mm www.​cow​shell.com

Intro­duc­tion

Mike Mai­hack is a grad­u­ate from the Colum­bus Col­lege of Art and Design and spends his time draw­ing pic­tures of pixies, super­heroes, space girls and just about any­thing else he can think of that might involve a giant pink heart or serv­ing tea. He is the editor and art direc­tor of the upcom­ing Chris­t­ian comic anthol­ogy, Para­ble, cre­ator of the weekly all-​ages web­comic comic, Cow & Buf­falo, and member of both the bi-​weekly art chal­lenge group, Draw­erGeeks, and all-​ages web­comic alliance, Lunch­box Fun­nies. Cur­rently Mike is hard at work edit­ing and con­tribut­ing to a second volume of Para­ble, making slow progress on his “just for fun” sci-​fi epic, Cleopa­tra in Spaaace!!, and watch­ing lots of movies with his wife and two Siamese cats down in far too hot and humid Tampa, Fl. His most recent work can be found in the Tori Amos inspired anthol­ogy, Comic Book Tattoo, pub­lished by Image comics.

Do you have a secret identity?

That would be telling, wouldn’t it?

So we know you’re a fan­tas­tic illus­tra­tor and you draw great car­toons and comics, but what I would like to know is how do you actu­ally earn your bread and butter?

I work at a place called Saint Leo Uni­ver­sity where I spend my time draw­ing up illus­tra­tions and graph­ics for the online courses that they offer. Not the most illus­tri­ous day job, but it’s close to home and I get to spend my day in front of a com­puter which is just fine with me.
 
Other than that I take on some free­lance here and there and do fairly well with my own comics and other side projects.

Who is your favourite mutant from the Marvel universe?

Kitty Pryde! Though, Molly Hayes from Run­aways has been slowly taking over that spot since she debuted.

Apart from art and illus­tra­tion what other things are you into?

Those famil­iar with my blog will know that I’m huge into movies and music, though they may not know to what extreme. Jen and I try to go to the the­ater at least once a week and I’m addicted to buying spe­cial edi­tion DVDs even though I never have time to watch them, much less open them. And I listen to music about four­teen hours a day. I love it so much that if I wasn’t draw­ing all the time, I’d be prac­tic­ing my guitar more so I could be a rock star. I still kinda wish I was a rock star.
 
I’m not an avid TV watcher, but there are a vari­ety of TV shows I try to keep up with too. DVR has been a God­send. I mean that lit­er­ally. I think God was watch­ing us rip our brains out trying to remem­ber to set our VCRs and find­ing blank VHS tapes that one day he just said, “I shall give them DVR.” And it was good.

What do you get out of all the con­ven­tions you attend?

I don’t think I really attend that many. Not as many as a lot of my peers do at least. But my favorite part about con­ven­tions is just seeing all of my friends who I only really get to see when I go to these things. We spend so much of our time talk­ing to each other online or exchang­ing emails that it’s nice to just being able to hang out and drink a beer or some­thing. Except I’m usu­ally the one get­ting made fun of for order­ing an apple­tini. And I never do hear the end of it. And then some­one starts an argu­ment and I’m dodg­ing a pool stick and the next thing I know there’s apple­tini all over my favorite shirt. Actu­ally, my friends suck.
 
I like sell­ing books.

Who are your favourite artists/illustrators alive today?

Alive? Well, wow. There’s a ton. Jeff Smith has prob­a­bly been my biggest influ­ence for as long as I can remem­ber and the reason I started draw­ing comics in the first place. Craig Thomp­son almost made me get up and quit after I read Blan­kets. Just about four days ago I finally read through the first four Scott Pil­grim books and have now joined the giant legion of Bryan Lee O’Mally fans. Those books are incred­i­ble. I think all my favorite artists draw comics.
 
But hon­estly, and I mean this too, my absolute favorite artists are the ones I con­sider friends. Every­one involved with Para­ble, the Lunch­box guys, my fellow Florid­ian artists- seeing the awe­some work they pro­duce is what really inspires me to create awe­some work too. Most of the time I’m just trying to keep up.
 
And then there’s the count­less number of artists I dis­cover on the web. I think there’s a new one every­day. I still remem­ber the first time I dis­cov­ered Bill Press­ing and I was like, “How am I just now find­ing out about this guy?” I do that a lot.

Web-comics… why do it, why not just self pub­lish a real comic?

It’s cheaper! Haha. Seri­ously though, it’s cheaper. You don’t have to front the expense to print a ton of books and just hope you’ll some­how make enough money to print the next issue. Web­comics are just so much easier and instan­ta­neous. Like Kool-​Aid. Plus, I’d like to have my comics read by as many people as pos­si­ble regard­less if I’m making money from them or not. The inter­nets make that pos­si­ble. The web­comics com­mu­nity is one of the best com­mu­ni­ties in the world. We all totally pro­mote and sup­port each other because, for the most part, we’re all in the same boat. We all are just doing what we love regard­less of finan­cial gain.
 
That said, I am actu­ally start­ing to branch out more into the print world with my C&B col­lec­tions and Cleo and other stuff. But I can’t ever see me leav­ing the web­comics world entirely. I’d never have been able to do some­thing like Jour­ney Cow in print. It’s just more fun to be on the web.

Do you ever dabble in the realm of animation?

Well, I minored in ani­ma­tion in Col­lege because I hon­estly thought that’s what I was going to do after grad­u­at­ing. But then that whole tra­di­tional ani­ma­tion field kinda crashed my third year in and I never pur­sued it any fur­ther. Now I’m con­tent just draw­ing comics.
 
I still love ani­ma­tion though and drag my wife to more ani­mated films then she’d prob­a­bly like. Seeing Cow & Buf­falo ani­mated would cer­tainly be cool, but some­one would need to show me how they are drawn from some­thing other then a three-​quarter pro­file. I still don’t even know.
 
Your book ‘cow & buf­falo – adven­tures in sand­wich making’ in your store on your site – you offer to do a free sketch inside when one is pur­chased. So, let me get this right, not only does it only cost $10, you also get an orig­i­nal bit of art­work thrown into the bar­gain?
 
Haha! Well, I hope others see it that way! But yeah. The least I can do for some­one buying my silly car­toons is to draw them a little sketch.
 

Are you involved in any col­lab­o­ra­tive projects at the moment and is there anyone you would like to work with?
 
Over thirty other cre­ators and I are in the midst of Para­ble, Volume Two, an anthol­ogy meant to inspire the themes of faith, love and grace (the first volume is due out this Decem­ber). Orga­niz­ing that is my biggest project at the moment.
 
As far as work­ing directly with another artist, that would depend on the project and my avail­abil­ity. Most likely if I did work col­lab­o­ra­tively it would be with one of my friends, but it just depends on what comes up. I’m so busy with my own projects that I seldom have time to focus on any­thing else unfor­tu­nately.
 
What’s next in the pipeline for Mike Mai­hack?
 
I’m putting together Cow & Buffalo’s second book right now. That should be out early next year- just in time to get lost in the midst of the release of Scott Pil­grim vol. 5.
 
I’m also doing my best to plow ahead with Cleopa­tra in Spaaace! which is tough since I only work on it during my free time- of which I have none. I have four issues out­lined though and do intend to finish them even if it takes me the rest of my life.
 

Beans, Spaghetti, Hoops or Alpha­bet Shapes in tomato sauce?
 
NONE! My friends will vouch for me on this- I am one of the pick­i­est eaters known to man and tomato sauce is at the top of my list of least favorites. I can really only stand it on pizza or lasagna, and even then it needs to be barely on there.
 
Cow or Buf­falo?
 
Oh, Cow. Def­i­nitely. Buffalo’s a sour puss.
 
Alice in Won­der­land or Alice Cooper?
 
Alice in Won­der­land! I’d love to do a whole project with that some day. And do people even still listen to Alice Cooper? Doesn’t he just play golf now?

You can see more of Mike Maihack’s work at
www.​cow​shell.com

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Cats: Animation, Editor's Choice, LCS Interviews, Recent News
Tags: Alice Cooper, art challenge group, Bill Pressing, Bryan Lee O'Mally, Buffalo, Columbus College of Art and Design, comics, Cow & Buffalo, Craig Thompson, DrawerGeeks, Florida, golf, Haha, Interviews, Jeff Smith, Kitty Pryde, Lunchbox Funnies, Mike Maihack, Molly Hayes, online courses, Parable, Saint Leo University, Scott Pilgrim, Tampa, USD, Web-comics