READERSVOICE.COM: Would you say there’s a pretty healthy comics scene in places like Boston and Salem? What sorts of things did you learn and what comics or comics artists did you hear about?

ADAM SZYMCZAK: There’s a growing comics scene in the Boston area, for sure. While there aren’t as many around my area, in Boston you can find a wealth of comics artists. The Boston Comics Roundtable (http://www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com/) , in particular, are a great group of cartoonists who put out some fantastic comic anthologies like INBOUND, OUTBOUND, and HELLBOUND.

I haven’t attended too many meetings with them but I hope to get to know more of the artists involved in the future.

RV: Do you generally associate with other people who create comics, or do you go it alone?

AS: I am hugely lucky to have a good amount of friends who are into comics, and a few who create them as well. Noah Pierce and Julian Fine are both close friends who do great comics of their own. We often work on our comics together and have a few group projects in the planning. I think it’s important to have people around you who do comics as well, it keeps you motivated and keeps you inspired, which is key. Brandon Graham, the artist behind the great KING CITY, said that his job isn’t drawing comics, but staying excited about drawing comics, and I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Julian’s comics can be found at: http://flimflamradio.com/

And Noah unfortunately doesn’t have a web presence as of yet (we’re working on it).

RV: What kinds of things technique-wise have you learned from creating your own comics?

AS: There are countless things I’ve learned in the past year and a half of me making comics. Everything from how to get a good variety of lines, to how to render lighting in Photoshop, to how not to organize panels on a page, all things I’ve learned either on my own or through reading about other cartoonist’s methods. It’s impossible to list them all, and a lot of them are such tiny nuances or changes in my work that they’d be boring to discuss, but they all matter.

RV: How did you go about getting into Forth Magazine in L.A. and what other magazines have you come across that are quite open to comics like these in the U.S.?

AS: Forth Magazine contacted me, actually. One of their editors ran across a comic of mine on Tumblr (where my site was originally hosted), and e-mailed me about doing something for them. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be many magazines who are interested in having comics, at least not from an amateur like me. There was Nickelodeon Magazine, which had some really incredible comics for kids from a broad range of artists, but that went under. I think Vice has comics from time to time, but it’s not that common.

RV: What are some of your plans for your comics?

AS: I have a massive list of comic ideas in a notebook, so there’s no shortage of plans in terms of content for my site. But, my plan for the next year or so, besides working on my webcomic, is to try and complete a short graphic novel and get it published. I’ve begun the writing process, which I’ll hopefully have done soon, and then I can start work. Other than that, I’m going to try and build my web readership and just get better. Improve my figures, improve my writing and layouts, improve my work ethic. So, in a sense, my plans for comics are to work, work, work, and that’s what I’m gonna do!

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