Artist of the Month: Tim Broderick

Hello Cadets! I know it's been a while but work and my preparations for Anime Central have kept me quite preoccupied but let's not dwell on that. Today I would like to introduce an artist who created the Odd Jobs series. I met Mr. Broderick at C2E2 and his artwork caught my eye first. It's not terribly often you'll see an booth in Artist Alley selling only one book and have a single banner in black and white. This had me intrigued, so I stopped and spoke with him a bit and asked him to tell me about his book. He very happily told me about the detective type story he had created and after browsing the art and hearing what the story was about I was sold, not only by the story or his passion for his craft but his humbleness when presenting. Needless to say I bought the book and read it on the way back to the con the next day. The first thing I did was run back to his booth to tell him how much I loved it, there's fighting and romance and plot twists and it was just stunning. His art style is like none I've ever seen, it's simple without being overly so and yet it's powerful and there is not a single panel wasted. I had asked him if he would do me the honor of being the first featured Artist of the Month and I am pleased to present the very talented Tim Broderick.


How long have you been drawing and writing? Did one inspire the other?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been writing and drawing. They pretty much went hand-in-glove for me.


Speaking of inspiration, where do you get yours from? How did David Diangelo come about?

Well, David came out of a poster I drew for some friends’ band appearance back in 1985 here in Chicago. (See below) No one was doing any publicity, so I did up a poster. I had decided to just draw something, so I grabbed pen, ink and paper and did it – no penciling. And there was this character unlike anything I’d ever drawn before.

It took more than ten years to figure out who David ultimately was. That’s when I put together the idea of surviving in the new economy – where experts predicted that you would have more than one career over your lifetime and need to be continually retrained – with the idea of an amateur detective.


What medium do you use to create your artwork? Computer or traditional? What  are your tools of the trade?

I used to pencil, then ink. Then scan the inked page into the computer where I would finish it in Adobe Illustrator and photoshop. Now I pencil then scan the pencils in and use Illustrator and some custom brushes with a Wacom tablet to ink. Then I finish it in Photoshop. I save the files both as 600 dpi bitmap files as well as low rez jpgs for the web.


What is your favorite comic or book series? You can give one of each or an overall or however you like.

Oh, so many good artists. Love & Rockets had a huge impact on me, as well as Corto Maltese. I’m a Rex Stout fan, especially his titles. “If death ever slept” - how cool is that? The Travis McGee series is terrific too – David has been compared to him as well as a modern version of Jim Rockford.


What are your thought on conventions such as C2E2?

I love comic cons, as least the ones I’ve been to. I’ve never been to San Diego, but when there’s a good Artist Alley footprint I think it just adds to the whole atmosphere. There are smaller gems as well – SPACE in Columbus Ohio and Fallcon in Minn. These cons are what sets the comics world apart from the rest of the literati.


What is your favorite part of going to conventions?

Just being a part of the whole show – I’m there to sell books, but I want to make sure I’m at least entertaining to anyone willing to listen.


Do you have any big plans for David Diangelo in the future?

After this current story, I believe I’ll try a prose novel with him.


Is there anything you would like to say to the readers?

Ten years ago, a whole bunch of people were doing webcomics because there just wasn’t another pathway to readers. Now, so many of us have fallen by the wayside, but a few have persevered and have been published or a scrapping out a living. I guess the lesson is that if find a creator whose work you like, support that creator. Link to them, buy their books, encourage them. Because without that support, that encouragement, they’re going to go away.

It’s up to the readers, we need them, and we sure appreciate their support.

So there you have it, an exteremely talented and humble artist. Mr. Broderick will have a booth at Anime Central and I strongly suggest you all go buy his book! You can read his other Odd Jobs comics at http://www.timbroderick.net/ where you can also contact him. Please visit the Litter-ati fanpage in the sidebar where you can discuss Odds Jobs and participate in polls. This is War Kitten signing off and informing you that this is definitely an odd job.