Frequently Asked Questions

When did you start reading comics?

I got my start making comics as a little kid, by selling drawings of Garfield in third grade. After getting in trouble for it (the school and parents didn’t like that kids were giving me their lunch money for the art) my mom told me about copyrights, and so I created my own comic book characters and started selling photocopies of them.

After graduating from high school, I went to School of Visual Arts in NYC for graphic design, but while I was there I started self-publishing comics with a friend, Dave Roman, starting a fantasy series called Jax Epoch. Graduating from art school with a portfolio that was mostly comic book-related design work soon led to a job doing design and production on comics for Disney Adventures Magazine. I worked for Disney for about ten years, and made connections with other people in children’s publishing, like my current editor Calista Brill (who had been at Disney before First Second Books started up.)

When the Disney work ended, I did freelance book design for publishers First Second and Scholastic, so when I had an idea for my first kids book, Hippopotamister, I already had a way in to pitch it to people. But it all began back when I was a kid reading Garfield in the newspaper!

What’s your advice for kids who want to make comics?

The most important piece of advice is the most obvious one: make comics. If you want to make comics, make comics! There’s nothing stopping you. There is really no technological, educational, or financial barrier the way there is with something like making a movie or making a video game. All you need are some pencils and paper.

That said, you can’t just make comics if you want to make a career out of making comics. You also need people to see them. This is something that’s really easy these days. There are plenty of websites where you can post comics, and plenty of other sites that you can use to spread the word about your comics.

But I also think it’s important that if you want to make comics as a career, you spend a little time figuring out what kind of career you want. Do you want to be a commercial artist, writing or drawing comics of Batman or Spider-Man for DC or Marvel? Or do you want to do your own full-length story for a traditional book publisher? Or do you want to do gag strips online that you’ll collect into a book after a year? There’s nothing that says you can’t do all of these or switch what you want to do later down the line, but being a professional artist can also mean making a plan for yourself.

But again, what it comes down to is:
1) make comics, and
2) show them to people.

How do you make your comics?

I love puns and wordplay, so I usually start out with a big-picture idea – like Hippopotamister (how can he be a hippopotamus and a Mr. at the same time?) or InvestiGators (what happens when you combine alligators and investigators?).

After figuring out how the story can unfold from my first concept, I write an outline, then a script. I work traditionally, meaning that I draw my comics with pencils and pens on paper. I use Strathmore Smooth Bristol paper with Staedtler Mars Lumograph H pencils, and ink with Sakura Pigma Micron and Staedler Pigment Liner pens. I work with a colorist on the colors, which are applied digitally in Photoshop.

What are your favorite comics?

I have been a comics fan my whole life. I was always an artist, constantly drawing as a kid. I was a very sick child and spent a lot of time indoors. Drawing was an activity I could do that wouldn’t cause an asthma attack or expose me to allergens. My gateway into comics were the funny pages, specifically Garfield. This was shortly before Calvin and Hobbes debuted, and that strip didn’t appear in my local paper for at least a couple years after it started.

But the Garfield strips and TV specials were what got me into drawing comics, and using that 3-4 panel format to tells gags and stories. My brother, who is two years older than me, brought the first actual comic books into the house (my dad’s comic books having long been thrown out by his mom). I forget what comics he’d bring home, but I remember not being totally into them until I tagged along to the neighborhood convenience store, which had a spinner rack.

It wasn’t the first comic book I read, but I vividly remember the first one I bought with my own money being Marvel’s The Gargoyle #2 (in a Four-Issue Limited Series.) The cover and interior art was like no other comic I’d seen before. Soon my brother and I found an actual comic shop in our area, called The Incredible Pulp (now long-closed), and it was there that I’d get hooked on superhero comics (almost exclusively Marvel, aside from some more prominent DC fare like Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen) like X-Men and Daredevil and indie books like Nexus, Badge, Usagi Yojimbo, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And while I never really read Spider-Man much, one of my all-time favorites was the parody version, Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham.

Today, what I’m reading includes Dave Roman’s Astronaut Academy, Matt Loux’s Prunella and the Skull Ring, Abby Denson and Utomaru’s Kitty Sweet Tooth series, Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter’s Allergic, the Barb the Berzerker books by Dan and Jason, Dave Scheidt and Miranda Harmon’s Mayor Good Boy series, and Mimi and the Cutie Catastrophie by Shauna J. Grant. I also enjoy the Science Comics and History Comics series, which have lots of neat stories by many cool authors and artists.

How can I get copies of your books?

Check with your local bookstore or library – or you can find links to buy online on my BOOKS page. You can order a signed copy through my local bookstore Books Are Magic. To order, just add a book to your cart. When checking out, in the "notes" field, indicate that you would like a signed copy and who you would like the book personalized to. Personalized books are available through Books of Wonder as well!

Will you come to my local school, library, or bookstore?

You can see where I’m going to be traveling on my EVENTS page. My CONTACT page has information about requesting a future appearance..

How can I send you mail or art?

Check out my CONTACT page for mailing information. Unfortunately, I can’t always respond to every letter or piece of fan art. Please don’t include your phone number or home address, and use a parent’s email address to send.

Will there be an InvestiGators movie?

Right now, I’m very busy making comics. You can check out the InvestiGators animated shorts on my YouTube page.

Are you available for commissions?

Making art for the InvestiGators books takes up so much time that I’m not able to do commissions.

Do Mango and Brash come in plush form?

They do! The wonderful folks at MerryMakers have created a reversible InvestiGators plus. You can check it out here.

Can Mango and Brash come to my school / festival / birthday party?

Yes! If you're interested in the Mango and Brash costumes, you can email Rachel Coon at RCoon@cospec.com for information.

Can I read InvestiGators in other languages?

The InvestiGators series has been translated into Albanian, Catalan, Dutch, French Canadian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Polis, Simplified Chinese, and Spanish, in editions that have been published in those countries. If you're interested in acquiring copies, check in with your bookstore about making a special order!