We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Crystal Gonzalez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Crystal, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I think that even as a little kid I knew that art was my calling. I would draw monsters and creatures all the time! And in elementary school, I would sell them to my schoolmates for 25 cents, so I could buy some candy at the nearest gas station. I also recall the day that our school had a newspaper comic artist come in for “career day” that it dawned on me that you could make art as a “job”. So, while other kids wanted to be doctors or marine biologists, I started drawing my own comic strips and I assumed that I would become a newspaper comic artist. Cartoons and comics were my first biggest art influences. But once I got to high school, I was also introduced to a bunch of different art styles and mediums. It’s what also made me love the act of painting, charcoals and inks.

I took art classes in school and practiced on my own with any free time I had to hone my skills. The Arts were sadly being cut more and more from the school budgets, and so I had to do a lot of my own research reading books in libraries and art magazines. By the time I was out of high school, I knew that making a living from my art was the dream. So I took the artistic path professionally into my college studies.

There I got a Bachelor in Art, and a Minor in Philosophy studies at the University of Nevada. I do think that my study of Philosophy, Sociology and Theology in college helped set the groundwork for my future art ambitions. No longer was I doing a small 3 panel comic strip; I was painting huge 7ft acrylics on canvas with landscapes filled with these cartoony characters and creatures of my own design. A visual social commentary that explored the elements of how cultures, social mores, and religions feed and destroy us. I then went on to gain my Masters in Fine Art at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. I had always loved telling stories in my art and paintings, but it was also there that I learned more about the business side of the path, and how if I was to continue to professionally make my art path grow to its full potential, I should also expand my reach to a larger audience as well. The basis of the paintings in Grad school all stemmed back to my philosophical theories around the concept of “universals”- basically words or ideas that all cultures believe to be true, but have no direct definition of what they are. This idea set the preliminary groundwork for my graphic novel series: In The Dark.

Crystal, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a Mexican-American (Chicana), and a self published comic artist and painter. I’m best known for the ongoing graphic novel series, “In The Dark”. The comic book series is about a man named Fibble and his demon named Sin. Fibble is a meek and unlucky man who accidentally falls into Hell. But this underworld is one of my own design, a Hell that has modernized itself to stay relevant in society. The demons in there are addicted to coffee, use gps systems to travel instead of “old school” methods like sacrifices and bloodletting, and they love things like the internet, mass consumerism and hand crafted alcohol (only the finest of soul brewing)! And Fibble and Sin must try to make it out alive or else the very fabric of our world will be destroyed. The story is obviously a dark comedy at heart, and takes many satirical edges at religions, social mores, and modern culture.

So far there are 4 books in the series and I am drawing the 5th one now. As an independent and a one-women show, I do all the writing, penciling, inking, coloring, printing, and marketing of the book. I go to comic book conventions and sell and promote my works there, but also thanks to the internet I also have a web store where fans and readers can also pick up the books.

In addition, I have done gallery show events and my paintings have been featured at MOLAA – The Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA and The Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco. And I had the honor of being a cartoonist-in-residence at the Charles Schulz Museum.

My love for cartooning also expanded into animation. I am self-taught on this front, but readers and fans who enjoy In The Dark and my paintings led to a spin-off series on one particular character, named Skitzo the 1920’s Killer Bear. Skitzo is a throwback to the old 1920’s cartoons of the black-and-white film era. As a kid, I watched tons of $1 tapes filled with black and white public domain cartoons and they certainly influenced my art and love of such characters as Betty Boop, Flip the Frog, Felix the Cat, and Koko the Clown. All these cartoons were created before the Hays Code would censor and limit what cartoons should show.
The main difference or “story” I built around my character Skitzo the Bear is that he is a twisted cartoon who went far beyond the limits of the usual vulgar or violence of the times…it was so bad that viewers would literally die watching them. This was deemed too dangerous to the public health, and all his cartoons were banned and burned, sending Skitzo to Hell. The character got his start in my gallery paintings as a denizen of Hell and a local spectator of the chaos in those pieces. Skitzo also makes an appearance in “In The Dark” comic series. I hand draw the “lost” animated shorts of Skitzo the Bear on a computer but do them in a way to simulate the look of a “lost” 1920 black and white reel or film. And they are available to watch on YouTube. As of this writing, the channel has had more than 26 million total views so I’m proud and grateful that people enjoy my creations.

I’ve been drawing, animating, and painting the world of In The Dark for more than 15+ years and plan to keep on expanding its universe, books, and characters for many more years to come.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The first one came from my elementary school teachers. They were mad that I would draw in the margins of my papers even if I had straight A’s. They were mad that I drew skeletons, monsters, and dinosaurs as that wasn’t “what little girls are supposed to like”. And one of them actually felt that “being an artist” was a lazy occupation and not something that was realistically attainable. Luckily my mother was very supportive of my art and helped combat these issues when I was little, she would even take it to the principal level to make sure I was not restricted from creating and further encouraged my art at home too.

Throughout my later years in college, I had a lot of critics too. During a solo gallery show, two ladies asked the curator to remove my art because it was offensive and “trash”. The curator stuck to their guns and nothing was removed….but we did have to put a sign outside that the pieces were “ideologically sensitive material”. I learned a lot about growing a thick skin and taking criticism. And I found the best way to combat that is with education and an understanding of what you have to show has merits of its own. Stick to your passions, it won’t always be everyone’s cup of tea ha ha.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Besides the joy of finding readers and supporters who love my stories and art, I think it’s also very rewarding when you see younger artists who are inspired by what you’ve done. As a female creator, I love it when I see young ladies look at my work and learn “Wait, a women can make comics?? And they don’t have to draw rainbows and butterflies?!” As a Latina, I also see the same kind of reactions too! If it’s not based on a cultural stigma from older generations, it can be limited opportunities or resources that make people of color think it’s not a role or occupation they could pursue. But then they see me doing it and it’s inspiring to know that what I do in a creative field, can influence and grow the confidence of a budding artist, and maybe show them that it’s possible to achieve with lots of art practice, persistence, and a passion to get it.

Contact Info:

• Web Store: https://inthedark.bigcartel.com/
• Website: https://www.inthedarkcomics.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/comickpro
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inthedark.comics
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Comickpro
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/C0mick
• Other: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Comick TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@inthedarkcomics

Image Credits
Crystal Gonzalez