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One of the hardest choices to make as a creator is whether to go it alone, completely independent, or try to get a job in the mainstream. Usually it's growing up reading mainstream that makes many of us want to be comic artists, and in some ways - if you are lucky enough... 1/?
...that's the safest. I know that I've found the last few years some of the best while I've been on a regular title like WW or GL. You get the character and brand recognition, and sales that lend at least a sense of security in the short term. If you go the independent... 2/?
...route it's much tough - assuming you can find a publisher willing to support the project. That's not even as easy as it may seem when you are apparently well established! There are also the new crowd-funding options, which are currently revolutionizing so many things... 3/?
...So imagine what it must have been like in the early 70's? No Image, no Kickstarter, just a few mail on demand indie pioneers like Budd Plant. Old-school print, and files, photographic films of the art... all much more mechanical, and laborious. Checks paid through the... 4/?
...post! The risks - especially if you have family - are astounding! And that, to come to my point, is just one of the reasons that Jack Katz's work on the First Kingdom is so staggering! And then factor in that he did it for YEARS, producing over 1000 pages of incredibly... 5/?
...detailed art, and a story spanning generations! It's mythic, and visionary is not too big of a word! I only discovered his art in the early 2000s, and I thought it was criminal then that I had not heard of him. That he turned out to be a local was almost as if fate... 6/?
...had a hand to play. I wrote the afterword for the vast Titan Books collection of The First Kingdom in 2013, and we became friends about three years ago. Jack has made me the custodian of his life's work - an honour I did not ask for for, but honour non-the-less - and... 7/?
...it's really that that led to The Unseen Jack Katz book. As we grew closer, and he presented more and more astonishing work to me I couldn't believe how much there was that had never been published, let alone seen! It was a treasure trove! So I suggested the idea to him... 8/?
...and here we are! Jack deserves to be more than a footnote and a curio. The risks he took - the nerve he showed! - are profoundly inspiring. It's so single-minded. He tells me he had no choice, he simply had to tell the stories - was compelled to, come hell or high water! 9/?
It makes the rest of us look like pretenders. This is true vision, true drive, and utterly uncompromising. He broke the rules, made no considerations for taste or sensibilities. He simply did what he felt he must, critics and even sales be damned! If only I were so brave! 10/?
In closing I want to ask you to spread a little love Jack's way by backing The Unseen Jack Katz campaign. He deserves VASTLY more recognition for his monumental efforts, and now is the time while he's still with us, still kicking ass at 93! http://kck.st/2YvRMnV
