Bill Nichols’ Prescription:
Comics 10ccs of the Process with
Ryan Sook

What inspires you to create and keeps you going?
Life inspires me in creating art. Life in all its experiences from eating to relationships to movies or other art. There is so much generative information coming in each day that creating becomes an outlet to either capture some existing beauty or idea or to express my imagination based on some stimulus. Probably that and needing to pay the bills keep me producing. 😉

Do you have a set routine?
It’s highly variable at this point because I have young kids who are homeschooled and I work from home so there is always something going on that can tug at my attention. But I tend to get up early, read a bit, get some exercise, and get to work fairly early. I try to tackle whatever is the most pressing schedule-wise and just step in where yesterday left off. I draw until mid-day and grab a break for a bite. Work until dinner with the family. Hang out for the evening and then spend a few more hours into the night once everyone’s gone to bed. That’s probably the best I could describe routine for me.

What kind of output do you try to achieve?
I can’t base my output on anything but satisfied with what I need to accomplish at any given time. In other words, producing a page a day as is the old standby would be great, but it seldom happens for me as a regular sort of output. I had to learn the hard way that I don’t meet that threshold as an artist. Thankfully I try to work and manage my abilities with editors etc. to create a schedule that allows me to focus more on an output of quality than quantity. That’s the goal anyway. I can spend a week on a cover. I’ve done eight or nine pages in a week. I’ve also done two pages in a week. That’s just the truth of it. I desire to produce more but have become more interested in producing something that satisfies me creatively more than commercially or financially. Though the latter wouldn’t hurt! 🙂


What inspires you WHEN you create? Music? Noise? Silence?
I almost always have something going as background noise. Audiobooks, serial tv, movies (the same I’ve seen a hundred times), music. They don’t usually inspire me but rather tend to keep me awake and or provide enough stimulus in the background to keep me from being distracted away from the drawing table.


Who was the first comic book creator that influenced you to pursue this?
I honestly can’t nail it down. When I was young I ate up anything and everything I deemed good artistically. I followed art more than story or even the namesake artists although, that came along pretty quickly once I recognized my likes. But in my teens when I decided to really press into the craft as a career, it was probably Mignola, Adam Hughes, Kevin Nowlan, and all of my heroes from my youthful comic days, the Studio artists, Frazetta, Moebius… Even Neal Adams and Frank Miller, the list goes on.

When did you realize you could follow this path yourself?
My dad is an artist, graphic designer, and an art director, so I knew there was a way to make a living drawing from a very early age. When I decided in my teens that a career path was a necessity, I pressed full bore into the craft of comics and studied, practiced, and chased every lead I could. It never occurred to me that I could NOT do this.

What do you find to be a challenge in creating?
Everything is a challenge. Drawing. What to draw. How to tell a story. All of it is a challenge, that’s the joy of the thing. Solving a problem, either consciously or subconsciously, to produce effective work. Creating anything itself is a challenge.

What else do you have to learn?
Too much to write out here, that’s for sure.

What keeps you motivated to get better?
Yesterday’s drawing.

Can you turn your brain (creativity) off (and on)?
I don’t know. When I was playing music, every sound became source material. When I was skateboarding, every surface was an opportunity to perform a trick. In drawing comics, everything around can stimulate towards producing pictures. I don’t know if, once you enter into exercising your mind to observe, absorb, and imagine… if you can ever really turn that off. I think rather, you give focus to that mindset. I certainly am not looking for an off-switch.

 

Booster Shots

What advice do you have for aspiring creators?
Observe. Follow what you like and endeavor to understand WHY you like it. Then practice those things that you like. Be willing to learn form others and from yourself. And like anything in life, if you truly want to do something, get busy about doing it. Very shortly you’ll find that you are what you aspired to be.

Do you ever worry about running out of ideas?
No.

How do you handle the slow times?
I haven’t had any since I started working. In my experience, if you want to be working, you can be. It’s a matter of what you’re willing to do and for what. There have been jobs that were less commercial or financially successful than others. But those jobs usually afford a chance to grow and expand your skill set which can transition into whatever comes next. I just work. I actually wish I could keep up!

How do you feel about the industry?
I’m not sure how to answer this. There are things I like. There are things I don’t. By its nature an industry is bound to change, wax and wane. I tend not to pay too much attention to the “industry” and focus more on what I’m working on presently. To my way of thinking, if you are a PART of an industry, doing YOUR PART as good as you can is to the health of the thing as a whole.

Do you have a website you would like to promote?
Not a personal one at this time. But I will recommend FelixComicArt.com to anyone who enjoys original comic art as a collector or just a fan. I have some things there to look at but there are galleries of art from many of today’s very best creators.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed by the above creator are theirs. This interview may not be reprinted or reposted without permission.