Not so long ago, Justin Hall was living on the Mekong River near the Cambodian/Laotian border with just a bristol board and pencils in his backpack.
These days, he’s a successful comic book writer and illustrator in San Francisco; but when we chatted last week about life as a comic book author, the happy gleam in his eye as he recalled his life abroad was unmistakable.
Out of Justin’s travels in Asia, the Middle East, and South America came his serial books “True Travel Tales” and “A Sacred Text,” accompanied by other books like “Glamazonia” and the racy “Hard to Swallow.” His smart, startling stores have earned him acclaim and awards, and he’s currently hard at work on multiple new book projects.
Justin is nuts about comics and graphic novels — as it should be, if one is to devote one’s time to such a demanding, underground endeavor.
Making a living out of comic books is nearly impossible, so why do it? The answer lies in a theme that came up repeatedly in my conversation with Justin: Obsession.
How did you get started writing comics?
I’ve always wanted to make comics. It’s always been my obsession. I love the static image and the written words.
And that’s what led to your Travel Tales?
I was an obsessive traveler for most of my 20s and on into my 30s. I would take off for months on end. I spent years in aggregate on the road with a backpack, wandering mostly around the third world because it was cheap.
It was really wonderful to be able to combine travel and my art. I would actually travel with my bristol board with me in my backpack, with inks and brushes. I would sometimes settle in certain areas and do my work.
For example, In Laos there’s a area where the Mekong river comes down and widens out right before the Cambodian border in an area called the Siphandon, which means “4000 Islands.” There are all these islands in this widened out part of the Mekong. And you can go to these little villages on the islands and there’s no running water or electricity — there’s some generators — but you can rent a little bungalow with a bed and a hammock and a rope swing out across the water for a dollar a night. And food is probably about a dollar, two, three dollars a meal. And just hang out there and do your work.
So I spent a week or two there and worked on a comic, and then just kept going. So it’s nice to be able to mesh my two great obsessions and passions.
It sounds like a James Bond location, only without the gadgets.
I don’t even travel with a camera. I travel with a sketchbook and I draw, rather than paint, pictures.
Do you always write and illustrate, or do you ever hand off some of the work?
For the most part I write and illustrate my own work. I’m a better writer than illustrator. I’m an okay illustrator — I can do certain things well — but I’m never going to have that kind of easy greatness that certain illustrators can pull off.
So I’d like to always illustrate at least some of my work, but I’d like to be in the position eventually to farm out some of my scripts to other illustrators. Especially the stuff that’s more visually elaborate. I’d love to write some science fiction stories, for example, and I don’t have the wherewithal to illustrate that stuff.
When is it best to do some work yourself versus call in backup?
Understanding the limits of your own skillset is pretty important. That having been said, you also get better when you do things. I’m certainly a better illustrator than I was when I started this. But it’s also important to know how far you can go.
I’m not in a position at this point to be able to [call in backup]. Making independent underground comics, you don’t have the kind of resources — If I was making mainstream comics, it’s understood that you collaborate with other people who have more specific skillsets. Like, you have letterers, and you have pencil artists and inkers and colorists. But doing independent comics, you usually end up doing it all yourself. So it’s a little bit harder to make that happen.
Which do you prefer — specializing in one task, or being jack of all trades?
The renaissance man versus the specialist? To be honest I’d like to have the best of all worlds: I’d like to be both. I’d love to be in a position where I was doing some stories, illustrating them and writing them and doing everything, and then other stories where I could just be the script writer and turn it over to a visual team. And I could write differently for other people than I can write for myself. That would be really fun for me.
What happens after the authoring of a comic is finished? What’s the next step?
It depends…
That’s it for part one! Check back in throughout the week for further installments of my interview with Justin Hall. Coming up next in part 2: getting your work from writing desk to retail; how to rule comic conventions; and why the comic book community is completely unlike any other (and why that’s so awesome).
Sign up to get email updates when the next Writers Getting Paid posts appear:
Or click here to subscribe via RSS.
Related posts:
I'm a writer and photographer in San Francisco, curious about how people can get away with writing all day while also being able to afford to buy groceries. 