The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
GEEK HEAVEN
Timberlake writer-artist a Comic-Con vet Thom Zahler has been trekking to San Diego for big event for a quarter century
San Diego Comic-Con attracts the biggest names in pop culture every year. When Marvel Studios arrives at the pop-culture event of the year, it’s huge news. It’s the same for the likes of Star Wars, DC Comics, Game of Thrones and others.
Comic-Con is more than just that. Inside the San Diego Convention Center’s main hall are hundreds of exhibitors — many who make the annual trek out West.
One is comic book artist and writer Thom Zahler. The Timberlake resident and Lake Catholic graduate just completed his 25th straight trip to Comic-Con.
Zahler isn’t exactly sure how many artists/writers from Ohio attend ComicCon each year, or if he holds the current streak at 25, but he see tremendous value in being in San Diego each summer.
“The show has changed amazingly since I’ve been here,” said Zahler at Comic-Con on July 19. “The convention center is twice as big since I started coming out. It’s a lot more media, it’s a lot more Hollywood. Back when I started coming, you’d maybe see a premiere or two, but now this is where people come to debut stuff. It’s a place to do business, which is one of the reasons why I come
out here.”
One of the most notable Ohioans at San Diego was Tony Isabella, who cocreated the DC character Black Lighting, but Zahler has crafted himself quite a career in comics.
He specializes in writing and drawing romantic comedy comics. He began his career drawing caricatures at Geauga Lake amusement park, then worked at an ad agency and The News-Herald.
In 2001, he went off on his own and by 2006 found success with “Love and Capes,” a superhero romantic comedy about the adventures of an ordinary bookstore owner and her accountant boyfriend who also happens to be the superhero The Crusader.
He also created “Long Distance” in 2014. It’s a story about two young professionals who meet while stranded at an airport during a snowstorm and decide to date even though they live in different states.
“I took all the art classes I could,” said Zahler on his journey into the comics industry. “I read ‘How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way’ over and over and over.
“Then I went to art school in New Jersey, and that’s where I learned my craft.”
Zahler is working on the comic “Warner Label” on Line Webtoons. It’s about a girl cursed by her ex-boyfriend. He recently
completed another project called “Time and Vine,” for IDW, about a magical timetraveling winery.
His other credits include working as a writer/artist for “My Little Pony” comics, as a writer for the Disney XD cartoon “SpiderMan Web Warriors,” and as a contributor for Topps’ Star Wars card sets. In 2018, he wrote the pilot episode of
the Netflix series “Knights of the Zodiac.”
“I’ve had people come up to me (about the Line Webtoons comics) crying,” he said. “It’s just amazing. It’s the little kids that come up. Getting readers hooked over and over. When people come up and (talk) about something that happened in my book because it’s so important to them.”