Brian Walsby
Brian Walsby is a North Carolina comic book author, illustrator and musician. He will soon be releasing his 4th comic book, entitled Manchild 4. Check out his website for more details on upcoming events related to the book release. In addition to his art, he has played drums alongside Mac McCaughan and Ryan Adams, among many, many others, and currently plays in the band Double Negative.
Tell us more about yourself and your art:
Well, I am forty three years old and have been living in Raleigh since the middle of 1986. I moved here around the time I had garnered a little bit of attention in the punk rock underground at that time, as a furious letter writer, cartoon doodler and rabid fan of that music. I was twenty at the time. I spent the next fifteen years or so trying to improve my skills but mainly I remembered sort of dicking around and playing drums in various bands in the area. So I guess you could say I had a dual identity of being a drummer and a cartoonist. People I used to know (and some that I didn’t) started to get in touch with me since it seemed like I fell off of the face of the earth around the late nineties. That inspired me to finally take it more seriously. I also switched from cruddy pens to ink and bristol board for the most part and that changed things as well. Over the last five years, I have been able to have three comic books (and that is what they are, books) of my stuff, with a fourth one around the corner. I never thought I would be able to have one out and now look..I feel pretty good about that.
What artists inspire you?
Charles Schultz, Robert Crumb, most of the guys who drew at Mad Magazine in the seventies and also people like Daniel Clowes and Peter Bagge. I guess Harvey Pekar isn’t technically an artist but I will throw him in there as well. When I used to read mainstream comics some of those guys couldn’t help but stand out to me, like John Romita Jr or Bret Blevins..they had thier own style which is really the best thing you could say about anyone. I am sure I left out some people but there you go.
Do the characters and storylines in your comics come from real life or are they a hybrid of fantasy and actuality?
Both, pretty much. There are some personal “slice of life” stories, and then there are some loving tributes as well as some pretty blunt “call a spade a spade” sort of stuff. And then there are also recurring characters that I have made up, a few of them go back to when I was in high school some seven thousand years ago.
How has your art evolved from it’s inception through now?
Sometimes people will send me some of the stuff that I had drawn back in the eighties and it is a really humbling experience. Then again, it was great to be able to do all of that stuff. I still cringe at a lot of what I used to draw. I obviously have gotten better, and I can easily tell it keeps getting better from just a few years ago. I suppose that is the idea, to get better at what you do the more that you do it.
What future projects are on the horizon?
I am about to have a book release party at Tir Na Nog, a showing of my stuff at Wootini in Chapel Hill and stuff hanging at Cup A Joe, all around the start of April. I have been busting my ass these last few weeks trying to produce some new stuff, a lot of paintings to be exact. There are also going to be limited silk-screened posters and t-shirts of some people that I have drawn: D. Boon, Greg Ginn, Kira Roessler, Dinosaur Jr. and Milo Aukerman. The t-shirts are going to have D. Boon of the Minutemen, black on red. I will get more info to you a bit later on all of that. After that, who knows..a book tour? And I already know what I want to do for the next MANCHILD as well…but that is a ways off.
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