Artist’s hobby becomes livelihood

Vincenzo Ravina

vravina@gmail.com

Hicks admires her work at Strange Adventures comic shop on Sackville Street.

Faith Erin Hicks is working on a graphic novel about being stalked by a ghost, homeschooling and high school drama. The last bits are partially inspired by her life.

Hicks was homeschooled until high school.

“I meet people who have gone through the school system and they’re very enamored with the idea of homeschooling and the idea of being free, of not having a life that’s so regimented. Which is actually kind of funny, because all I can think is, ‘Oh man, I wish I went to school.’”

Growing up in Ontario, she says she didn’t have a lot of friends, and had a tough time transitioning to public school.

Her graphic novel, Friends with Boys, is about a girl going through the same kind of high school experience after being homeschooled. She says the process is dredging up a lot of memories.

She remembers going to high school on the first day and being overwhelmed by the number of people.

“When I walked down the hallway, I would walk with my back to the wall, because I was scared of people walking behind me, and that sort of thing. It was just very strange remembering that. Things that I haven’t really thought about for years and years.”

With two graphic novels published and a Joe Shuster award for  Favorite Canadian Comic Creator under her belt, Hicks is now a successful cartoonist. She’s been working on her comics full-time for a little over a year, and she says she can see herself making comics forever.

But even doing something you love becomes a job.

“Even if you’re working your dream job, it can still be a grind. Nine in the morning to nine at night, constantly pumping out these panels,” Hicks says. “So you do lose something in the process. But at the same time, it feels like a ridiculous complaint.”

Hicks started out putting her comics online while in high school. She then went on to Sheridan College to study animation.

“I never, ever thought I’d make a living (in comics),” she says. “And ten years later, here I am, actually scraping out a living doing it.”

After wrapping up her online comic, Demonology 101, in 2004, Hicks moved to Halifax for a job in animation.

She pitched a graphic novel called Zombies Calling to a small comics company called Slave Labor Graphics. They eventually published both Zombies Calling and another of Hicks’ graphic novels, The War at Ellsmere.

While she was working on Ellsmere, she was asked to try out for an illustration gig with the Macmillan graphic novel imprint, First Second. She got the job, and pitched them Friends with Boys.

The graphic novel won’t come out until spring 2012, but on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, she works 12-hour days drawing panels.

Other than finishing Friends with Boys by June, her goal for the future is simply, “more comics,” she says.

“I hope that it eventually reaches the point where I am making enough money where I can actually live a little better. Like maybe have a house or something like that. But we’ll see. I’m pretty thrilled with where I am right now.”