as Marvel Comics colorist Jason Keith and acclaimed graphic novelist Dash Shaw to relative newcomers such as Theodore Taylor III, the award-winning creator of “When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop,” and Scott Wegener, the artist behind “Atomic Robo.”
“It’s an affordable city,” Pitzer says. “Comic creators don’t make a lot of money, so I think it’s easier to be one here than in Washington, D.C.”
Artist Jim Callahan in his studio (Photo by Justin Vaughan)
When artist Jim Callahan attended VCU in the late 1990s, he says, Richmond’s affordability “fostered a creative subculture in comics. It wasn't unlike how the music scene grew. People were able to work a part-time job and exist and put a lot of their energy into their passion.”
That spirit is still alive today, he says. “It’s inspiring.”
Callahan has found a niche combining skateboard culture and comics with his Barf Comics imprint. He’s also a muralist and skateboard designer (and he created the images opening this feature). Aside from time in Los Angeles, he’s worked in Richmond for 20 years, mostly self-publishing but occasionally jobbing for companies such as Marvel and Dark Horse. “The interest in independent comics has grown,” he says. “With the expanded audience, there is more room for specificity with target niche stories.”
A page from a comic by Kelly Alder (Image courtesy Kelly Alder)
Kelly Alder, who teaches illustration (including courses in how to make comics) in VCU’s Department of Communication Arts, says that it’s a different landscape from when he attended the school in the early 1980s.
“There were a lot of superhero comics, not a lot of adult alternative comics,” he says. “Now, suddenly, every kind of comic you can imagine is being made. The diversity that the field is experiencing in general is reflected in the classroom.”
Pitzer says, “The fact that Kelly Alder is teaching a comics class at VCU, to me, means that this is a comics town.”
Shannon Wright was one of Alder’s students. She graduated from VCU in 2016 and has since become a prolific professional illustrator from her home studio in Richmond. “I specifically learned sequential art and comic-making from Kelly,” she says.
A Fredericksburg native, Wright prides herself on working with a host of clients and media, from newspapers to animation. But her real love is comics, and lately she has been creating short comics for Scholastic magazines. This year, Scholastic’s book imprint Graphics published her first graphic novel, “Twins.”
Shannon Wright, a 2016 VCU graduate, is a prolific illustrator who recently published her first graphic novel, “Twins.” (Photo by Sarah Schultz-Taylor courtesy Shannon Wright)
“Twins” follows two sisters, Maureen and Francine, through sixth-grade crushes, homework and other family drama. “Suddenly you have one sister, Francine, who wants to break away from her other half,” Wright says. “Maureen is having a difficult time separating.” She pauses and laughs. “And they both end up running for class president.”
In Alder’s Comics 1 and 2 courses, students are taught to put together their own books, from concept to printing. Instead of a tale of costumed superheroes, as a student, Wright drew a pensive story of a son reflecting on his mother’s difficult life. “My favorite comics are slice-of-life character examinations,” she says. “I’m interested in the everyday life of the character, trying to understand their decisions and life choices. What I love most about comics is that they can be about anything.”
Bizhan Khodabandeh is another illustrator who loves the wide-ranging possibilities of comics. The assistant professor in VCU's Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture. Khodabandeh self-describes as “a full-time teacher who also does these things here and there” — comics, magazine and book design, posters, logos, even a beer label for Richmond's Final Gravity Brewing Co.
One recent project was “The Day the Klan Came to Town,” a graphic novel collaboration with writer Bill Campbell that tells the fictionalized account of a real 1923 event in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, when a community pushed back against a violent Ku Klux Klan march. Khodabandeh’s first comic, “The Little Black Fish,” was published by Campbell’s Rosarium Publishing; it’s an adaptation of a classic Persian children’s tale about an inquisitive fish.
A page from Bizhan Khodabandeh’s “Little Red Fish” (Image courtesy Bizhan Khodabandeh)
Khodabandeh, who freelances under the name Mended Arrow, is now working with a British writer, Christopher Heath, on “All Things Accounted For,” a comic told from the perspective of a vampire’s butler. “I would love to do more comics, but it’s not worth it, unless you are a fast artist,” Khodabandeh says. “Cartoonists are often paid in royalties or page rates where for each page you illustrate, you get X amount of money, and it’s not a lot.”
Back in 1983, Alder inked a Superman comic for DC Comics, working with his friend Michael Kaluta, but “I didn’t pursue comics aggressively because of the money,” he says. “I went the illustration route. The pay for comics was embarrassingly bad.”
Over the years, he’s managed to work on comics when the money was right, such as with a “conflict resolution” strip he drew for a corporate consulting firm, written by “It’s Superman!” author Tom De Haven (see interview, Page 79). Alder is currently creating a six-page comic for “The Old Farmer’s Almanac for Kids," geared toward 8- to 12-year-olds. “Next, I’m doing a comic on the first alien abduction by a UFO,” he says excitedly.
But high-paying comic projects can be few and far between. “When I first started working, I wanted it to be the only thing I devoted my time to,” says artist (and Richmond magazine contributor) Chris Visions, who has worked for a gamut of comic publishers, including Marvel and DC, and counts the late VCU professor Kerry Talbott as a mentor. “But even when I was trying to break into comics, I was working in graphic design and for marketing companies. I haven’t found many people who do comics who don’t have some sort of subsistence somewhere else.”
In between working on issues of “International Iron Man” and “Spider-Gwen,” Visions, who is also a noted muralist, does more lucrative illustration work for Disney, the Obama Foundation and the NBA. Visions also teaches art at Cristo Rey Richmond High School and works with kids at Binford Middle School through an Art 180 residency.
You’ve got to love to make comics to make comics, he tells budding artists. “And don’t be constrained by the medium. I love being able to pull references from the Renaissance and other art periods, which makes the world fresh.”
