The internet such a great place and you just never know who you'll bump into online. In my travels through cyberspace, I've stumbled onto another up and coming talent that I think you all would want to know about. Here he is, Tony Fleecs.
Jermaine Exum: Let's get right into it and have you give us a little back-story on you. How old are you? Where are you and what goes on there? And most importantly, as one guy with an unusual last name to another, how is your name pronounced?
Tony Fleecs: Fleecs is pronounced like "fleece" as in "Polar" or "the Golden". I'm 26 and a half years old and I'm currently living in the largest town in South Dakota, aka: the smallest town I've ever lived in. Not a whole lot goes on here, I work a lot with the comic, a full-time & part-time job plus freelance. There's a nice little bar in-between my job & my apartment, that combined with the comic store & Qdoba accounts for about 80% of my "what goes on". Later this summer I'm moving out to Los Angeles… I expect that will be a little different.
JE: One of the many things I couldn't do if my life depended on it is draw. Do you have any kind of formal art training or did you learn by doing?
TF: When I was 16 I had to go to night school for a semester. In night school they will accept comics in place of actual assignments; they just want you to pay attention & not stab anybody. After that I went to art school in Denver for computer animation where I shied away from computer animation & relied mostly on my traditional skills to get through. I learned a lot there, Photoshop, design composition, inking techniques, plus there were a lot of good artists around so there was always a friendly competition going on that was great for making me work harder. I would say I'm mostly self taught though, I'd also say it probably shows some of the time.
JE: Acme is carrying your upcoming comic, In My Lifetime. There's a lot of slice of life/ autobiographical independent comics out there so why was that the format you wanted to go with? Real life isn't always fun and hijinks so do you balance the reality with some humor?
TF: I chose autobiography mainly because I'm lazy. I don't have to sit around thinking up stuff to happen to my characters; it already happened. All I have to do is write it down & make sure the beats & the jokes land at the right places. It's as true to life as it can be for the most part. Of course it's all going through the same filter in my head so it's not verbatim or anything but its close, or close to how I remember it. I have a notebook that I write down titles in & key words. When something happens that seems comic worthy I'll jot it down in there and then when I sit down to write I have to sit & remember for a while, usually takes about half a cigarette to get it all figured out & then I just type. And then I pick at it for a few days. As far as the balance, it's always going to err on the side of quirky just because that's how I experience things… I'm always quick to point out the funny in a terrible situation because I can't take things seriously. It's the man-child thing. In My Lifetime is 32 pages (28.5 pages of story, some bonus features…and 2 ads), black & white interiors, full color cardstock cover (like Optic Nerve, the cover stock is going to be the classiest part of the book), all for the low price of $2.95. We're shooting for it to be an annual type thing. It took me about a year to get this one together, but I think I can make the next one a little quicker.
JE: I read the "Why I Don't Take Girls to the Comic Shop" short on Newsarama and passed it along to some of my very discerning friends and peers. I've been a comics fan all my life, I've crossed over to selling comics, I'm deep in the comics lifestyle and culture. What you presented in those few panels was so spot on, shockingly spot on. That kind of accuracy can only come from spending a lot of time watching serious comic fans in the wild or from actually being a serious comics fan who can not only see the forest, but the trees as well. Although I know for a fact that "the comic girl" does exist. Were you hesitant at any point because the comic community might not be ready to laugh at itself?
TF: First off, thank you so much. It was important to me to show reverence to the comic store & the comic lifestyle. I worked in a comic store when I was a kid (got paid in comics) & I've spent a lot of time in them throughout adulthood shopping & bullshitting comics, & of course, observing other comic guys. The point of that story in the end was how much I respect the other comic store shoppers, I never really considered that some of them might be offended by it (although, knowing comic folk like I do I just always assume somebody's gonna have something negative to say about every book sooner or later, that's what we do). I was always more concerned with how it might offend women, comic readers & otherwise. The title of the piece is sexist & offensive and the story has the most spiteful line in the whole book (The comic store employee says the girls who come in for real comics look a lot like the guys who shop there). But I had to write it, it came from life & at the heart it's about how much I want to meet a girl who reads comics… Hopefully that came through.
JE: You have a great comic art style. The expressions have an almost animation-like quality. What are your influences?
TF: I'm heavily influenced by animation: Disney's stuff in the heyday, Dreamworks' traditional animation had a big effect on me, Fleischer brothers Superman which begat Timm's Batman which begat Oeming's Powers style, Al Hirschfeld, Eisner on the Spirit. I find myself being accidentally influenced a lot of times too, people see a lot of Clerks animated style in my stuff & that was never intentional, never something I studied. I liked the cartoon it must've just seeped in to my subconscious. Same thing happened to me as a kid. I saw one Robotech book when I was 13, drew big anime eyes for years.
JE: You have been getting a ton of exposure. A name drop in Wizard, endorsement from Warren Ellis himself, television spot, interview on Wordballoon.com. Is this all part of some kind of strategy or have the right opportunities knocked at the right time?
TF: I owe Brian Michael Bendis a beer. Almost every good thing that's happened to me with this book has come from hanging out on his message board. I met my publisher on there, met John from Wordballoon.com on there, got advice from Warren Ellis on there (and found out that he actually read my book & liked it). That place is the alpha & omega of my book. The first IN MY LIFETIME story I ever did was for an anthology that I asked to be a part of, you guessed it: on the Bendis Board. There's so much talent & advice to be had at that place. The local stuff I did my own footwork on. I work at the TV station & in a smaller city there's only so many human interest pieces about old ladies making candles they can do before they start fishing in their own pond. And then I have a friend who works at the paper & he thought it was a cool enough story to write about there. Silent Devil publisher Christian Beranek got me mentioned in Wizard the first time in an interview he gave. Then at WWLA he gave them the PDF of the book, they liked it and they just gave me another blurb in the Summer preview issue. I'm more & more indebted to that guy every day.
JE: So with to all the media coverage have people in your community started to recognize you or your name? Is that weird for you?
TF: I got a ticket from a cop who recognized me… that was weird. He congratulated me on the comic but I wasn't famous enough to get him to tear up the ticket. There was a kid that I voted for when he was running for city council, he saw the TV piece too. That's kind of a small town thing, everybody knows everybody or knows someone who knows you. I had a clerk at the porno store tell me to say hi to my boss's brother in law this weekend.
JE: You both write and drawn your own projects and that takes up a lot of time and energy. How does your day job flow or interfere with your creativity? Are your friends and family being supportive or do they think this comics thing is a phase?
TF: Like I said, I work full-time, part-time & I do a lot of freelance work so finding time to just work on the comic is tough. It's been a lot of starting & then having to stop for a couple days. My full time job is as a graphic designer for the news, I make the graphic, it goes on TV & then it's gone forever usually… This is going to sound so whiney/pretentious artist of me but sometimes making graphics all day drains me creatively. I come home & I can't look at the drawing board… I'm not tired because I can watch TV until 5am but I just can't bring myself to draw anything. So I'm hoping my next job will be something I can just clock out of & go home to draw, not take anything with me. My friends have been really supportive of the comic. They're throwing a barbeque for the release party, a bunch of them are going out to San Diego with me this summer. The friends who live in other states have been running around trying to get shops to order the book. The Family has done the same thing. They all live in other states too & have been trying to get me orders. Mom could've used less of the 'F' word, so she's embarrassed to show her friends. She's having me mail her a sharpied-up clean version.
JE: Using your experiences so far, what kind of advice do you have for people who have a story and they have the art, but just aren't sure what happens to their comic next?
TF: I can only tell them what worked for me: Make yourself a mini-comic, go to a convention & give it to everyone you talk to. I got a hundred mini-comics for only $40 (with some clever stealing photo-copies from work action). That 8 page book landed me a publisher. I got some pinup work & made some great connections. That's all I got for advice, I'm still learning this shit myself.
JE: Hey, enough about you, what comics are you keeping up with right now?
TF: Yeesh! Tough one. I don't keep track… I read writers mostly: Everything Bendis writes, Vaughan, Brian Wood, Warren Ellis, Millar, Brubaker, Miller (yes, even All Star Batman). I've been reading a lot of Jeffrey Brown lately. According to the last month's worth of diamond shipping list, I read: Seven Soldiers, Invincible, Dracula vs. King Arthur, All New Official Handbook Marvel Universe, Astonishing X-Men, Black Panther, New Avengers, Sentry, Thing, Ultimate Fantastic Four, X-Factor, The Goon, Ex Machina, Manhunter, The Devil's Panties, Captain America, Elk's Run, Daredevil, Nextwave, Desolation Jones, DMZ, Green Arrow, Battle Pope Color, Girls, Ms. Marvel, New X-Men, Ultimate Spider-Man, The Hunger, the Ultimates, Shaolin Cowboy, Strangers In Paradise, All Star Superman, Thing, Middleman, Scott Pilgrim, Mome, Gun Fu, She-Hulk, True Story Swear To God, Insult To Injury, Runaways, Planetary Brigade, Hero Squared, Young Avengers… There's got to be more… I should really keep track, apparently I'm spending a fortune.
JE: Well, that's about all I have for you. It's been cool talking to you and I hope to do it again soon, Tony. I know I can't wait to get In My Lifetime in my hands and plenty of other people expressed interest in it when I posted a link on our message board that one time. So, are you going to any conventions this year? Any chance we can see you around N.C. before you get too big to come here? Mark my words, the name Fleecs is going to be known in the world of comics soon.
TF: The only two I'm definitely going to are San Diego Comicon in July & The Iowa I-Con on June 10th. Everything else is dependent on how much cash I have & how busy I am with the L.A. move. I'm out of questions but I wanted to make sure & thank you Jermaine, for giving me this spotlight & for ordering the book & everything else. You're the kind of retailer that other folks should look to & see how it's done. Your love & enthusiasm for comics shows in almost everything you do… And I've only talked to you on the internet; hope I get a chance to meet you in person sometime soon.
In My Lifetime is for mature readers and ships in June of 2006. Acme proudly supports Tony Fleecs and he's welcome to visit us anytime (hint-hint). Want to know more? Talk to Tony at his Silent Devil message board, check out a video piece on Tony here and listen to his podcast interview at Wordballon.com.
