TSC CREATOR INTERVIEW: Grim Wilkins

I first came across Grim’s incredible, singular work in the Prophet series from Image, and was blown away by the amount of thought and vision obviously and beautifully packed into each panel of his pages. I was stoked to be able to have him do the cover for TSC #2 (above), and as with the cover for TSC #1, his image was not only amazing, but helped me get my head around what this project was all about: in this case, the towering sci-fi cityscape in the background and the person at work in the old timey streets in the fore spoke to the intersection of normal folks going about their normal lives and the ever-evolving, ever-getting-more-strange conditions imposed by the world at large when it comes to technology, economics, etc.

Matt: What got you into comics as reader/fan?

Grim: Initially I think it was just the huge comic boom of the early 90's. I would buy comics here and there and read Wizard Magazine through my early teens, but when I was in high school I took the deep dive and started reading things regularly. I even ran the local comic store until my boss' coke habit ran us out of business.

Matt: What got you into comics as creator?

Grim: Way back during the aforementioned comics boom, my friend and I would try to draw our own comics and get maybe two pages in before realizing that drawing comics is impossible. As time went on I kept drawing because I enjoyed it, and eventually thought that maybe I could draw comics. 

Matt: Who do you consider to be your influences, and are there any artists you consider to be an influence that might not be apparent from your style?

Grim: I think I have two sides of influence: artists whose aesthetic I wanted to emulate; and artists whose work represented the work I wanted to make, regardless of how it looked.

The first comic art I really remember wanting to draw like was Alan Davis' work on eXcalibur with Mark Farmer. It had an elegance that's missing from a lot of comic art and I could see it from a very young age. Other artists that have influenced my work over the years are Sergio Toppi, JH Williams III, Taiyo Matsumoto, and Hayao Miyazaki.

Artists whose work influenced me in a more symbolic way are Bill Sienkewicz, David Mack, and Kent Williams. They showed me that comics could be so much more than lines and colors.

Matt: Are there any influences on your work from outside of comics?

Grim: I actually think most of my artistic influence comes from outside comics. Creators like Syd Mead and Wayne Barlowe, whose work doesn't just show you how good they are at painting, (they're both VERY good at painting,) but is full of intelligent hypotheses.

I also look at a fair amount of landscape painters for inspiration; artists like John Martin, Oga Kazuo, and Albert Bierstadt.

Matt: Aside from communicating the narrative, do you have other artistic goals in mind when you sit down to create a story? Anything you're trying to pull off, artistically speaking... a certain way you want to stylistically approach a certain aspect of things, etc.?

Grim: I am certainly guilty of making comics which push the boundaries of panels and page layouts. However, I have never thought of it as testing the reader -- rather, I want my comics to be as fun to read as possible, without making things so confusing that people can't tell what is happening on the page. I want people to read my comics and feel like they just read something unlike anything they have ever read before -- in a positive way.

Matt: Are there ways in which you hope to push your art in the future, or just things you hope to try at some point?

Grim: I'm actually really looking forward to seeing what I can do with type and word balloons in the near future. Drawing words as visual elements in comics is great and I haven't done nearly enough of it.

Matt: Is there an aspect of your ThoughtScape cover that you especially enjoyed or are especially happy with how it came out?

Grim: That was one of my first big attempts to minimize the number of colors in a picture while pushing the color contrast into an *almost* unbelievable range, and I think it actually worked.

Matt: What do you do when you're not making comics?

Grim: The last few years I've been doing a ton of gardening with my partner lady, Jenna. We have a decent sized yard and we've spent a substantial amount of time filling it with climate-adapted plants.

I have also been building guitar effects pedals these last couple years. I'm not a touring musician or anything, so I treat them like art pieces as much as music tools.

Matt: What are you working on currently / what's coming up for you?

Grim: I'm currently working on a sci-fi comic with writer Seth Jacob, and with any luck I will be Kickstarting the next volume of my comic MIRENDA this summer.

Matt: It feels like these are extra strange times in art, comics, publishing, etc. In light of that, what does a successful career in comics look like to you currently?

Honestly, creating an entire comic or two while also paying your bills sounds like a successful comics career to me.

Matt: Last great comic you read?

Grim: I really liked the first issue of BEHOLD, BEHEMOTH!

Matt: Where can folks find and follow your work?

Grim: I can be found at www.hellogrim.com and on Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr as @grimwilkins.