A career in comics or a life of crime?

Comic-Con kicks off its four-day celebration of pop culture tonight. Two San Diego comic creators will have multiple panels to discuss their new projects and share their lifelong love for comics.

A life of crime or...

At the age of five, Chris Ryall knew he loved comics—and one in particular.

Marvel

"I was drawn to this old 'Fantastic Four' comic, Issue 130, because it had the Fantastic Four and the Frightful Four," Ryall recalled. "So there's eight colorful characters on the cover, all fighting, and I was just completely and utterly captivated by that."

So captivated that he stole it from his neighbor.

"So, I was either heading toward a career in comics or a life of crime," Ryall added.

He took the path towards comics even though that path wasn’t as easy to figure out as say being a lawyer

"That was always my complaint as a kid," Ryall said. "I just didn't know that there was a path to working in comics because you're right, you don't take the bar exam, you just find your way in. It feels like every time you ask anybody how they got into comics, it's a different story."

Different stories but all beginning with a love for comics.

Scott Dunbier remembered his introduction to comics.

"By some wonderful piece of fate, right between my apartment and my school, was one of the first comic book stores in the country. It was called Supersnipe. This was around 1971. I remember going in there literally every day, me and my friends. That was our life, me and my friends, baseball, comics, and egg creams," Dunbier recalls.

From this childhood passion, both men would end up working at IDW, a San Diego-based publisher, for more than a decade. Ryall served as president, publisher and chief creative officer, and Dunbier was VP of special projects.

Ryall edited "Locke and Key," among his many projects, and saw it translated to television, while Dunbier oversaw IDW’s gorgeous, oversized Artist Edition books.

Carolyne Corelis

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KPBS

Current projects

Currently, Ryall revels in creating books that tap into the things he loved as a kid.

"With Abrams' ComicArts, I did this book on these old Marvel calendars, and they were just so unique and beautifully designed. Every square of each month was designed. Those things have largely never been collected," Ryall said. "And then with Simon & Schuster, they're bringing back the Fireside line of books, the first one was 'Origins of Marvel Comics.' And the real distinction of that book is it was the first Marvel book and one of the very first graphic novels to ever get into bookstores and libraries. It's hard to fathom now, but if you were a kid in the mid '70s and you went to a bookstore, there was no comic material at all."

Scott Dunbier also fell in love with comics as a kid and with its potential.

"In a comic book, the sky's the limit," Dunbier said. "You can do anything you want. It sounds like I'm making comics very grandiose, but it's almost a magical art form."

It can imagine the most fantastical things, create vivid characters, or even be used for social good. Dunbier’s "Comics for Ukraine" has raised money to help refugees.

Zoop

"Yeah, that was a book that I felt I had to do," Dunbier said. "The crisis in Ukraine happened more than two years ago, and I remember sitting in my living room watching TV, and my wife was getting so sick of me yelling at the TV. And I thought, maybe there's something I could do. So I reached out to a number of friends to see if they were interested in being part of an anthology book called 'Comics for Ukraine' that could be crowdfunded, and then all the money could go to a charity that funneled money into Ukraine to help refugees."

One of its stories is up for a Comic-Con Eisner Award (the Oscars of the comics industry) this Friday. Ryall also loves the possibilities the medium presents.

"I love the way art and words all work together in tandem to create a story," Ryall explained. "The excitement you feel almost every single page being its own little mini story where you get to the bottom of that page and hopefully it's compelling enough that you want to turn the page. Every page of a comic can be that way if it's done effectively."

IDW

Dunbier collects pages of original comic art, which what led him to create the Artist Edition books while he worked at IDW.

"I love comic storytelling, but I always edged more towards the art," Dunbier said. "I can't read a comic with bad art."

At his Comic-Con panel, Dunbier will be announcing the start of his new company.

"It's Act 4 Publishing because Act 1 was art dealing, the second act was Wildstorm [another comics publisher], third act IDW, and now this is the fourth act."

A new company but he will still be following his passion for original art with more Artist Edition books, which he will be discussing at his panel.

"We haven't announced it yet, but we're going to be giving away Artist Edition bookmarks," Dunbier revealed. "Dave Stevens’ 'The Rocketeer,' Joe Qbert's 'Tarzan,' an EC science fiction page, and Will Eisner's 'The Spirit.' Since they're bookmarks for Artist Editions, of course, they're gigantic. These are actually four by 16 inches."

Carolyne Corelis

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KPBS

Adapting 'Megalopolis'

Ryall will be on multiple panels to discuss new projects. But he's also working on a graphic novel film adaptation of "Megalopolis."

"It started with a complete out-of-the-blue email from Francis Coppola saying, 'Hey, I want to make a graphic novel based around "Megalopolis," and I'm told you're the one who can help me with that. Is that true?' And first you're like, I don't know if this is real, but my response always to these things is, 'Yes, Francis Coppola, I am the right one who can do that,'" Ryall recounted.

And he was delighted to discover Coppola is a comics fan.

"He cited a character called The Heap, which is like a precursor to Swamp Thing and Man-Thing," Ryall said. "Nobody mentions The Heap unless if they're legit, unless they know comics. And so it's fun when you can find that common ground, that common comic book language to talk about, even with people that have never otherwise dabbled in the space before. So it's been a blast. It's been just the most exhilarating, creatively inventive thing. Yeah, I've loved every bit of it."

Who'd have thought stealing a comic book at five could lead to all this? Now, we can wait in eager anticipation to see what the next page turn will reveal in their careers.