We were lucky to catch up with Kit Fox recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kit, appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
From very small, I always had some comic book or comic strip I was making – I think the first one was The Evil Doctor Whacko when I was five or six and no, there is no longer any evidence of it, for anyone trying to blackmail me. It didn’t hit me until maybe the beginning of high school that what I really wanted to do was create comic strips for newspapers. That probably shows how ancient I am – when I was a kid, that was a real job, news came in folded stacks of paper and cartoonists were these noble warriors with a tiny bit of real estate they’d use to lighten up a really grim world. By the time I hit something passing for adulthood, newspapers hardly existed anymore, but I was still a cartoonist. I had to find other ways to make art, make people laugh. I’m still not sure I’m doing it right, but I can’t seem to stop trying.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
When I really think about it, I’ve essentially drawn or painted the same things my whole life. Monsters and dames, in all their grotesque or sexy or comedic or lovely forms. My art tends to blend spooky and whimsical, from retro paintings of the Creature From The Black Lagoon to the tiki themes inspired by my years of living in Hawaii. Between my own projects, I take commissioned work for clients – logos, business merchandise, book covers, or just personal home decor. It began slowly, accepting work from young parents who wanted something cute for their child’s nursery, and expanded from there to several online shops and a small stream of commissioned artwork. I am far from the best, most polished artist available, but I think I bring something warm and colorful and unusual to the projects I take on.
September Sparks is my passion project. It is an all ages comic book, trying to blend Indiana Jones with Janelle Monae, in space. I started it because it’s what I would have wanted to read as a young gal: a curvy heroine surrounded by monsters and dinosaurs and a morally ambiguous museum curator, constantly on the edge of disaster. If I can get people excited about characters they don’t already know from every superhero blockbuster, I feel pretty good about that.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
A friend of mine who works in film once told me something that I think about continually. He said these things we do – art or writing or film or music, any of it – is in us so deeply that it we can’t stop it, no matter what it takes to continue. If we have to work retail our whole lives just to make it possible to stay up till the late hours, drawing till it’s painful, and never making a dime from it, that’s just who we are. He’s long forgotten telling me this, but it’s driven me at times when the money was entirely dependent on a humiliating day job.
Art is that embarrassing ketchup stain that everyone can see but most folks don’t comment on, and no amount of scrubbing will get it out. Most of us will never be as successful as the next artist in line, most of us will have to explain it to family and friends who just say “Oh neat. I wish I could draw.” and then never look at our hard work, most of us have to work half our lives under the thumb of some goon just to keep putting out our art to a world that expects punchy soundbites and awe-inspiring shareability delivered in six seconds or less. It’s not glamorous or easy but it is in me, and I’ll never get rid of it. I want to create things that make people laugh, that inspire kids, that people want to hang on their walls, even if it is just in the bathroom. If I never had to work again, I would still make comic books.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
It’s really vulgar that it all comes down to money, but then I am a vulgar gal. Art is in everything, those things people run to for comfort or share with their crush or put on for soothing background noise. Our favorite songs, the dumb stickers on our laptop case that always make us chuckle, that book we’ve read five times. Art is essentially butter – without it, life is dry, flavorless, basic. I think society has a hard time supporting the arts because it’s viewed as unnecessary to survival. You can’t eat a comic book – unless you have a strange addiction to paper, no judgment – and so it’s easier to spend eight dollars on a cup of coffee.
I think if society cares about their artists, the best they can do is help us keep doing it for a living, Reject AI replacements – which is a sentence so sci-fi I never thought I would say it aloud – and visit our online shops, our Patreons, put a buck in our tip jars. Just knowing someone cares enough to give up a leaf of their hard earned lettuce is really special. Artists constantly put their work out in the world for nothing, and so if it’s worth something to those who see or hear or read it, toss a coin to your witcher.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mambolotus3.wixsite.com/kitfoxart
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/kitfoxart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kitfoxart
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kit-fox-b76a0b25b/
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/kitfoxart
Image Credits
Kit Fox, 2023