Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to John Yurcaba. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
John, appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I think I always knew I wanted to be creative. From a very young age, I wanted to write and draw stories. I would watch my favorite cartoons, and then sit down and act like it was on me to come up with the next episode. To figure out what would happen, draw it out, and then pitch it to my parents, as if the next move was for them to hand it over to the animation studios.
As I got older, we moved around a lot. Old friends were deepening connections they’d built for years, and I was starting over, figuring out how to make new friends in new places. We finally settled down when I reached high school, but we lived in the desert suburbs outside of Phoenix, AZ. It was a 45 minute drive from campus and where the rest of my friends lived, and that was without traffic. Most of my “hangout time” with people outside of class were the bus rides to and from cross country and track meets. I remember feeling so disconnected and just having this deep sense of longing, wishing I could take off, running through the night. Running toward connection, adventure, the unknown… toward a version of me I felt forced to keep secret because it was inconvenient. I’d imagine what it would be like to fly, and what it would be like to be close enough to share those secret parts of yourself with someone you actually felt connected to. My way of dealing with that feeling of isolation was to start writing and drawing stories about it. About characters who felt isolated by time, distance, social barriers, choices that were out of their hands, some truth they thought they couldn’t afford to share, but they refused to let that be the end of their story. Characters whose adventures began with them feeling that irresistible urge to run toward the horizon, looking for something or someone to remind them they were alive, and finding out that they weren’t alone in that search. Choosing to define who they were according to their own hearts, as opposed to the expectations or demands of anyone or anything else. When I was sitting at my desk, filling notebook after notebook, sketchbook after sketchbook with those ideas, I felt like I was running and flying with them. I couldn’t let that feeling go.
I feel a lot more connected in my life as an adult and I am so thankful for that, but I know the truth is that I’m still healing parts of that loneliness, and dismantling defense mechanisms that have been in place for a long time because of it. However, that feeling of running toward the unknown, looking for connection and definition, still fuels so much of what I do creatively. The process of synthesizing that feeling into stories and art is self work as much as it is career work, and I hope others are able to get something out of it as well.
John, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Sure! I’m an artist and writer that works mainly in comic books, but I have contributed illustrations and concept art to a bunch of different corners of the entertainment industry. I also take commissions from time to time, I sell prints and stickers, and I teach and mentor younger artists and creators whenever I get the chance. I’ve been a lifelong student of storytelling, obsessing over my favorite books, tv shows, and movies, analyzing what works about them and why so I can better apply those things to my own ideas. It feels like decoding spells, and in turn, learning how to weave your own magic.
As far as breaking in professionally, I think a lot of it was just refusing to believe that there was a reality where this wasn’t my life. I did everything I could to put myself in situations where I was in community with other creators, not just for networking or trying to advance, but for genuine connection. To be curious about their work, their journey, to get to know them. To be a part of the community I wanted so badly to be a part of in the most earnest way I could. It turns out that when those conversations did come up, where someone said “Hey, we need someone for this project”, it usually ended up being the friends I’d made who said “Hang on, I know a guy.” However, that goes hand in hand with being humble, steadfast, and honest with yourself in your pursuit of honing your craft, and appropriately confident and passionate when the doors do open. Be the kind of person you’d want to work with.
Whether it’s something I’m cooking up on my own or a collaboration, I’m all about trying to build something you really feel like you can immerse yourself in and see it from the inside out. Even if it’s just a single image, I want it to feel like something living and breathing, like you could fall into it, wander around, and really feel what that would be like. I think if you can solve that initial problem of giving the people a world that feels cohesive, unique, and worth sticking around, you’ve opened the door to all kinds of really interesting unknowns and possibilities. That’s where good stories come from. The biggest affirmation has always been when I feel like I’ve successfully done that, and then others who have seen it say the same. Those are the projects I’m most proud of.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
If I had to zero in on specific themes that cut through all of my creative endeavors, it would be possibility and connection.
As kids, so much of the world existed in the dark. A big, wide “what-if”. As we grow up, the world kind of beats the curiosity out of us. Forces us to feel stuck and alone. We feel more and more like we can’t afford to have a sense of wonder. If we spend too much time thinking about what’s beyond the horizon, what’s hiding in the dark, what would happen if we ran a little farther, a little faster, that reality and taxes and deadlines will come crashing down on us. We forget that humanity’s biggest advancements have come from people asking “what-if”. Things that were once magic have become codified as truth because someone wondered long enough.
Some of my favorite narrative ideas have come from asking “…but what if ?” I love that question, because it frees us up to (at least temporarily) suppose that anything is possible. We have no way to prove otherwise until we try, and in creative storytelling spaces, nothing stops you from fully exploring that question. I try to live that way as much as I can too, because I think one of the most mature things we can do in life is move with a sense of grounded wonder. A balance of reality in one hand and possibility in the other. To speak the language of existence, but write your own story.
And then, just as important are the connections you make in pursuit of the unknown, and the vulnerability of sharing your dreams. So many of the movies and shows that have had the biggest impact on me have had the core theme of “friends vs the unknown”, and finding strength in those you care about to face things you didn’t think you were ready for. Both inside the context of the narrative and in the real world, our stories connect us. We have the power to help each other find wonder again, and I’m too much of a Spider-Man fan to not remember that with great power, there must also come great responsibility, so connection absolutely factors into a lot of my work.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
One of the most important things society can do to support creators is to do it loudly. We live in an era where there are too many who look at creativity as a problem to solve and expedite with technology as opposed to a skill to be learned, honed, anticipated, and celebrated. People want to turn it into an algorithm and a formula, but the only reason they can even halfway approximate those things is because of the countless creators who have put in the work to bring their unique visions to life.
Creators, whether they work in film, TV, books, visual art, music, or anything else, are incredibly undervalued, but they are literally what get us through life. Life may stifle us on an individual level, but we still come home from a hard day at work and queue up somebody else’s creativity to allow us to escape toward other horizons. To cope. To celebrate. To mourn. To feel. We trust the songs and the characters we love to speak for us when we’re too tired and broken to. To lift us up when we feel like we’re alone and nobody else is listening. Humans have the capacity to speak intimately for other humans in ways other things can’t, and you can’t manufacture that.
So if you have a favorite artist, writer, musician, director, film, TV show, podcast, photographer, content creator, whatever it is, be loud about it. Literally loud where applicable, but always loud with your energy. Share them. Recommend them. Hype them up because I promise you, no matter how many followers they have or how successful they are, we’re ALL worried about the future on some level. If you have the means, support them financially. Go to their shows, their signings, buy their work! Let them and the world know that what they do makes you feel a little more alive. A little more connected.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://johnyurcabaiv.wixsite.com/arts
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnyurcaba4/
