The Martlet

What: Modern Myths and Icons: The Comic Art of Ken Steacy

Where: Winchester Galleries

When: now until March 28

In his 35-year career as a comic book illustrator/author, Ken Steacy never thought he would have his work displayed in a fancy art gallery. But from March 8 to 28, Victoria’s Winchester Galleries will do just that, hosting “Modern Myths and Icons: The Comic Art of Ken Steacy.”

The exhibit is a retrospective look at Steacy’s career and the role of the artist in the comic book industry. Over the years, Steacy has illustrated prolific pop culture icons like Spiderman, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Astro Boy, X-Men and Batman in his signature style — vibrant colours, dramatic lines and incredibly expressive, almost cartoon-like faces. His work always conveys the sense of action and fun that comics were made for.

Calling his illustrations eye-candy would be dismissive, but there is something about his work that grabs the focal point and won’t let it go.

Steacy’s first break came in 1974, when his two-page strip Super Student was published in Orb Magazine. He wrote, penciled, inked and lettered the strip, setting the tone for his preferred “do everything” approach to comics.

“I like to accept all the credit, or take all the blame,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of the compartmentalization of every part of comic production that allows the whole product to suffer if one person is in a rush to meet a deadline.”

Steacy continued to do things his own way after Super Student. He went on to the Ontario College of Art & Design to study film, but insisted on handing in comic strips instead of films as examples of sequential narrative, winning him scholarships and the Lieutenant Governor’s Medal in the process.

Since then, he has worked on many significant projects and has made a name for himself in his field. Some of Steacy’s most notable works include The Sacred and the Profane, co-authored by Dean Motter, Night and the Enemy, a collection of stories by Harlan Ellison and Tempus Fugitive, a time-travelling adventure graphic novel by Steacy that he exercised complete creative control over, much like Super Student.

For the last 20 years, Steacy has intermittently done illustrations for LUCASFILMS; he has never met George Lucas, though, despite the fact that Lucas has purchased some of his paintings. Steacy also occasionally collaborates with Canadian author Douglas Coupland.

Steacy has been in the comic book industry for a long time, and he’s seen comic book characters emerge from dark basements and transform into Hollywood money makers — but he isn’t convinced that things have evolved much.

“Despite the booms and busts in comics, it still hasn’t moved very far beyond the male adolescent power fantasies,” he said. “It is changing, but you still only really see superheroes in comic shops.”

Steacy pointed out that in the ‘40s and ‘50s there was a wider range of comic book genres that appealed to a broader demographic of readers. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, superhero comics proved to be the most profitable, as they continue to be today. It is changing, however, with the influx of Japanese comics and the rise of the graphic novel. The predominance of superhero comics isn’t the case everywhere in the world.

“In Japan and France, everyone reads comics. It’s more respected as an art medium and there are stories for everyone,” Steacy said.

This isn’t to say that Steacy doesn’t love superhero comics — Iron Man is his favourite character to draw — but he is interested in the other kinds of stories that comics can tell, like So, That’s That!, a graphic novel by his wife, Joan Steacy, that follows her father growing up in Canada during the depression and living to be 100 years old.

Steacy admits that the chances are bleak for budding artists looking to make it in the industry.

“It is next to impossible to get into mainstream comics these days unless you draw exactly like the guy who’s popular right now,” he said. “If they do take you, you’ll probably start as an apprentice pencil sharpener.”

The good news, Steacy says, is that web comics and self-publishing make it easy to get your work out there.

“You might not make a million dollars, but you can do something you love and have complete control over it,” he said.

For more on Ken and Joan’s work, visit kenspublishing.com.