HIVE is a locally-produced quarterly comics anthology with international distribution. The fourth edition is due out at the end of April and is loaded with talented cartoonists. TAGSGF.com is tracking down its contributors to give you an inside look at what makes these cartoonists tick.
Malachi Ward is a second-time contributor to HIVE, but his work wasn’t always that of cartoon strips and comics. Six years ago Ward was a gallery artist, but then he made the jump. From Pasadena, CA, Ward is displayed at various spots across the U.S. When he’s not drawing, you can find him posted up at comic conventions or with his band – The Denouement (check out this non-traditional music notation … sweet!).
TAGsgf.com: How has your style changed and grown from a few years ago? It’s a pretty drastic difference.
Malachi Ward: It all happened pretty gradually. I think the style of art has changed a lot to suit the kinds of stories I want to tell through comics. It was a big jump for me to go from paintings for a gallery to the comic world. Of course, within the frame of comics there’s a huge variety of work, and I still wasn’t sure exactly what kind of comics I wanted to make. Slowly I honed in on what I liked and what I wanted to do.
MW: A lot of it was just making comics. I’d make a comic and not really be satisfied with it, either the artwork or the type of story, so I’d make adjustments on the next effort. I didn’t finish many of them, but it was all part of that “honing in” process. Of course I’d be inspired by other comics along the way and incorporate what I liked, or stay away from what I didn’t want to do. I was (and still am) probably soaking up lots of inspiration from other forms of storytelling also, like tv or movies.
MW: I think I’m just in a process of circling closer and closer to what I want to do. My work from six years ago doesn’t look a thing like what I’m doing now, it wasn’t even comics then, but I think the comics I’ll be doing six years from now won’t look quite so different from my present work. Hopefully it will be a lot better though!
TAG: When did you know this would play a major role in your life? How did you get started?
MW: I’ve been drawing my entire life, and I always knew that I wanted to be doing something art-related, but I jumped around between what specifically I wanted to do all throughout high school and college. I was a studio art major in collage, but towards the end I started to get into comics. One of the librarians at the school was actually giving me lists of good stuff to read: Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing, some Sandman comics, Hellboy, all mostly superhero related. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon “McSweeney’s Vol. 13″ (the one edited by Chris Ware and filled with old newspaper and “alternative” comics) that I started thinking of comics as something I wanted to actually make and not just read. I’ve been focusing on making comics ever since.
MW: Jordan at Grimalkin Press sent me an email asking if I wanted to submit something to Hive 3, I think after seeing some of my work online. I looked at some of the stuff he published in the previous volumes and like it a lot, so I got to work!
MW: A lot of the work I do draws on history and science. I’m always reading history books in particular. Usually ideas come while I’m reading about ancient civilizations. From there I start making notes, writing down ideas. Over time they sort of coagulate into a rough story and I start to write outlines and layout thumbnails of pages.
MW: Right now I mostly self-publish. I have a story called “The Scout” in Hive 3, and I’ll have story over at TopShelf 2.0 pretty soon. The easiest way to get my work is at my website, malachiward.blogspot.com. My comics are also at some comic shops scattered across north america, like Meltdown in LA, Floating World in Portland, Desert Island in New York, and Lucky’s in Vancouver.
MW: I like the most recent Joanna Newsom album a lot, but I also feel like I’ve just begun to dig into it. It’s more than two hours long, and I don’t think she repeats lyrics much!
MW: I’d probably toss a brick at Ignatz from Krazy Kat. He needs some of his own medicine!
TAG: Beer or coffee?
MW: Coffee I guess… but I don’t like either very much.
TAG: Favorite midnight snack?
MW: Those Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies.
MW: I’ll be at Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland April 24-25, so stop by the booth if you can! Also, go to malachiward.blogspot.com all the time! It’ll make you happy.
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