Comic-Con isn’t just a place for geeky fandom — it’s also a space where artists, even young ones just starting out, can further their careers. Little Fish Comic Book Studio runs Comic-Con Artist Intensive program to help young artists get their work reviewed by professionals.
It’s Monday morning, and Alonso Nuñez is kicking off this year’s Comic-Con Artist Intensive program.
"Remember," Nuñez informed a classroom full of students, "we have today, tomorrow and Wednesday to work on these things."
The intensive part is no joke.
"Here at Little Fish Comic Book Studio, we are creating comic books," Nuñez explained. "We've got dedicated students between the ages of 14 and 22, and they're going to create three- to four-page comics between now and Wednesday. They’ve got a theme, but otherwise they have carte blanche. They are making work with the goal to have it finished and to be viewer-ready for professionals."
Nuñez has been running Little Fish Comic Book Studio for 13 years, and he wants his students to see that comics can be a viable career.
This year, he tells his students the theme for their comics will be reference and rememory.
"The prompt comes from the novel 'Beloved,' and it speaks about the act of remembering and the ways in which memory and history affects us in the present," said 21-year-old Garza Santiago. "So I was thinking funeral-esque, including original characters. And so in the novel that I'm writing, it toes the line between grief and imagination versus psychosis — in the form of ghosts. So where do these ghosts come from?"
Meanwhile, Declan Graham found inspiration in a poster for "La Dolce Vita."
"I'm thinking a frantic 1960s movie set," Graham explained. "A very driven director, and then a bunch of people who can't understand all his references and his desires for this wack movie."
Referring to the program, Graham added, "The intensive part is — it's intense. It pulls you in because the intensive — the comic-making part of it — gives you more of a concentrated version of why I come to Little Fish. It's like you get to work on art and be surrounded by people who are working on art, but in three days! And then you get to go to Comic-Con, which is amazing."
Santiago is participating in the Artist Intensive for the first time.
"I am definitely excited," Santiago said. "But I think I'm sensitive as an artist. I think I'm just going to have to build a tough skin when it comes to artist critique."
Seraya Cornejl is doing the program for the third time.
"I had done it two years before," Cornejl said. "Both times I had my work looked at and critiqued by Joe Phillips. It really impacted me. It was really good critique that I totally understood it, and I'm trying to put into my work now, using reference from real life."
Kate Balogh is currently at Brigham Young University but returned to San Diego just to take part in the program again because of how it helped her take feedback.
"It was easier to take critique," Balogh said. "And it was easier to focus not on like, 'oh, I'm a bad artist. I failed.' And instead to look at, 'oh, I can improve this.' I think it's made me more professional in just the way that I handle my art."
Nuñez is proud of the growth he sees in his students.
"They've generally done really good about not making excuses — in in the sense of, 'I was really tired, I was in a hurry.' All of that could be true. You could have lost your work and you did it last night. But if you are showing it to a professional, just put all that away and just listen to what they say, and you're going to get good advice," Nuñez said. "I think they're inspired by the atmosphere of seeing all these professionals around them where they're able to put that away and just listen. They'll take notes, generally, in the sketchbook."
For Balogh, the experience changed how she views Comic-Con itself.
"I just stopped and I was like, oh, my gosh, everything here was made by somebody," Balogh said. "It was something that never really clicked with me until that point. And it was so inspirational. It makes me want to be able to create that feeling someday, to be one of those people putting up the posters, or to just keep coming as a fan to enjoy it.
The program also gives a clear-eyed look at what it really takes to make a comic.
"So the mystique and the false impression that a finished comic page just materializes perfect in a store is erased," Nuñez said. "They know that it's work, erase, fix, white out, correct, cry, labor, and then hopefully you arrive at something good."
And there is no better place to find out just how good you are than at Comic-Con.
