| He appears to be a mild-mannered young man.
Polite and soft-spoken, he timidly orders a hot chocolate at the local coffee shop. It’s his day off, but the raging beast that dwells within his unassuming frame offers him no reprieve – an alter ego that drives him towards exhaustion, madness and little gratitude.
The restless spirit of… an incredible dork.
For Damian Willcox, sleep is at a premium, as he balances his day job as a draftsman with his part-time gig as writer and artist on Dorkboy, an independent comic he created 11 years ago.
Last July, he released Dorkboy: Tales of Mirth and Despair, a compilation of his work. Besides the titular hero, the comic features characters both bland and bizarre – Workin’ Jones, a nine-to-five stiff; Scooterboy, a simplistic stick figure; and Skully, a luckless Grim Reaper-in-training.
While the Medicine Hat native doesn’t aspire to become the next Stan Lee or Todd McFarlane, he still finds himself passionate about a career he originally gave little consideration. "I never thought of doing comics," says Willcox. "But once I got started, I got hooked. People liked it. I like it."
The idea for Dorkboy came when Willcox was enrolled in the engineering design and drafting technology program at SAIT. A friend was publishing a magazine, and frantically needed a one-page filler just 10 minutes before going to press. That’s when Willcox stepped in and Dorkboy was born.
"I’d never done a comic really, and didn’t know what I was doing," he says. "One of my friends was calling me that (Dorkboy) while I was in college, so the name came out of that. It seemed like a good title."
From there, the filler evolved into the first issue of Dorkboy, a character Willcox describes as "just a guy" who "usually doesn’t save the day." The comic, set in the genre of "humour-adventure," was well received and Willcox was on his way, albeit on a part-time basis.
"I didn’t really think I wanted to do art as a job because I thought it would take all the fun out of it, and that’s still an issue I kind of wrestle with," he says.
As a byproduct of publishing Dorkboy, Willcox became interested in other independent comics and discovered he could relate to their creators far more than he could relate to those at giants Marvel and DC. He found more freedom, individuality and a "personal touch" in the smaller comics.
The 31-year-old artist attributes their absence to the constrictive business mentality of large publishers. While reluctant to call mainstream comics formulaic, Willcox believes there is a "certain style" inhibiting creative growth.
"Everyone’s basically drawing someone else’s creation, but they’re not creating their own thing and going with that," he says.
Despite the artistic freedom, he admits the mainstream publishers have the edge when it comes to distribution. With the comics industry being monopolized by Diamond Distributors, Willcox found it "very difficult to get in with them" due to tough sales minimums. He notes Diamond currently gives new comics three to five issues to reach $2,500 US in international sales or "you’re dropped."
Instead, he opted to pay $2,000 to publish Dorkboy through a local printing company and pulls in money by selling merchandise at comic conventions. To further escape the clutches of Diamond, Willcox is also publishing his comics on his website, www.dorkboycomics.com.
"People will check out a web comic even though they’ve never been into a comic store," he says. "At this point, I’ve just recently decided to start doing my comics online, basically exclusively. When I feel like printing something, I’ll just pull together my favourite stuff and put out a book."
Although Dorkboy doesn’t share the same exposure as, say, Spider-Man, that doesn’t mean Willcox’s creation has gone completely unnoticed. Dorkboy recently drew the attention of a production company in San Diego that approached him about doing a live-action TV series based on the comic. The artist balked at the idea and instead asked that it be pitched as an animated program. Willcox found the networks’ suggestions less than innovative.
"The thing that kind of made it fall apart was all the networks wanted adult characters and something like Family Guy – basically everything that’s already out there," he says.
In spite of the limited publicity, distribution woes and unoriginal network pitches, Willcox still loves what he does, and offers this simple advice to those interested in self-publishing – just start.
The artist says he’s run into so many people with big ideas who don’t follow through, or believe they’ve got to have a million pages for the first issue. "The most important thing is to get that first comic done," he says.
"Make a short little comic, photocopy it, give it to friends, get some feedback, see if they enjoy it. Once you’ve done that, then you’ll have a really good feel for what lies ahead." |
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