UP & COMING: TOM WILLIAMS

[MattBrady]

by Chris Arrant

While some of us may be delighted by the biggest and the most popular in the world of comics, we all realize that for every popular book, writer or artist there has to be a beginning. While there are many ways to success with each story finding its own route, there is one attribute that can be found in each one: talent. Up & Coming is a regular feature at Newsarama.com that seeks out the next generation of high-profile comic creators and profiles them today.

I admit that I've only been aware of Tom Williams' work for a short time. He's had work in several anthologies and did a book for Oni Press in 2004 called No Dead Time, yet I missed out. It was through his involvement with the webcomics collective The Chemistry Set that I first noticed his work. (For full disclosure, I am also a member of The Chemistry Set).

In trying to come up with familiar landmarks to describe his work to others (which I have), I'd have to call out the names Ben Templesmith and Eddie Campbell. Not in a copycatting way, just in the loose attention to line and the worn-in color schemes used by both. His illustrations and palette speak to the uniqueness of everyday life. If you've dabbled in the minicomics scene, you've probably seen his work with Open Crash Comics or Misa, and Potlach #5 which he illustrated is up for the annual S.P.A.C.E. Day Prize.

Newsarama: You graduated from the Columbus College of Art & Design in 1997. What did you major in, and can you tell us where and how your college time affected the way your comics turned out to be?

Tom Williams: I majored in illustration which became Visual Communications by the time I got out of there. It gave me the time to work and grow as an artist. Exposed me to a lot of stuff I never would have seen growing up in rural Ohio. Even though I was exposed to a lot of different mediums, in the end it came back to comics.

NRAMA: Your comics have a unique look; what do you use to make them?

TW: It's a combination of brush, ink, some Photoshop collage, and Painter. Which I've been using more and more in coloring. I work large because I'm pretty heavy handed with my marks. Page sizes for Stuck are 14 by 21inches.

NRAMA: You've said your first big breakthrough in comics was on a comic called Hades Indecision. Can you tell us about that, and what was it that made it such an experience for you?

TW:Storytelling wise, a lot of things came together. So far it's one of the best things I've done with those characters. I was still figuring things out.

NRAMA: Is Hades Indecision still available for people to read?

TW: I let it go out of print. Mainly because the art looks so rough and I really want to revisit the characters. It really felt weird carrying stuff from my whole mini output on my table. Time to move on, y'know.

NRAMA: Back in 2004, your first professional book came out: No Dead Time with writer Brian McLachlan from Oni Press. How did that come to be, and looking back on it 3 years since, what's your vantage point on the book as a whole?

TW: James at Oni Press found me on the Comic Book Idol competition in the play-at-home thread. A couple months later I got the No Dead Time script in my inbox. God bless the internets. It did pretty well with little fanfare. I learned a lot in the process of putting it together. Cranking out 136 pages in about 5 months. Because of the small format it made me really economize my drawing. Not a lot of noodling which I think muddied up my stuff in the past. It gave me a lot of exposure on the backend as well. Recently, a big thrill was getting a new Spanish edition, Mira Mas Alla, in the mail. Getting something I worked on translated in another language is a real honor and a first for me. Brian's a great cartoonist in his own right. The book was an expansion of his strips. Funny guy.

NRAMA: The newest thing on the horizon for you has been the webcomic Stuck with writer Vito Delsante at www.chemsetcomics.com. (For full disclosure, I am also a creator at chemsetcomics.com). What was it about Vito's story that sold you on doing it, and doing it online for free?

TW: The story was timely and I haven't worked on a thriller yet so it was enticing. The format is interesting as it weaves in and out of the thriller plotline. So it enables us to tell a wide range of different stories. Webcomics have a wide open reader base. A billion times more than the flagging DM market which has been growingly hostile to the indie press.. to put it bluntly. So building an audience for it becomes so much easier and little overhead.

Online readers are more open to different content.

NRAMA: What are you working at today in comics?

TW: I'm working on a couple of my own webcomics- SPB:Rise! and something called Guston. I'm sending out mailers to some publishers for some license work. Some anthology work. A possible OGN project in the wings. I'm thinking about collecting my anthology output into one mini/ zine thing. I keep busy.

NRAMA: In the late nineties you did a series of minis called Crash Comics. Can you tell us about that, and what was in it?

TW:It started out as a collection of different stories. It served as a way to get my work out there. Both of the main storylines (Cyclops Cowboy and S.P.B.) I'm revisiting them as webcomics. They both hold a real soft spot for me. I'd like to see them in some form of mass printing and distribution. At the time I was working on them, I was really in love with THB, Bone, and Eightball. I was figuring out some stuff artistically and storywise. The only reason I put them on hold was some hesitation story wise. I'm trying out some scripting which is a different process than what I was doing before. Which was making it up as I went along. Fun but the output wasn't coming out the way I wanted.

NRAMA: What do you currently do for a living?

TW: My day job is working in an on-site printshop for a major retail chain. There's some pre-flight stuff but mostly it's running machines. Pretty low key atmosphere. I also do some non-comics related freelance as well. Illustration and some graphic design. Lately I've been working on the graphics for the local S.P.A.C.E. convention.

NRAMA: What prompted you to seriously look at comics and start creating your own?

TW: Comics have been a life-time obsession for me. I think I've always been serious about it. Just when my faith wanes on the medium, something like Kramer's Ergot comes out and reinvigorates me. Going to art school, there was some push in me to go the fine arts route. There was that whole disposable collector's attitude in the nineties that brought me down. Then I started checking out the local comic shops.

Again there was that exposure to stuff I had never seen before. The comic books tore Laughing Ogre was great in that it had an indie wall that was as big as it's mainstream wall. It opened my eyes to the medium as a whole and made me fall in love with the medium all over again.

NRAMA: What would you say are your artistic influences for comics?

TW: It's a wide range of different artists and creators. Lately I've been really turned on by the 'low brow' scene and the artists on gigposters.com. Jeff Soto, Tara McPherson, Jay Ryan, David Choe, etc. On the comics end it's all over the map: Kirby, Toth, Kubert, Clowes, Kent Williams, Baru, Gipi, Tardi, Moebius, Dave McKean, Jordi Bernet, Guy Davis, Mazzucchelli, Kyle Baker, Tim Sale, Mignola, Bill Waterson . When it comes out I really enjoy Paul Pope, James Jean, Anders Nilsen, and Kevin Huizenga.

NRAMA: Ultimately, what kind of work would you like to do in comics?

TW: I like to do a wide range of stuff. It's what I love about comics is that they're so wide open. I have no reservations about doing license work if I get it. Graphic novels are the way things are going which doesn't bother me.

Ultimately, the big thrill of it all is doing the work for me. Getting my stuff out there- whether it be in print or on the web. Entertaining people and following my id.

For more information on Tom Williams work, visit his website at opencrashcomics.com.

[Kolimar]

Nice quirky style. "Enron the Barbarian" heheheh

[Ragelion]

VERY cool Tom!

[Fletcher]

I like the art and the style. It's refreshing to see someone that does not want to be another Mcfarlane copycat or a Turner copycat, some one who's doing his own thing. I wish there were more of it around.