1. What initially drew you to comics?
My go-to answer is Batman: The Animated series, stretching as far back as first grade. I had already been drawing since I could hold a pencil, drawing endlessly on reams of computer paper at the coffee table. My first memory of comic books specifically was going to a comic book store when I was in about third grade. My mom had taken my brothers and I to the mall, and I remember as a treat, we stopped at the comic book store. It had this really huge, cool statue of Superman over the entrance. That trip, I got Young Justice #28 and some of the Sins of Youth crossover where all the grown-up heroes were kids, and the kid heroes were grown-ups.
Over time, the fascination just stuck. I used to ride my bike to a comic book store with my dad, and we would go weekly to get my pull bin. By high school, I was a big closet comic nerd and was in the AP art classes so I had decided I wanted to go to school for art. My decision to be a comic book artist would come and go, but I always loved reading comics and drawing and eventually it just synthesized into who I am now.
2. Please tell us more about Young Offenders.
Young Offenders is a three-issue mini-series about a group of rebellious teen superheroes who step up to save the world after the old-guard has disappeared in a crisis. It is my first published comic book! The project came together over the course of the pandemic actually. It was definitely a silver lining to an otherwise, pretty grim year. I connected with my writer, Mark Stack, over Twitter after listening to an episode of War Rocket Ajax. A comics podcast I had been listening to for about a decade. I remember really connecting with Mark's enthusiasm for comics and DIY comics publishing. One day, he put out a tweet about wanting to do a teen superhero comic and I essentially raised my hand.
At the time, I had been re-reading all the Crisis comics, and Mark and I bonded over Final Crisis in particular. That really informed a lot of our partnership, and as we discussed the story we played this "yes and" game of comics improv.
The story itself is about these teenage superheroes being united by a nuclear event in New York City. You'll see a ton of superhero comics tropes woven into the DNA of the series, so a lot of the premise is intentionally very familiar. I like to think we found a lot of heart and character moments throughout the series. Particularly in #2, where the team spends some more time together in their headquarters. They get into their messy teenage super-feelings. Then by #3, they're on an epic last stand suicide mission to prevent an invasion of an alien death god.
The book was an incredible training ground for myself. It's the first project I've completed from start to finish. I know I grew a ton from the beginning of #1 to the end of #3. I hope the readers can recognize that as well. One series down, hopefully many more to go!
3. What do comics allow you to do as a storyteller?
Beyond being a comics artist and fan, I am also a comics scholar. I have my master's degree in comic book art, and so I talk a lot about comics as a storytelling medium in my day job as a seminar teacher. I think comics are just an amazing tool for communication. They are art, they are story, they are literature, and they are trashy kid-lit. But beyond the semantics of trying to define what comics "are," I think they're the purest embodiment of an artist's vision. Very rarely in modern media do you get to see such a pure translation of a singular vision.
Comics as a medium uses text and image together and I think that alchemy can really create the most powerful stories. It's cliché at this point to talk about how comics have an "unlimited budget," but it's true. They really reward unchained creativity more than any other medium.
And they're the most active storytelling medium we have. Most forms of art and media are very passive experiences. Comics require audience participation because they activate our imaginations and rely on our ability to craft a narrative from the images, text, and gutters. We assemble the story in our own heads through the relationship of panels and pages.
And I think that's a really stimulating and rewarding experience as both a creator and a reader.
4. Please tell us about your creative and collaborative process.
This is a moving target of a question, because I am always trying to refine, streamline, and perfect a Process. It's not always consistent, and honestly it's not always easy. The best days are the ones when I'm in flow. That "in the zone" feeling of pure creative energy, where the work just flows through me. But, the struggle is that flow doesn't always activate on command. I've wasted a lot of time sitting down at the desk "ready to work," only for nothing to happen. Or what does happen, is that I'll struggle through that artist block and not make anything I like. Those are the worst days.
Typically, the plan is to do some warm-up sketches, be so inspired and ready and perfect, and then the real drawing begins. Sometimes it happens like that, often it doesn't. So I've come up with some solutions to get out of my own head, take that pressure off of myself, and let that flow come to me more naturally.
Collaboratively, I think that the "yes and" improv method seemed to work really well with Mark and I on Young Offenders. I knew this was his brainchild, so I always wanted to respect that and not come in and steamroll over anything he had built or planned. My thinking was that my job was to facilitate his vision through me. But that really worked both ways too. I like to say that Mark "let me get away" with just about everything I brought to him. Whether it was an idea or a change to the story or the art. I think that created a really fun experience, and a really special project. I felt really valued and trusted as an artist, and I hope I did Mark's vision justice.
5. Where can we find out more about your work?
You can find my work at my portfolio website, mikejbecker.com. Or on social media, my Instagram is @mikebecker14 and my Twitter is @mikejbecker. Definitely follow me on Instagram, that's where I am the most active. I post the most there, and I think the stories feature is a really cool vehicle to showcase other art that I dig. Which I love to do.
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