- If you follow the site, you already know that the Clerks Comic is going into its THIRD printing, an outstanding feat…The Kansas City Star ran an article on that book’s artist, Jim Mahfood, which explains his beginnings and how he came to Oni. Read all about it…
Jim Mahfood fell hard for comic books in the fourth grade.
Spider-Man, Batman…Man, he thought, this is so cool!
“They were my childhood heroes,” Mahfood said. “It was like, ‘This is what I’m going to do for a living. I’m going to draw comics someday. ‘ ”
“Someday” has arrived in a big way for Mahfood, a St. Louis native who graduated with a degree in illustration last spring from the Kansas City Art Institute.
This spring the 22-year-old Mahfood is an emerging hotshot in the world of comics with the publication of two well-received one-shot titles:
“Generation X Underground Special” is an alternative spin on established X-Men superhero characters written and drawn by Mahfood for Marvel Comics. “The Big Game,” one playfully unorthodox story, has nary a flying fist as “Gen X” members Skin and Monet become obsessed with playing a vintage Space Invaders video game.
“Clerks (The Comic Book)” is a comic-stand sequel to filmmaker Kevin Smith’s 1994 cult favorite, “Clerks,” written by Smith and drawn by Mahfood for Oni Press. The plot, laced with profanity and references to pot smoking, follows Smith’s two counter-jockeys as they try to corner the market on collectible “Star Wars” action figures.
The attitude-drenched results in both books – delineated in Mahfood’s hip, high-contrast black-and-white style – have adventurous comic readers buzzing, especially ones who see their own culture embraced on the page.
Mahfood has met hundreds of those fans at autograph-signings this year at Golden Apple Comics in Los Angeles, with Smith, and at Atomic Comics near his home in Tempe, Ariz.
“Most of the kids who come in for my stuff are kind of Gen-X kids. Almost all of them are in their late teens and 20s. Most of them wear bigger pants, goatees, piercings.
“They’re the more open-minded, kind of coffee-going, underground-band-seeing people, I think. They tell me, ‘Your comics kind of represent the youth and us. Your characters look like people on the street, our friends, people we know. ‘ ”
But Mahfood won’t pander.
“I write and draw my stuff for me,” he said. “I assume that if it’s funny and cool to me, other people are going to dig it. ”
Even so, the creator didn’t anticipate the raves he has received for his first major comics work. Comic Shop News gave “Generation X Underground Special” a “don’t pass it up” review and praised Mahfood for injecting an experimental flavor into mainstream superhero fare.
“Just to be able to be involved in that whole X-Men franchise, it’s a big deal,” he said. “But for people in the industry to say my book is one of the best alternative comics out there now – it’s unbelievable. ”
A comic artist’s education
How did the Kansas City Art Institute turn out such a happening new comics pro?
It wasn’t by design.
“At the art institute, comics and cartooning in general are still not taken as seriously as the other arts,” Mahfood said. “And in American culture, it’s still looked upon as low art. You don’t really see it in too many art galleries. Most of my instructors were kind of leery at first. ”
Mahfood dismissed the scholarly skepticism and focused on what other successful sequential artists had told him: “Don’t learn how to draw by just looking at comics. ”
“You have to take live nude figure drawing,” Mahfood said. “You have to learn how to paint. You have to learn how to sculpt. You have to learn how to visualize. And then you go back to comics with all that knowledge and apply it. ”
Not that he didn’t have doubts.
“My very first week at the art institute, we drew cardboard boxes for six hours a day, every day. I had no idea why we were doing that until a year later (when) I realized it totally taught me about lighting, shadow and perspective. ”
One who offered Mahfood encouragement was Brent Watkinson, a professional illustrator and part-time instructor at the art institute.
“All my students had to do was solve the problem of the assignment,” Watkinson said. “They could use any venue they wanted, and Jim would do it with comics. He ended up working twice as hard as anyone. He was one of those guys who didn’t sit around and wait for things to happen. He would ask questions and talk to people in the industry. If he wanted to do something, he would just figure out a way to get it done. ”
A ‘Cosmic’ talent
While still in art school, Mahfood landed an assortment of free-lance art jobs, including work for Hallmark Cards and Kansas City Magazine, and he collaborated with local artist Mike Huddleston on an eight-page “Legion of Superheroes” story for DC Comics.
In 1995 Mahfood convinced comic and alternative music stores in Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago to sell his self-published female team book “Girlscouts” (the name was later changed to “Grrlscouts” when the Girl Scouts of America objected).
A year later, Mahfood took his self-published anthology “Cosmic Toast” to a St. Louis comic convention, where Marvel writer Scott Lobdell enjoyed its absurd violence, humorous autobiography and scalding social commentary.
“He approached me,” Mahfood said. “I was ecstatic. This was my first, official, really big break. He went back to New York and showed it around the offices at Marvel. ”
It led to Mahfood being given his own off-center way with “The Generation X Underground Special. ” The book’s graphic resemblance to “Cosmic Toast” was no coincidence.
“The approach from the start was to do something that looked totally different” from other Marvel comics, said “Generation X Underground Special” editor Jason Liebig. “I took samples of ‘Cosmic Toast’ and sent them to our printer and our paper people and said, ‘I want this kind of cover stock. ‘ ”
At the 1997 San Diego ComicCon, America’s largest yearly celebration of comics and pop culture, industry awareness of Mahfood rose sharply. Someone even stole preview copies of his “Underground Special” from the Marvel Comics booth. At that convention, Mahfood also met Kevin Smith and representatives of Oni Press, who were looking for an artist to draw Smith’s “Clerks” comic. “It was just perfect timing,” Mahfood said. “I found them, they found me. ”
Living a dream
In Mahfood, Marvel’s Liebig said, the comic-book community has found a passionate new talent.
“There’s a lot of energy there. There’s style and substance. He captures character very well. It was exciting working with Jim. If he hadn’t self-published, we wouldn’t have noticed him. He did this on his own. And now he’s got people calling him from other publishers, and things are happening. But he’s keeping his head about him. ”
The continuing exploits of Mahfood’s Zombie Kid (a heroic, if undead, comic-book artist and the protector of Freak City) can be seen in issues 5 and 6 of “Oni Double Feature” on sale in May and June.
It’s just one of a growing number of projects dominating Mahfood’s work-heavy lifestyle. No problem. He’s been looking forward to this since he picked up his first comic.
“I have a small, one-bedroom studio/apartment that I sit in for 12 hours a day drawing comics,” Mahfood said. “I make enough money that I can pay for food, rent, insurance and cover all my expenses. At the same time, I’m not really making that much yet.
“It’s very isolating work. But when I’m sitting here, I always think about the end product and how rewarding it will be when I hold that comic in my hand at the comic shop and say, ‘Hey, I did this. ‘ Then the hard work is totally worth it. ”
Visiting artist
Culture Under Fire, a celebration of freedom of expression sponsored by the Greater Kansas City Coalition Against Censorship, gets under way Friday and continues through May 23.
Jim Mahfood will participate in Culture Under Fire’s Midwest Underground Media Symposium, noon to 5 p.m. May 16 at Pierson Hall in the Student Union Building at UMKC. Admission is $5.
For information on the symposium and other Culture Under Fire events, call 691-8784 or access information on the Web at www.creativekc.com.
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