An Interview with Author and Artist Kyle Starks

1. What initially drew you to comics?

I've read comics since I was little. My uncle has sold golden and silver age comics pretty much all his life and I assume he turned us on when we were little. It's just a medium I've always enjoyed. But, I'll be honest with you - it wasn't something I sought out or strove for as a career, per se. I was married, working a good union job and I thought that was my life. I started having kids and realized my time would soon no longer be mine and made a list of things I never did or got to do and one was, simply, "finish a comic." I did a webcomic that was Legend of Ricky Thunder and I fell in love with the process of writing and drawing comics storytelling and so I kept doing it and that became Sexcastle, which got "discovered" and then got me Rick and Morty and one thing led to another and the next thing you know I'm doing it for a living.

2. As I mentioned, I’m a big fan of your work — where do you get ideas for books like Sexcastle (and others)?

Oh man, this is a tough question and honestly leads partially into one of your later questions. I always try to make the thing that I want to exist in the world. What makes me laugh, what type of story would I like to ingest. I'm always just trying to feed my own interests. I've consumed a ton of film, books, comics and I'm sure all those things gestalt into what composes the meat of where ideas come from but often times it's just a matter of what piqued my interest at the time or watching/reading something and expecting it to go somewhere and it not and me wanting to have that feeling I thought I was going to get. Often times I'm just trying to create something I wish existed: another great 80s action movie (Sexcastle), an American wuxia story (Rock Candy Mountain), another good action-comedy (all of them?) so on and so forth.

3. What is your process like?

My process varies for if I'm drawing or if someone else but both start out the same way: I think about it over and over and over for a long time. I keep telling myself the story in my head, on repeat, in full, until I think it's right. Then, if I'm writing for someone else, I write it. If I'm drawing it I don't write it, I just start drawing. I don't recommend this process. But it's how I do it, it works for me, I know my beats and it gives me room to improv a little in-between which is great for comedy and action in my opinion. As of late, I've felt my written-not-drawn work lacks some of the jovial charm of the works I've drawn so now I've taken to doing thumbnails while I write to try to keep that energy in my books whether I draw or not.

4. Any advice for young creators (I used to a middle school teacher and know the universal appeal of comics)?

My advice is if you want to be good at something, do it all the time. Study how other people do it and see what's good, what's bad, what you like and what you don't and grow from that. I had a friend who went to college for poetry and in his master's year his instructor told him the secret to getting better was to read as much poetry as possible. And I think that's true of anything. Consume all the stuff people say is good, consume all the stuff that's bad. Learn the difference. Everything is a growing experience, and improving experience. But the best advice is to do it all the time. If you want to be good at comics don't make pictures, make comics. And I said earlier, I think the best way to remain engaged and to make something you'll always like is to make the thing you want in the world. Put out what you want to consume.