The theme for this discussion was "Working Alone", as each writer/artist works independently, without a "studio" of folks to help. They are truly independent, and independently motivated.
Rob Horan is the publisher of Sirrus comics. Linsner writes and draws the comic "Cry for Dawn" and Hayes writes and draws the comic "Poison Elves"
Both Joe and Drew were extremely soft spoken. Both Joe and Drew appear to be in their early 20's, and offered only brief glimpses into themselves.
Rob says he markets the comics, but gives almost all editorial control to the artists. And to get additional marketing deals for merchandising, etc. Rob told of one unacceptable product that he had recalled, and he destroyed the whole lot. Rob said he was concerned with high quality. Joe and Drew produce high quality, and they deserve quality in their associated products (action figures, etc.)
Joe was a tee shirt artist, and was discovered by Rob. Rob convinced him to try to draw a comic book, which Joe called Cry for Dawn. Joe drew "I Love New York" tee shirts. When Joe got his job drawing on Tee shirts he thought, "All right - I'm an artist, a professional artist!" Joe said he was always drawing when he was growing up on Long Island, New York, and he guesses, he just fell into being an artist.
Joe tells the story of people bringing their portfolio work for advice to Neal Adams, at some convention.
Neal was picking apart many people's work and telling them how bad it was, and how he would have them do it. Joe said while others were hanging on Neal's every word as gospel, he would have been laughing at Neal's advice. Joe felt thought he already knew what was good art and what wasn't, and didn't need Neal Adams to tell him. While he made the rounds with his portfolio, Joe got a lot of bad advice.
Joe's biggest advice in getting into comics is to take everybody's opinion with a grain of salt, then do what your work with your own judgement.
Joe says he tries to work nine to five. But sometimes he gets up at 2:00 AM, work like mad for 18 hours straight.
Drew was creating Poison Elves as a self-published comic, and was having difficulty the finances, until Rob came along. Poison Elves was becoming successful, and each issue was getting more and more expensive to produce. With each issue published the order for the next issue double. So all the funds he made on one issue went into publishing the next issue (every other month). So to try to pay for an order of 7000 new issues from 3000 previous issues and orders for back issues, Drew was going broke being successful - he needed financial backing. Fortunately for Drew, Rob came along before he was too successful and too financially pressed. At first Drew was working at a full time regular job, but would be too tired at the end of the day to create a worthwhile comic, that eventually he had to devote full time to his book.
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