Today we’d like to introduce you to LJ-Baptiste.
LJ, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
My story started off with a pen, paper, and a love of cartoons and animation. I loved to read and taught myself the basics of character design and learning to adapt to different styles. My love of reading (and kids’ book series like Captain Underpants) led me over to creating comic books that I’d give out to my classmates and friends.
One of these friends would challenge me in drawing competitions and we’d push and encourage each other to get better. Eventually, my first job saw me working at Artists for Humanity in Southie, where I got to hone my skills and start up my current comic series COMIXSCAPE, which started off with the DigBoston newspaper.
I’ve had the chance to learn and grow and different environments. Around the time, I was getting ready to start COMIXSCAPE, I discovered the Boston Comics Roundtable at a Comics Gallery Show I was a part of, and from there, things kept changing and getting better. Over the years, I’ve just been pushing and learning more and more! My journey has brought me to teaching workshops in areas like comics to companies like Hasbro and Google while growing my own small press piece-by-piece!
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I love working with the medium of comics, in particular, I feel it still hasn’t reached its full potential. The incredible thing about it is its limitless ability in terms of storytelling possibilities. I’ve also been given a more special love and appreciation for this art form in particular thanks to the work of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes.
A classmate of mine back in 2nd grade gave me her copy of one of the books since she knew I loved to draw and it blew my mind. There was and still is so much to unpack in that series! I also have had a deep love for the art of animation since the very beginning, which showed itself in ways like me freeze-framing animation cuts I recorded on VHS to study the work.
And one of the things it exposed me to was the debate on “high” vs. “low” art. My comic series COMIXSCAPE centers around the exploits of a 12-year-old boy and his raccoon sidekick. The inspiration is purely youth and the process of growing out of it gradually. One thing I’d say to know about my artwork and COMIXSCAPE, in particular, is that it exists to serve as something that fulfills a void of representation that I didn’t get to see for myself in popular media at all growing up.
I’d also say that one thing to know is that everything seen in a series like COMIXSCAPE, particularly when to read consecutively, is the energy and effort of a young person pushing to get better and thrive in this comic world. It’s my hope you can feel that level of growth and development as well, both writing and art-wise. I wish to provide something that’s worthy of the high level my heroes have presented already and does its own thing entirely too.
How do you think about success, as an artist, and what do quality do you feel is most helpful?
I define success overall as a very personal thing that’s quite relative. In terms of artistry, however, I view it as possessing a type of personal freedom. Having the luxury of time with your art as you craft it and being able to thoughtfully focus and be in a space creatively where you can control this type of space yourself for however long you want. A quality that I feel that is essential to success as an artist is an intelligence, since creativity needs a good degree of nuance to have any impact.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
People can read COMIXSCAPE on www.comixscape.net. Each of the four chapters can be read in their entirety there, with the 5th to be added in Spring 2019. I’ve also put together a motion comic of the series with original music and voice actors for the characters that can be found on YouTube as well, covering the first part of the series.
The ultimate ways to support the comic and allow it to grow is spreading the word with the site, as well as picking up the books available both on the site and in local comic shops around the city as well! There are currently three volumes of the series released covering the first four chapters of the series.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.comixscape.net
- Email: comixscapistlj@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/xscapistlj
- Twitter: twitter.com/xscapistlj
Image Credit:
XSCAPIST PRESS
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