POP Creator® Showcase: Dredious
This week on POP Showcase we're doing something a little different: instead of a single title, we're featuring artist Dredious and his various titles available on POP Comics!
In Life of Death, the Grim Reaper and all powerful entity Death, has been fired. Exiled to the mortal world he seeks to get his job back by catching the rogue soul Kisei, a shaman who has escaped dying for over a thousand years and gone slightly senile. Death will stop at nothing to take him down and won't let anything, Gods or part-time work, stand in his way.
Next up is Mad Hands, where we follow the story of a scientist on a quest for vengeance with a glove that can break all laws of physics.
And last but by no means least we have FLAME. Infernious, God of Fire lead a rebellion against heaven when he felt the Gods were unfit to rule, but in the end he was defeated. Because of his heroic history he was given a trial and sentenced into exile to live among humans until he has earned his rank back. Reduced to a teen he is flung to Earth where he meets Felix, a brilliant girl with a fascination for the occult and a knowledge of the gods that were steadily becoming myth.
ARTIST Q&A
What inspired you to start making comics? What are your favorite series/authors?
My love of anime. Sound cliché to say I think but I was raised on Toonami [at the time running Robotech, Outlaw Star, Dragonball Z etc] and other anime blocks on TV. I really wanted to make my own anime because it was uplifting for me and I wanted to share that positivity with the world. The only way I learned to do that was to get a manga published first. So, that’s what I set out to do. Some of my biggest manga inspirations are Tsugumi Obha [Bakuman], Akira Toriyama [Dragonball Z], Eric Nylund [Halo series] and Eoin Colfer [Artemis Fowl].
How did you start making your own comics?
I started making my own comics in middle school as stick men fighting panel to panel. My stories evolved more but my art was falling short, but I couldn’t let that stop me. So, I would team up with friends in school and do the stories while they did the art. My first big story was Life of Death. Friends liked it so I just kept writing more stories.
Can you tell us a bit about your creative process?
It all starts with a thought. An idea of some place or character or device brought on by outside stimuli. Life of Death came when me and my friends were doing commentary on the movie Final Destination and what death in that movie would be thinking. Anything can bring about the inspiration. A daydream or an interesting class, just write the idea down when it comes and build on it later. Even have a few in the middle night. I always have pen with me, never know when the ideas will hit.
If you could offer one piece of advice to other creators, what would it be?
Be ambitious with your work. A lot of creators get discouraged too easily or believe their work isn’t good enough, but while we have to be our own biggest critics we have to be our biggest fans. Push your skills and don’t be afraid to just go for it. If you have a dream and want to make comics go for it, don’t let anything stop you especially yourself.
