Name:
Edward Bentley

In a sentence, who are you and what do you do?
Independent Comic book artist and writer

What got you started? Was there a specific moment or time when you released “this is what I want to do”?
Matt Hardy of Mad Robot bullied me into it. He started off asking me to do a small couple of page comics and then one day we just decided to keep going. After a while the comics got bigger and then one day we were like shall we publish this?

What was your favourite comic growing up?
Tintin was defiantly the comic of my childhood. It was a proper adventure every time I sat down to read it.

What was the first piece of work or project that you were really proud of?
Madhouse No.1 from Mad Robot. It was the first comic I held in print and it was a real accomplishment. It’s not our finest work but it holds a special place. Every time you hold a fresh printed comic you have been working on in your hands there is an amazing feeling.

What is your preferred material to work with?
Currently digital but I also love a good technical pencil.

What is your least liked material to work with?
I enjoy most mediums although I really dislike photo comics.

What’s your dream project? Forget about money, time, popular demand or any other variable. If that was all covered and you would work on whatever you wanted. What would it be?
Probably Tank girl because it’s an awesome comic and it’s pretty fun.its a comic I have enjoyed a lot over the years and I think I could bring something too it.

If you were hired to create a book cover based on a classic story, what would the story be and how would you tackle creating it?
Maybe a really creepy Pinocchio or Peter Pan. I really enjoy a good twisted fairytale.

If you had a spirit animal, what would it be?
Squirrel?

What are you currently working on and what’s coming up in the future?
I’m working on a few bits at the moment inc… Dan Earey and myself are twisted gay horror Darkboy & Adler, Mad Robots ongoing Cadavers and the sci-fi Morrigan with Doug Ross & Richard Johnston. Currently, the future holds more of the same with these three being ongoing but I do have a couple of secret projects on the go that I can’t disclose at the moment.

Which artist(s) would you like to see interviewed? Why?
Warwick Johnson Cadwell

What questions (apart from these ones!) would you like to ask them?
I’d like to ask him how he makes squiggly uneven lines look amazing and perfect. It’s an art form that I’m insanely jealous of.

Tell us something about yourself that people wouldn’t normally know!
I trained as a stop-motion animator but I wasn’t very good.

Your Links (Facebook/Twitter/Website/Instagram/etc.)
Instagram: www.instagram.com/edward-bentley-comics
Website: www.madrobotcomics.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/darkboyandadler

Name:
Antea a.k.a. “Aisling”

In a sentence, who are you and what do you do?
I am a person who wants to put on paper (by drawings or words) whatever is walking through her mind at that specific moment.

What got you started? Was there a specific moment or time when you released “this is what I want to do”?
I’ve always loved cartoons and illustrated books since I was very little; and I’ve always loved reading and the idea of creating anything thrills me, even just in my mind. So, I believe, I’m always thinking of some new challenges because I really can’t think of my life without creativity in it.

What was your favourite comic growing up?
I really can’t say I have a favourite one. I’ve always loved superheroes but I’m not really enthused about drawing them. I prefer drawing grotesque characters and fantastic creatures from ancient stories. I really love fantasy books and art in general though.

What was the first piece of work or project that you were really proud of?
A CD cover I realized for my cousin’s band where I had to portrait him and his friends in a grotesque but still resembling way. Still really proud of the portrait of my cousin, it makes me laugh so much, it’s just him!

What is your preferred material to work with?
I must say I both love digital and non-digital art. I like the quickness of the first one but I also love the touch of a 2B on the paper and the lines I get from the pencil represent better than when I use a Cintiq what I’m feeling when I’m drawing in that specific moment.

What is your least liked material to work with?
I’m not that good with painting. So I’d say I really prefer black and white stuff.

What’s your dream project? Forget about money, time, popular demand or any other variable. If that was all covered and you would work on whatever you wanted. What would it be?
I would like both to create an illustrated fantasy book and other projects that include just my true love for writing.

If you were hired to create a book cover based on a classic story, what would the story be and how would you tackle creating it?
I would probably use some of my wit (people often say you can see my drawings are witty) and I’d also like to put in the drawing a lot of hidden hints about the story. I surely would start by reading carefully the story, to be sure I have made the characters in it mine and then I would start studying the best identity for them and, just in the end, I’d add what would make them mine and unique in my own opinion. At least, that is what I would like trying to achieve.

If you had a spirit animal, what would it be?
I would like to think of a wolf. I’m a bit of a loner but I also like being in the company of the few ones I love so I would fit in in a pack, I believe, but I also like to have my own spaces. Even though once I’ve done one of those silly tests on “what’s your totemic animal?” – or something like that – and it looks like I’m fit for A DOVE. That was quite disappointing, I must say! Though they’re a symbol of peace and stuff like that, and I must admit that I’m a kind person so, I believe, I should appreciate it anyway… but still! Wolfs are fluffy and kind of mighty and fierce…

What are you currently working on and what’s coming up in the future?
At the moment, even though I admit it with a bit of disappointment, I’m concentrating on other matters and I draw in my free time. Though I try to find the time to write my own stories and create my own characters, even though they’re all still hidden in a drawer.

Which artist(s) would you like to see interviewed? Why?
I love many artists, even though many of them are so different in many ways, I really can’t name one. I surely love Glen Keane, I think his art is perfection and true love for the matter. But I also respect one of my S.I.C.’s (Scuola Internazionale di Comics – International School of Comics) teachers very much. He works for the French BD: his name is Paolo Grella. I believe he is a great artist and teacher on so many levels. I’ll always cherish what he taught me.

What questions (apart from these ones!) would you like to ask them?
I’ve asked him lots of questions about technique, execution etc. in my school years, but I’ve always admired how he encouraged us to exceed our limits and what little we already knew to became so much more. I’ve always asked myself how was he able to believe that much in us to make us really reach new levels and improve so much. How was he able to do that? It still looks amazing to me after six years. The point is that he taught me that you can do whatever you want to do just by trying and wanting it. It’s amazing.

Tell us something about yourself that people wouldn’t normally know!
I’m quite an open book! But probably many people don’t know that I’m a huge nerd and I love PC games: I’m a Blizzard and Riot fan and I painfully admit that I spend way too much time on games.

Your Links (Facebook/Twitter/Website/Instagram/etc.)
Instagram: @ladyofshalott89

Name:
Lyndon White

In a sentence, who are you and what do you do?
I’m an illustrator, comic artist, designer and sometimes writer.

What got you started? Was there a specific moment or time when you released “this is what I want to do”?
I’ve always been interested in art and animation. I knew I was going to do something art related, most likely illustration. While I was in college someone handed me a copy of Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and that is when it “clicked”. I’d already made a few short comics at that point but I didn’t release what the comics medium was or meant. I read comics but didn’t want to draw superheroes. Despite Arkham being a Batman story, it opened up what comics were to me, both from a writing and art perspective.

What was your favourite comic growing up?
I loved Spider-man. I’m from a small town so I had limited access to them growing up. The only things I could get hold of were what I could find in a WHSmith and that was only if I got there first, before the few copies were sold out. I once managed to buy a collection of someones comics on a car boot sale, that was like a gold mine.

What was the first piece of work or project that you were really proud of?
That would be Pinnacle, my second fully printed 24 page comic. It’s a silent comic and drawn completely with pencil. It follows an old man trying to reach the top of the mountain with a monster chasing him through the blizzard. Since the artwork was really stripped back, everything had to work. The emotions, body language, pacing etc.

I usually dislike a lot of my work. Especially once its a few months old. But Pinnacle is one of the favourite one-shots that I’ve done. Its now out of print but people who bought my early work still bring it up, which is a sign that people liked it and the silent storytelling worked.

What is your preferred material to work with?
I mix a lot of different media but if I had to narrow it down to a single one, that would be a Staedtler Mars pencil. If you can’t tell, I love sketchy line work and I feel my illustrations hold up with just pencils (if they need too). Adding the inks, paint and colour is extra.

What is your least liked material to work with?
Watercolour. I despise using the stuff. How it mixes and even moves across the page is grim. People tend to look at my work and thing I use watercolour a lot, but it is in fact ink.

What’s your dream project. Forget about money, time, popular demand or any other variable. If that was all covered and you would work on whatever you wanted. What would it be?
Generally it would be one of my own stories. If I could sit and write my stuff and then create it into comics, that would be the dream projects. I do enjoy working with other people and writers but getting to every aspect of making a comic is fun but also really rewarding. Working by yourself means you can see it all coming together from the initial stages. Thankfully I do get to write and illustrate my own stories, but not all the time. I’d go into more details about said stories, but I aim to pitch them so your out of luck.

To name something that people might know, I’d love to take a stab at Dorian Grey in graphic novel format or a Shakespeare story. Drawing The Dark Tower would also be amazing to do, but alas, its already been done.

If you were hired to create a book cover based on a classic story. What would the story be and how would you tackle creating it?
I’ve already done this and it was Bram Stroker’s Dracula. Which came from sketch out the idea when I was waiting for a painting to try. The cover showcased Castle Dracula with candles in the foreground and a vampire-esk skull floating above the castle. It had a lot of purples and orange glows. It was one of my favourite single illustrations.

If you had a spirit animal, what would it be?
An otter or a platypus. Depends on the season.

What are you currently working on and what’s coming up in the future?
I’ve just finished working on a new concertina book based on H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu which will be out in May. I’m currently working on a 4 part mini series for Hellbound Media, Mandy the Monster Hunter with each issue being released every few months this year. There also a bunch of stuff from Blue Fox Comics, including a new Hexes story.

Other than that, I’m developing a few different pitches at the moment. We will see what happens in the coming months.

Which artist(s) would you like to see interviewed? Why?
Alexis Deacon. He is fairly new to the world of graphic novels but his work on Geis is utterly amazing. You can tell he has a long history in illustration and children’s books. Hearing him talk about his approach and what else he plans to do after he finished the final Geis book would be interesting.

What questions (apart from these ones!) would you like to ask them?
I think I supplied a number of these questions to Blue Fox (you have now been publicly outed). So a good chuck of the questions above.

Tell us something about yourself that people wouldn’t normally know!
I’m partly colourblind, detest wearing socks and don’t drink milk.

Your Links (Facebook/Twitter/Website/Instagram/etc.)
Twitter: @lyndondraws
Instagram: @lyndondraws
Website: www.lyndonwhite.com