Interview: Mark Todd : Earz Magazine

Interview: Mark Todd

October 8, 2008 · Words: Martin S ·

BREAKFAST CLUB: commissioned by Entertainment Weekly. I caught up with Los Angeles based illustrator, zine-maker and author of several graphic books, Mark Todd. Between illustrating for clients including New York Times, Rolling Stone and Spin Magazine, Mark has pursued his unique visual style through zines, comiccs and graphic books. He frequently collaborates with his wife and fellow illustrator Esther Pearl Watson. For more info check marktoddillustration.com and funchicken.com.

MS: How did you get into drawing / illustration? Were you creative as a child?

MT: “Like a lot of kids growing up in the late 70’s and early 80’s in the U.S., things like comics, the Star Wars craze and heavy metal hair bands had a huge influence on me and my friends. One of the earliest memories of drawing was when my dad showed me how he draw war scenes as a kid. Army men, airplanes bombing, etc. I was probably about 7. Then I drew a lot because of Star Wars, the death star, space fights, etc. When I was 15 or so, I got into collecting comics and that whole dungeons and dragons role playing thing. I wasn’t into that so much but I really liked creating my own comic characters, and giving them stats like the D and A games. Agility, strength, powers, weapons, etc. So I was pretty creative a kid. I think I knew that I wanted to draw for a living for a long time. I remember telling kids in my 6th grade class that I was going to be an artist and that I was going to art school after high school.”

MS: What was the transition to adult illustrator like-– did those influences from childhood– the comics, the superheros, etc– stay with you?

MT: “They did. At first I tried to be what I thought a real artist was. I majored in fine art and created really bad, dramatic works full of emotion and angst. It wasn’t until a bit later that I started to look back, referencing childhood imagery, etc. When the chairman of art center college at the time, Phil Hayes, discovered that I was from Las Vegas, he really encouraged me to go with that. To pull my work from what I grew up with: the wedding chapels, neon lights, all the gaudy and tacky stuff. It became a great jumping off point. I would go back home to visit, take pictures, talk to friends and create art from it all. [>>]”

BAD ASSES: illustrations from Mark's series, now a book out on BlueQ.

“[>>] I rediscovered my old comic collection in my bedroom closet, old sketchbooks of the superhero stuff. The superhero stuff I have been doing lately, the altered comic covers, etc. are really pretty recent. The last few years or so. My wife, Esther Watson, also an artist, and I both seem to be extremely influenced by our surroundings. When we moved a few hours north of New York city for a bit, into a big old house on a few acres of farmland, our styles changed again. I started paintings flowers and Esther began her landscape series. Before that we had lived in Brooklyn and were painting grittier, rougher things. Now that we are in Los Angeles, it has evolved again. I think the whole film industry out here has something to do with it. I feel that the work i am creating now is my best yet. And thats a good feeling. I am glad that I am still really excited about what I create. It’s hard to always keep that going.”

MS: So how did you become a “professional” illustrator, what was your first break?

MT: “Immediately after graduation from Art Center (College of Design in Pasadena, California) in 1993, I moved to New York. My first job was for The New Yorker magazine. It was amazing to drop your portfolio off on a Wednesday, get a job from them on a Thursday, and see it in print on Monday. It was a nice starting point and gave me the confidence to start showing my book all over the city, Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, etc.”

ENTER DOCTOR DOOM: a personal project

MS: That must have been pretty sweet. So you’ve not been out of a career in illustration since you finished college?

MT: “Yeah, that was really important to me. I wanted to hit the ground running. Almost immediately after graduation in ‘93 I packed up my stuff and moved to New York with some friends. It was tough at first, I had just met Esther (Pearl Watson, a fellow illustrator and Mark’s wife) a few months prior. But we felt it best to keep the plans of me moving to NY in place just so there weren’t any regrets or whatever if things didn’t work out. Although I was pretty confident that we were going to be together forever, it just felt that way. So, I am proud to say that after college, I haven’t had a “real” job. What I do feels like play most of the time. I always try to keep that in check and remember how lucky I am to do what I do. I mean, not all of it is wonderful, you get the jobs that really suck or stress you out, but for the most part, they are rewarding in some sense.”

MS: What’s a typical routine like when you get a gig from one of the big newspapers / magazines?

MT: “My typical routine when I get a job has evolved a lot over the years. When I first started in 93′ you would build the portfolio, create some promo cards, mail them out to people who I found by going to Barnes and Noble and handwriting every art directors name and contact info. down from the magazine’s masthead. I would do this for every card I would mail out because names would change, and people moved around a lot. It was a lot of work but also really helped me find out who would and would not use my kind of work. Now its much easier to just buy a list from a place like ADBASE and do a shotgun mailing of a 1000 cards, blindly sending to everyone. I mean, that can work too at times, sometimes you get a call from some art director at a magazine you never thought would call. But overall, I have found that my best clients, the ones I have worked with for years, were from my targeted lists, the magazines that I went directly to, in person, met with them, shook their hands. Those type of relationships are the best kind to have.”

PAVEMENT: commissioned by Spin Magazine

MS: How did you at Esther meet–- do you collaborate together on work?

MT: “Esther and I met at Art Center College. I was just finishing up while she had another year and a half left. I was drawn to her work from seeing it at the school art show. We have collaborated on a few pieces but found that difficult. We work best together on things like book ideas, curating art shows, teaching, things like that. Nearly all of our books have been some sort of collaborative effort. For the zine book (Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine?) we both drew, hired other artists to contribute and brainstormed together. I usually design all the books, including Esther’s Romeo and Juliet and her newest book Unlovable, which will be out in October. I am more of the computer guy. Esther’s more of the “we can do this!!!” type. She really gets us motivated and excited about projects and sees them through to finish. A good team.”

MS: You mentioned the zine book (Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine). Can you tell us about your background with zines and the creation of the book?

MT: “I got into zines after moving to Los Angeles from New York. A lot of people we met were making them and they just seemed like a lot of fun. It was all new and exciting to us. I had made some zines years before in NY but didn’t really know what they were or how big this underground movement was. The book idea came from a workshop we put together for a library talk and lecture for teens. We had all this material we were using to show teens all about this stuff and so we just decided to make a book from it. We were also teaching a class at the time about book making at art center. The students were expected to create a book by the end of the semester and so we just went through the steps with them, and by the end of the class, we had the zine book ready to pitch to our editor at Houghton Mifflin.”

Links

Mark Todd Illustration
Fun Chicken
Esther Pearl Watson

Books by / featuring Mark Todd

BAS ASSES
Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine? The Art of Making Zines and Mini Comics

Image credits: Mark Todd

Posted in Art & Interviews