Meet Jack Foster | Comic Book Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jack Foster and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jack, do you have some perspective or insight you can share with us on the question of when someone should give up versus when they should keep going?
Nearly everyone who reads comics wants to make comics, like 90%. Maybe this is true of movies and music too, but I think comics has a slightly smaller reach but definitely a stronger grasp on its readership. And even though those Marvel movies bring in billions, comics in its native form, print and digital publishing by writers and artists, is a cash strapped industry. the margins are really tough. There are boom and bust years but overall, even successful books, books that go on to be quite beloved properties in other more lucrative media, in our field even a successful book is out there struggling for its life. This makes it tough for everyone in the ecosystem, publishers would like to pay something closer to a living wage, retailers would like to push more books and take more risks, and so on down the chain till you get to the end where most of the creatives live and the reality is it’s a real luxury to be able to work for small pay and no benefits and zero security. This rules out a lot of people with families or without some sort of safety net. I’ve been making my comic now for about 15 years and the really staggering thing is the amount of attrition in this industry. And you have to factor in, this is a niche field filled with true believers. Comics are so labor intensive it’s just too much work to make them if you aren’t deeply committed to the medium and it’s really depressing to see people with that much passion come to the point where they say ‘I just don’t have this in me anymore’. I joke with some of my creator friends that I quit comics once or twice a day, it can be quite tough, you have to be a self starter, you have to constantly be your own cheerleader, over time you can definitely run out of juice and I, like a lot of people wonder, how do you know when to say when? I got some good advice early on when a project of mine hit a wall. You’re not going to hit every ball out of the park, but the important thing is to keep swinging. I think if you can keep creating opportunities that keep you showing up and trying and putting your work out there, you can’t tell the thing that will connect, what opportunities that will open up for you. To follow up with that metaphor, you don’t win a game with grand slams, you go one base at a time. Sometimes you get lucky, but mostly you keep trying, keep showing up.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m a comic book artist, old school, I paint in glorious, time-consuming watercolor. A lot of artists in my industry made the switch to digital and there is truly amazing stuff to be done without the constraints of working analog, but for me, the books that really changed my eye, the comics that made me want to make comics, were from that era when fine art techniques and approaches were making their way into comics. It really broadened what the medium could be and upped the ante on the visual half of visual storytelling. When I was just starting out I was decent enough with a pencil & pen and as I developed as a painter I didn’t want to just ‘color in’ the drawings I was making, I wanted to paint them with the techniques and tradition of watercolor, I wanted to be a watercolorist who then painted his own drawings, if that makes sense. I was in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art recently and they have that great 20th century floor, but I was really struck by how few watercolors make it up on the wall there. It just doesn’t seem to have the prestige of oils, which is ludicrous because when you look at truly amazing watercolor work, it’s not like oil when if you’re not happy with something you can just cover it up with another layer, watercolor is transparent, you get maybe one shot, it takes real mastery and confidence. Your fav Dutch master couldn’t, seriously. Also it’s a real collaboration, it’s this interplay between the water and the pigment and the paper; it’s spontaneous. I really became a better watercolorist when I learned to take a backseat and let the medium do what it was best at. Anyway, it’s a lot of work but it’s a real joy to bring that into the medium of comics that I love so much.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.

I mean, I’m a comics guy, so I’m taking them comic shopping and we have some world class comic shops here in LA. Of course there’s House of Secrets and Golden Apple, my home shop is Pulp Fiction in Culver City, an amazing store with an unbelievably cool staff. Revenge of Comics and Pinball in Glassell Park is truly next level, in the summer they spill out into the parking lot and do these Lotzilla events, they’re really a fun time. If I wanted to flex and really dazzle whoever was visiting I’d take them down to Stuart Ng Gallery, that store is incredible, it focuses artists works and special and rare editions, not just comics but in the fields of animation and illustration as well. They keep everything in these clear sleeves like they do for library books, it’s a collector’s dream.

LA has this rep for California Cuisine, I think people think of, like, health food and bowls of quinoa and salmon but the absolute truth of this city is its love for red meat. This is a burger town. The are so many hamburger stands, every name you can think of, Tony’s, Tommy’s, Jack’s, Bill’s, Irv’s the list goes on and we haven’t even gotten to In & Out. My fav if you want a burger and a flat cut chili dog is Tommy’s in Manhattan Beach. You’ve seen the soda fountains with Horchata but these guys have 2 additonal flavors, they use the dairy base from the horchata fountain and mix it with orange syrup, it’s called Orange Bang and it tastes like an Orange Julius, it’s right across from the Comic Bug, I couldn’t imagine a more perfect lazy sunday

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to shout out LA! I lived a couple other places, not just smaller towns, but even in bigger cities I felt like the model for me early on, someone who had a day job to keep the lights on but did creative work that I was passionate about in the rest of my time, I felt like the odd man out in a lot of ways. When I got to LA, for one thing there’s just such a vibrant and visible creative class and there are so many people who have an A life and a B life (and a C life and a D life) it gives you a sense of community and shared purpose and most of all it normalizes this adventure you’re on, makes it seem like less of a pipe dream and more like a journey. This town is amazing!

Website: GUNcomic.com

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Twitter: @theVillainist

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Other: BlueSky: JackFoster