We recently connected with Mark McKenna and have shared our conversation below.
Mark, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
In 1985 I started on staff as a production artist at Marvel Comics for nearly a year and a half, working directly with the Art Director who was a well known Spider man artist in the 70’s. I watched him work and was directly surrounded by professional talent in every capacity of the business. I was turning 26 at the time and it took me a while to grasp what direction I wanted to pursue as a career, so I was not a “wunderkind”.
The skills that were most essential to me were understanding the tools and how to use them to achieve the best results. In the case of a comic book inker, it was the use of the watercolor brush and the dip pen. The other important process was understanding depth and textures of the art and the placements of lights and darks.
No obstacles stood in the way of learning more unless it was a necessity to make money in the business and not getting the opportunities to work in the business that you were aiming at.
Mark, 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?
Im a 35 year vet of the comic book biz, having almost 1000 credits in comics on mainstream comics such as Iron Man, the Punisher and Justice League.
How I started in the business was when I submitted samples at DC and Marvel Comics. DC Comics had in-house classes to help up and coming talent learn their craft. When I would finish the Friday afternoon bi-weekly classes I would then take my samples to Marvel and leave them with the receptionist. A few weeks later I received a call from then art director and legendary Spider man artist John Romita Sr who offered me a position at Marvel in production. After a few misses I accepted the job and that s what started the ball rolling for me.
After having my work published in nearly 1000 comics the work started to slow down, the comic biz was in a recession and work started to thin out. I started creating my own comics and a children’s book series as I had 2 small children at home in the early 90’s.
With my extensive knowledge of comics creating, I started to process the idea of using my name to open some doors in the market and was fortunate enough that some distribution channels opened up for me. There are many comic creators out there that need to work under the banner of a major co vs some that seek to create their own avenues and control their narrative. I was feeling I had a lot to offer and wasn’t getting the work, Some of it due to the expense of having a 35 year pro with a page rate that didn’t fit into the monthly budget. Another thought being that the co’s were looking internationally for talent, which due to the World Wide Web changing the playing field dramatically, the international talent were more affordable then the US talent.
I started to “crowd fund” my own projects, having control of the entire operation, from the writing to the coloring, lettering, printing and publishing. I had the support of one of the major distribution channels due to my recognizable name in the business and they were highlighting some of my projects with a “Pick Of The Month”. To date I have self-published 4 children’s books and 5 comic books.
Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?
I broke into the NFT market in November of 2020, unsure of what I was dealing with and being a bit older… set in my ways.
What happened immediately thereafter, my first exposure in that market, changed the past 18 months of my career. The Crypto platforms looked to me and promoted me as a “legend” from the comic book industry and hyped me in a way that brought a lot of attention to my NFT drops. Many of my comic contemporaries were intimated by the NFT craze early on but for some reason I was wined and dined into trying it out. Now I get contacted by many of my comic creator friends asking me how to get started.
The trick with NFTs I see moving forward is that a collector can “mint” an NFT and show it in their “decentralized gallery”, which, if you imagine walking through a museum, sort of looks like that, but online. So the collector owns a “minted digital copy” of the artwork. The issue that has been recently brought to my attention is that an NFT might not have functionality. In other words, what do you do with it after showing it off? One of the platforms I’m working with Masterbrews, has thought that through and is creating a video game to use with a minted NFT that a collector will own. On top of the fascination of having an evolving NFT.
An evolving NFT based on my work at least under the banner of “Mark McKenna’s Heroes and Villains” starts off with a generic Barbie and Ken figure, if you will, and every 72 hours adds a trait. Traits are things like, hair color, hairstyles, beards, mustaches, ear shapes, tattoos, weapons, backdrops with soon to be released sidekicks and henchmen. These evolved characters will be able to be used in a “Pay to Play” environment, which, to me elevates the concept of an NFT into an exciting future.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I was starting my career at Marvel Comics and was looking to expand my work as a production artist to full time comic book inker, I had to share my samples with the editorial staff, which wasn’t always very easy, due to possibly having the work eviscerated by an editor. One time I shared a job that I did with an independent comic co with a Marvel editor who told me that if he had that job at Marvel, “wouldn’t print it”. Pretty humbling to take something so near and dear to an artist and coming away with those kind of results. So, at that point you can give up and decide this isn’t for you or take a couple days of wiping the humility off your brow and come back stronger, which is eventually what I did.
Contact Info:
- Website: WWW.Markmckennaart.com, WWW.Bananatail.com, WWW.Combatjacks.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mckinks1/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.a.mckenna711/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mckenna-245a101/
- Twitter: @MarkMcKenna419
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/bananatailstory