Never having to turn your back on your childhood dreams
Michael Walsh is one of the top artists Marvel relies upon to bring its comic book heroes to the page
A
COUPLE OF BLOCKS off James Street North, resides a little slice of comic book heaven.
It’s a modest brick bungalow, home and studio of cartoonist Michael Walsh, a born-and-bred Hamiltonian who at the age of 31 has reached the pinnacle of the comic book world.
Walsh is one of a few dozen top artists that the Marvel empire relies upon to bring its stable of comic book heroes to the printed page, each and every month.
If all goes well, his fame in the world of fantasy will reach new levels when his original creation “Come-
back,” makes it to the silver screen. Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo, director of the monster movie “Colossal,” is working on it with “The Walking Dead” creator Robert Kirkman.
When The Spectator visited Walsh at his home last week, he was busy inking one of the 20 pages that will become the second instalment in Marvel’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” series.
Walsh had received a bare-bones script from American-based writer Gary Whitta (who wrote the story behind the Star Wars film “Rogue One”) in early March and has to have all the art panels, conceived, pencilled and inked by the end of next week.
Walsh will leave the colouring to another trusted artist to help save time. He’ll quickly have to move onto the next instalment — Walsh is drawing all six issues of the series, with the first hitting stores in May.
“The schedule on this book is pretty unforgiving,” Walsh says. “I got sick last week so that means I don’t get a day off for the next two weeks.”
About 80 per cent of the process will be done on his iMac Pro, a computer he calls “the Rolls-Royce of iMacs.” Only the inking is done by hand.
It’s a daunting deadline — about four weeks from start to finish for each book — but one that has become routine.
If you’re a comic book junkie, you probably know Walsh’s name. His work includes Spider-Man, Hawkeye, Archie, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Vision, X-Men, X-Files, Dr. Strange and The Punisher. He has even collaborated with author Margaret Atwood on a contribution to the anthology “The Secret Loves of Geeks.”
A graduate of Cardinal Newman high school in Stoney Creek and the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, Walsh is an honoured guest at comic conventions (Comic Cons) around the world — Seattle, London, New York and, two weeks ago, Toronto. Fans line up to meet him, get his autograph and perhaps a piece of his art.
Walsh seems particularly proud of his werewolf Jughead (from “Jughead the Hunger #6”). The frightening blood-red image greets visitors to his den from a computer screen.
He specializes in neo-noir, finding darkness even in lighthearted characters ... like Jughead.
That darkness is evident in “Comeback,” an original five-part series Walsh created in 2012 with British Columbia-based writer Ed Brisson. The plot focuses on a company called Reconnect, which sends time-travelling agents into the past to help save its paying clients from tragedy.
He met Brisson online looking for an inexpensive “letterer” to help him put together pitches to comic book publishers. Brisson agreed to do his lettering — putting the script into the comic book panels — for free, if Walsh provided art for some of his scripts.
The two became friends and started making pitches together. Walsh thinks “Comeback” was their third pitch. It was picked up by Image Comics.
That led to a job working on Marvel’s “Secret Avengers” series. From there, the superhero world opened up to him, enough to allow him to buy the bungalow he shares with his partner, Toni Marie, and their dog Kiera.
Walsh works as a freelancer and doesn’t use an agent. He’s good enough that the work comes to him. He estimates there are about 150 artists around the world, working for Marvel, perhaps 15 to 20 based in Canada.
It’s a very cool vocation for someone who got the comics’ bug watching Saturday morning TV at his parents’ home in Stoney Creek.
“My mom says I could draw before I could speak,” Walsh laughs. “I was fingerpainting Ninja Turtles, but I couldn’t verbalize yet.”
Marvel pays the bills, but Walsh would prefer to create his own characters, like the ones he and Brisson gave birth to in “Comeback.”
For a lot of comic book artists, working for Marvel or DC is the end goal, Walsh says. “But there’s always room to grow and to move up ...
“I’d like to get back to the creator owner world. It’s such an interesting thing to come up with your own characters and your own ideas, put those out there and develop a fan base. It feels different than working on something like Spider Man that already has a fanbase.”
It’s a daunting deadline, about four weeks from start to finish for each of the six books in the series, but one that has become routine. “My mom says I could draw before I could speak. I was fingerpainting Ninja Turtles, but I couldn’t verbalize yet.” MICHAEL WALSH