Interview with Landry Walker & Eric Jones - Part 1!

I'm very excited today to post the kids' interview with the creators of Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, Landry Walker and Eric Jones. 

As we've wrote before on this blog, Super Reader is a HUGE fan of this series and it was her gateway into the world of comics. The Comic Wizard kind of likes it too... but he prefers their work on the first Batman: The Brave and the Bold series.

SUPER READER: Do you think Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures will ever be published?
 

LANDRY WALKER: I hope so. I think it’s possible, given the tremendous amount of support people have been showing. The thing is to keep letting DC know you want to see it. Write letters, email them, ask at conventions.

ERIC JONES: I hope so too. All we can do is hope that people keep telling DC they want to see it -- if there's enough interest, DC will want to make it happen.

SR: If it does get published, what is coming up for Supergirl in the 9th Grade?
 
LANDRY: Tragedy and triumph. Adventures in the 30th Century. Magic words. More Streaky. New friends and new enemies. The complete destruction of absolutely everything. There is so much story to tell between 8th grade and high school graduation… it’s impossible to sum up in short form.

ERIC: We have a lot of really cool ideas, some of which we've had since we were working on the original series -- there are even some little clues in there. We definitely have big plans for Supergirl if we get to explore them.

SR: Where do you work?

LANDRY: At home, usually. I have an office area in my house filled with comic books and toys.

ERIC: Me too. Every once in a while one of us winds up at the other guy's house, but it's mostly just sitting by myself, surrounded by toys. Occasionally I need to take a drawing break, and then it's Action Figure Time!

SR: How did you get started?

LANDRY: That’s a long-ish story. Eric and I have been friends since High School. He was already drawing comics pages and I wanted to go to college and study psychology. I ended up writing comics instead. 

ERIC: Sucker! Landry could have been a world-famous psychologist now, if it weren't for me.

SR: What's a typical workday for you?

LANDRY: I wake up, make breakfast. Check the news. Check email. Play with the cats. Put off writing for as long as I can. Eventually, I manage to sit down and do some real work. Often I do my writing late at night. 

ERIC: I usually go through a similar morning routine, then I start drawing -- drawing takes a long time, so I usually work at my drafting table for 8 or 10 hours, listen to a lot of podcasts or audiobooks, and occasionally take a break for Action Figure Time! Or sometimes I need to eat or something, I guess. Anyway, then I usually watch bad TV for an hour or two, and collapse into bed.

SR: What's the best part of your job?

LANDRY: Keeping my own hours. If I want to work at midnight I work at midnight. 

ERIC: I think it's the fact that I get to be creative all day, and that I don't have to leave my house in order to go to work.

SR: Is your job ever hard? If so, why?

LANDRY: It’s great fun, but it can be very hard. It can be intimidating looking at a blank page and knowing that you have to fill it up with nothing other than your own ideas, and then hand it over to people to judge. It’s also physically exhausting. 

ERIC: A lot of people seem to think we have the easiest jobs in the world, but the truth is, comics can be hard work. Even though we don't have to go to an office or whatever, we have to be very disciplined, and make sure our work gets done on time. A lot of people count on us to do what we do, since without the writer and the artist, there's no comic book. There can be a lot of pressure, and it can all be very tiring. On the other hand, I get to do what I've always loved -- drawing -- and I get paid to do it. Plus I get the satisfaction of seeing what I made at the end of the day. I'd never change any of it.

SR: Have you ever learned a lesson from your job? If so, what were the lessons?

LANDRY: For several years Eric and I were major contributors to Disney Adventures Magazine. We didn’t pursue much other work at that time because what we were doing kept us busy and we were reaching over a million readers with creator owned comics. Hard to beat that. But then Disney Adventures vanished and our comics publishers didn’t know who were were, despite our work reaching an audience ten times larger than the average top monthly comic. So that was hard, because we were suddenly unemployed with few credentials and unknown to anyone who might hire us. Luckily, editor Bob Shreck was working at DC at the time, and he had been paying attention to us, and he put us on the path that led to Supergirl. Otherwise, I don’t really know what I would be doing now.

Short version: Don’t keep your eggs all in one basket.

ERIC: Yeah, while we were at Disney Adventures, it got a little too easy to just do what we were doing, and not really stretch too much. The work was fun, and the money was pretty good, so it became comfortable to just coast along working there, and to be, frankly, a little lazy. Once it was gone, I think I learned to push myself creatively and professionally -- I want to make the best comics I can possibly make, and I want to do it fast, and I want to do it well. Those are the things that keep people like me employed.  

SR: What are your future plans?

LANDRY: Well, right now I’m writing some superhero based novels for a major publisher. Eric and I are launching a new series called “The Danger Club”, though that one is aimed at older readers. I’m also planning to put together an all ages action comic with an original character at some point soon. Lots of plans. Tons, really. 

ERIC: The Danger Club is taking up most of my time these days, but I also contribute pretty regularly to Phineas and Ferb Magazine, drawing various comics. I also just finished drawing a coloring book, but I'm not allowed to talk about who it's about, yet -- suffice it to say it's a popular comic book character from a major publisher. 

NOTE FROM DAD: Join us on Thursday for Part 2 as The Comic Wizard jumps in with a few questions and Super Reader wraps things up!