Handling the PR and marketing for Image Comics is only one of the many things that keep Joe Keatinge busy. Just nominated for a Harvey Award for Popgun, Volume 2, which he coedited with Mark Andrew Smith, Keatinge has just written an open letter explaining why the Harveys matter—and why they should be supported throughout the comics industry. He’s also set to announce he’ll be coediting another original graphic novel, this time with illustrator Jim Rugg and a writer he describes as someone “whose made his name well-known in another medium.” While we wait for that announcement, read up on Joe and his love of the graphic format.
Do you remember your first comic book or graphic novel? If so, what was it?
I’m not exactly sure. Comics have been in my life as long as I can possibly remember. They’ve always been there. The strange part is no one in my family can think of why. No one recalls buying them for me. No one had read them since they were children. Yet somehow they infected my life and have never let go. There are even photos of me around age four reading Uncanny X-Men #205 in bed while on vacation with my grandparents. It’s not like either of them were massive Barry Windsor-Smith fans. They probably didn’t think it was any different from Gasoline Alley or Thimble Theatre. Yet, there it was.
What do you love about the graphic novel as a format for storytelling?
I think graphic storytelling in general—whether it’s done in a graphic novel, comic book, strip, or whatever form it takes—has an immense amount of potential that’s yet to be fully explored.
It’s why the rampant nay-saying and cynicism about comics boggles my mind. I can’t buy that the graphic novel is getting progressively stagnant when David Mazzucchelli creates Asterios Polyp or the single issue is long over with each and every time Mike Allred does another episode of Madman or when something like Ivan Brandon and Nic Klein’s Viking comes along and changes the entire format while respecting its roots.
Then there’s the great genre debate. I look at what Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley do in Invincible on any given month and am fascinated by what they’re doing with superheroes, stretching the potential of typical tropes and creating something very new, very refreshing.
And yet the superhero genre is tired? They’re long past their potential? Really?
I don’t buy it.
I love superhero comic books, I love graphic novels about washed-up architects, I love collections of comic strips the size of a car door. I look at all these different approaches and am continually fascinated by what’s next. For a medium that’s barely a hundred years old, there’s just no way we have even begun to reach the limit of what’s possible.
Whose work do you admire?
Erik Larsen, Mike Allred, and Art Spiegelman easily form my personal Holy Trinity of Comics, as they’re the three people most influential on not only what I love about comics but why I wanted nothing more than to dedicate nearly every waking moment to them, whether it’s editing an anthology or writing a press release.
Windsor McCay, Jack Kirby, Moebius, Harvey Kurtzman, Katsuhiro Otomo, Robert Crumb, Dave Mazzuchelli, Brendan McCarthy, Osamu Tezuka, Floyd Gottfredson, Gary Panter, Alex Nino, Jamie Hewlett, Alex Toth, Paul Pope, Daniel Torres, Frank Miller, Brian Bolland, Chester Gould, Al Columbia, Los Bros Hernandez, Will Eisner, Naoki Urasawa, Dan Clowes, Carl Barks, Rob Liefeld, Chris Ware, Frank Cho, Wally Wood, Charles Schultz, Barry Windsor-Smith, Steve Ditko, Rob Schrab, John Romita Jr., Darwyn Cooke, Ladronn, Frank Quietly, Liberatore, Dan Brereton, Milo Manara, Steve Seagle, Kyle Baker, Dave Stevens, Kevin Eastman, Jeff Smith, and others I’ll feel foolish for leaving out all helped build on the passion the Holy Trinity initially formed.
Who do you read outside of the graphic novel format?
Whatever I can get my hands on, really.
Right now, I’m thoroughly studying both volumes of Brian Hibbs’ Tilting at Windmills while concurrently reading T.C. Boyle’s The Women and Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s The Strain purely for pleasure.
Tilting at Windmills is a great read and a must for anyone either pursuing or currently in a professional position in comics. I can’t say I agree with Brian on everything, but Windmills contains some amazing insight into one and a half decades of comics’ history at its most tumultuous, at least from a retail standpoint.
The Women is all about Frank Lloyd Wright’s many love affairs. The Strain’s about vampires. It’s a good mix.
Once all those are done, I’m moving along to finally reading Roberto Bolano’s 2666, which has been staring me down from my bookshelf for way too long. I also read my share of magazines, especially Empire, The Believer, and Interview.
How many graphic novels do you read a month? How many of those are manga?
I don’t know the answer to either of these questions. I’m constantly reading comics, whether it be singles, graphic novels, or manga. Right now, I just finished Asterios Polyp, Dave Mazzuchelli’s latest, and on my stack is an Alex Nino issue of Rampaging Hulk, DC’s Wednesday Comics #1, Tezuka’s Black Jack, Vol. 5, Ranx, Vol. 2, Walking Dead #63/Chew #1, and leaning on the side of my desk. is Sunday Press’ The Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz.
I like the variety and find it hard to quantify just how much I read and what types I prefer.
How did you first get involved in the field professionally?
Mark Englert was a high-school buddy of mine who broke into illustrating comics big-time with a Freak Force backup story in Savage Dragon #115. We were talking about comics in general and then he brought up the gig. It wasn’t going well. Working with Erik was a dream come true. The story was a lot of fun. Yet their color flatter just quit and they were in a bit of a bind. They had to scramble to get someone. I asked what the hell a color flatter was. He explained. It’s someone who lays out the colors in Photoshop for the colorist to go in and render. Pretty crappy job. Nearly zero pay for a lot of monotonous work. I volunteered, not knowing a thing about Photoshop. Surprisingly, it worked out and I started color flatting comics for about a year or so. Every night at around midnight, I’d come home from my videostore gig, color flat until around ten in the morning, go to bed and wake up a few hours later for more videostore fun.
Along the line, I got to know Erik Larsen pretty well. He lived right across the bay, in Oakland, so I eventually became his go-to guy for any color flatting work he needed. Through that and hanging out at shows we became pretty good friends.
It was kinda strange, in a really good way. This guy was one of my personal heroes, one of the very reasons I got so obsessed with making comics in any way in the first place. Palling around with him was pretty damn awesome.
During this time, I also started volunteering for convention booths. I had run Image’s booth almost by mistake at Wizard World LA 2004. I helped Robert Kirkman with his booth in San Diego of the same year. It was there Erik came up to me and asked how life was going. “Well,” I said. “My girlfriend’s left me, I hate my job at the videostore, and I color comics alone in my tiny apartment until the wee hours of the next afternoon.”
He asked how I liked that. I said I didn’t.
“Huh,” he said. “Why don’t you come work for me?”
My mind exploded.
Apparently, Image was moving to Berkeley the fall of that year and they had positions to fill. They specifically needed a new inventory controller, basically a mailroom boy who also kept an eye on their stock and sales velocity. And that’s where my professional career truly started. I’ve been working at Image for five years now, about to start my sixth. It’s been one of the best times of my life, and I hope it continues for a long time to come.
I look at what’s going on in comics, what I think is coming down the line, and I can’t imagine a better place to be. Not every book we do is my cup of tea, but it’s all new and exciting. I’m not forced to talk about the next regurgitation of half-century-old characters or the next licensed craze. It’s all people’s personal passions, whether they’re about cannibal detectives, slice-of-life moments, war-torn animal men, lovelorn robots, criminal Vikings, or transdimensional superspies.
It’s never stagnant. Never the same old B.S. It’s where everything new and different in comics is coming from. I’m damned excited and honored to be at Image, during this time more so than any other.
What kind of reaction do you get when you tell people what you do?
There’s definitely been a noticeable growing acceptance, if not outright excitement, over the last several years whenever I tell someone I work in comics. Sure, I glaze over the details of organizing Image’s convention appearances or spending my nights working on Excel files and Word docs, but people are definitely into it.
Do you collect comics? What is the most valuable piece of art, graphic novel, or comic book in your collection?
Oh, God, yes.
I collect comics like no tomorrow. It’s a sickness.
I’ve got a huge collection of single issues ranging from some Golden age favorites like Fantastic Comics to undergrounds such as Mickey Mouse Meets the Air Pirates Funnies. There’s beloved runs like Miracleman, THB, and Flex Mentallo in there, among one-offs that never took off in Casual Heroes #1.
In more recent years, I’ve begun amassing a collection of art books focused on comics artists. Stuff like Toth by Design, StudioSpace, Swimini Purpose, The Studio, Process Recess, PulpHope, and Rakuga King. I love seeing glimpses into these comics gods’ naked art well before they’re done.
Artwise, it’s a three-way tie between Mike Allred’s original cover to PopGun, Vol. 1, Erik Larsen Gorilla Mayor Vs. Bacon Mummy double-page spread, and the sketchbook of robot drawings I’ve been carrying around conventions since 2006. It’s almost like a journal of my career in comics the past few years.
Is there something you covet adding to your collection?
Without question, my two biggest holy grails are currently, in order, Alex Nino’s Satan’s Tears and then the original hardcover edition of Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times by Carl Barks. Both of those books are ridiculously expensive beyond my means, yet so damn gorgeous in their own unique ways. I hope to someday luck my way into even just reading them once.
