From comic legends to horror lovers and kaiju kings, these five standout artists at Philly Fan Expo prove that the real show lives in the ink.
No time to read? Click the button below to listen to this post.
This year at Philly Fan Expo, while I perused for horror content, I was also on a mission to find some of the most eye-catching and iconic works of art. With artist alley a long stretch full of many experienced artists inking anything from original works, to cartoons like The Simpsons and Family Guy, and comics like Deadpool, Wolverine, and all their counterparts in between.
I selected five artists, four from Artist Alley and one who, despite being labeled a vendor, demonstrated he is an artist and is ready to defend his craft.
Stephen Platt
Stephen Platt is effortlessly cool. As I approach, he is signing prints in a whirlwind fashion for his various covers, particularly Moon Knight, one of my favorites. When asked if he had some time, he was happy to invite me to sit with him and dish on how he got started and what drives him now.
Stephen tells me he got in 1993, and on a school trip to New York, had brought his samples he had been working on for months, and in January of ’93, he bumped into a Marvel employee who looked at his work and invited Platt to his office. He walked out with a job at Marvel Comics. I asked him what his personal favorite comics to read are. He says, “Oh boy, that’s a terrible question.”
He thinks hard on his picks, but his selections are unique: “The one I keep going back to continuously is Hellboy, and then it’s also Akira.”
The first character he ever inked? “Moon Knight,” he answers simply. Moving on, he says he’s constantly influenced by other people’s work, “I definitely have wanderlust when it comes to styles,” he says when it comes to his personal styling, leading him to say he is a “style tourist” who says when you “get sick of yourself” is when you pick up new things.
He’s always learning more techniques, both analogue and digital, always trying to expand and calling himself a “student for life.”
I asked Platt if he enjoyed the Moon Knight show, and he quickly answered, “Yes. Loved it.” I asked how he felt about the visual effects. and he totally embraced the designs chosen. “The manifesting of the costume, the suit, the way it envelops him and how it’s summoned, it’s so occult, and I love that idea.”
He has yet to play Marvel Rivals, where Moon Knight shines as a character, and interestingly also has “very unofficial” storyboard credits for my personal favorite comic series, Blade.
His drawing routine varies from case to case. He says the drawing of a cover is actually quite fast. After editor approval, he lays out the cover analogue (meaning he draws it out, not prints it out like some other artists prefer). Once it’s laid out, it could take a week to fill in details. When it comes to what he does special with pieces, Platt says “capturing the mood” is important to him in a piece, and when asked what else he might like to be doing, he says, “I do miss interiors, but I’m sort of scared, they’re really hard to do, especially hard to do well.”
Platt agrees he has a very personal relationship with Moon Knight, stating, “The character changed my life.”
Finally, when it comes to his work, when does an artist know it’s finished? Or is it never finished? Through a laugh, Platt replies, “The deadline will tell you when it’s finished.” He says knowing when to stop is a skill, and after all these years, he feels he has a better sense of when it’s done.
Iban Coello
The sweetheart of the group, Iban has a glowing smile and a warm presence as you approach his booth. A comic artist working for Marvel, Iban’s first language is Spanish, so forgive me as I spoke so much Spanglish with him that this interview and experiences needed to be partially translated.
He works on Eddie Brock: Carnage, and though not a reader of the stories, he was key in adapting the character Carnage to the page, adapting the “symbiote suit to a new body,” calling for a bigger character, “a bulkier form that means Eddie Brock won’t get lost.” The first comic he says he ever read was Thor, with special “smaller-sized” releases being put out in Spain; these special small prints captured his heart.
Coello says his uncle kept a treasure trove of these comics in his grandmother’s house. He would go through them when his mother took him to visit. “This was my first contact with Marvel characters.” He doesn’t recall the first character he inked, however, as he attended art school in Spain and learned to draw, he says inking was just “part of the classroom.”
In terms of influences, he says he’s highly influenced by Japanese animation “manga and anime,” saying his first experiences were with Dragon Ball Z and that Spain gets a lot of Japanese inspired art in the market, meaning Dragon Ball was his first anime book as well, citing it as one of his main influences and proudly declaring himself a Goku fan against my choice, Piccolo. He jokes now and says as he’s getting older, “I’m more of a Vegeta guy now.”
A gamer, he has played some titles I’m a fan of, but again, is another artist yet to explore Marvel Rivals.
When he does talk about his own work, and how the characters of Venom and Carnage differ, he says emphatically, “Oh, one is more psycho than the other! Carnage is more [pretends to roar] it’s crazy!” When asked about the Venom films and if he enjoyed their visuals, Coello was animated. “Yes! I saw them, and the visuals for me were really great,” he gushed when recalling the trilogy, of which he is the biggest fan of the first film, when he breaks it down.
When it comes to his process these days, Coello is more grown-up.
“My process is: don’t think about it,” he sighs with a smile. “When I was younger, I had more time to think about the process, how to improve. Now I have grown up. I am a father. I just have to produce and finish my work because I have to be a professional.”
He says that when he does have the time these days, he will experiment with color and new techniques, but those days don’t come often. We discuss hidden touches, and Iban actually has a stamp that you can recognize him by: his fingerprint.
“When you see my fingerprint on a page, you know it was traditional.” He says some people can’t tell the difference between traditional and digital now, so he says look for the fingerprint; it’ll tell you everything.
When does he know a work is done, though? “When the sun goes out. When it’s night, I can finish for the day.” He laughs. A man who works from dawn until dusk certainly earns himself a scheduled bedtime.
He is currently working on a new Marvel event, named “Imperial” with Johnathan Hickman, so keep an eye out for that!
Matt Horak
Giving off “big chill” energy, Matt Horak is a comic book artist, mostly for Marvel, who has drawn figures for Spider-Man, Deadpool, Black Panther, Punisher, and more! Beginning in childhood, Horak was always drawing and excelling. With this talent in mind, it pushed him to keep pursuing art as more than a passing interest. “Everyone draws as a kid, you know, but then you stop,” Horak notes. His discovery that making comics was actually something people did for a living drove his career path.
As far as first and favorite comics, Horak was another artist digging through treasure troves at their grandmother’s. “I found Tintin really early,” he remembers, his first exposure to drawn comics, “…but I also used to just read the newspaper comics,” he adds. The first comic Horak ever inked is an interesting one, “The first professionally? It would be The Covenant, which was a sword and sorcery, Old Testament Bible story, that was my first real job. Before that, I drew instructions on how to deal with hip replacement surgery for a book that would be given to people after the surgery. Things like how to put on your socks, how to have… relations… without messing up your new hip.” This drew laughter from me instantly.
Does Mr. Horak have influences or follow trends in his art? “I don’t pay as much to trends, really. If anything, when I see [trends] it influences me not to do it, I’m a little bit of a contrarian, which probably doesn’t help me at all.”
In terms of his drawing routine, Horak says it depends on what stage of his work he is in. “Generally, I get to work relatively late in the day or early evening and work into the night. Usually I’ll try and start with something simple, like a sketch, and leave the complicated stuff for later, the layouts and such, that I’ll do when I’m warmed up.” How does he feel about the film adaptations of all the characters he’s drawn? “They’re fine,” he says, not giving me a hint either way. “Those characters have been interpreted so many different ways already, and I’m not one to say ‘THIS CHARACTER SHOULDN’T BE THAT WAY’ or anything like that.” Horak prefers to judge the qualities of the films rather than nitpick.
I noticed some horror art on his Instagram that tickled me, and I asked, ‘Are you a horror fan?’ “A little bit, yeah! I was actually at a horror convention, a little one in Akron, Akronomicon, which is a great name for a horror convention, so I did some horror pieces for that. I do love horror, I like drawing horror a lot, I like dark stuff.”
I ask him who his favorite horror villain is or if he has a favorite horror movie. After a brief pause, he says, “Maybe Exorcist III? Have you seen that?” Which I have not.
“It’s one of those movies that I saw, that people talk about more now, it’s become more of a cult classic, but it’s one of those ones where I saw it and said this is amazing! Beyond that, in horror, I like monsters, anything with a good monster.”
Horak loves playing with hidden elements in his work all the time, as it turns out. “Yeah, all the time, I actually like hiding stuff all the time in my work. Nods or homages. And then there are coverups, and something like this.” He shows me a work, and explains that some people wouldn’t be able to tell if it was recreated digitally. He points out another two characters repurposed from an older Marvel Fanfare that were added as background characters to Spiderman-Deadpool.
Finally, I ask him the question I ask of all the artists: When is the work done?
“Oh, it’s done when it’s done mostly. But other times, yeah, you’re tweaking stuff, and I was joking that I’ve drawn on pages long gone for print. No one’s going to see that unless they buy it! But sometimes, I’ll go in and change something after it’s done.”
Joseph Schmalke
Relaxed and smooth when approached, Joseph Schmalke brings some dark art to light and is a different contender in the field of visual arts than our previous artists. He tells me he is the writer, artist, and creator of several titles, including The Electric Black, We Don’t Kill Spiders, and Seven Years of Darkness. He is also the publisher of Midnight Factory and has been creating comics professionally for over a decade.
I ask him to tell me more about Seven Years of Darkness and We Don’t Kill Spiders. “Seven Years in Darkness is a real-time project, so I’m producing at least four to five issues every year for the next five years, because years one and two are done. It’s about a group of children conscripted to the academy of black magic for seven years, and while 72 kids go in, only seven can walk out alive.” This work ages with its child characters as they grow, says Schmalke. The characters are entering their teens, so they’re becoming more complex.
As for his other title, “We Don’t Kill Spiders is about a necromantic witch and a berserker detective hunting a serial killer during the Viking age.” He’s nothing if not original.
Schmalke says he was exposed to the creative at a young age; his mother was a sculptor, illustrator, and poet, and he was always a storyteller, beginning comics around the age of ten. Pursuing through his teens, he “dropped off it,” he says, when he studied fine art and was pursuing painting for a spell.
Graduating with a fine art degree, he’s studied painting, film, and, of course, illustration. He worked in post-production for film but found he didn’t have the taste for Hollywood.
He returned to comics as he says you’re only limited by, “…your own imagination and your own talent set.” He goes on to say, “As I get better, I’m always trying to improve. Any artist who stops where they are isn’t really going to progress. So, I’m always challenging myself, trying to improve in my craft, and that goes for writing as well.”
For ten years now, he has been a full-time creator. His first comic creation? “My first comic is like this super unknown thing called Shadows of the Fall, I think I only produced like 50 copies, it was only distributed around L.A. Good luck trying to find that it’s really bad.” It’s a crazy story about the risen Anti-Christ. His first professional drawing? He’s worked for Marvel Entertainment, which is different from that other Marvel, but he has gotten to draw iconic characters like Spider-Man.
As for trends, he describes the horror genre as a “rainbow.” “I’ve gotten grindhouse books, I’ve got psychological horror, I’ve got straight-up serial killer books.”
This brought me into exactly why I chose to interview him: his horror influences.
Your art has a very strong horror influence. Are you, in fact, a horror fan? “Oh yeah! We were just talking about this. My mom was taking me to see Nightmare on Elm Street when I was way too young to be seeing it, and you know I saw The Shining as a kid. I liked the rollercoaster that horror provided. That’s the whole idea, right? A rollercoaster is supposed to be safe… but it’s dangerous. It’s an escapism and I like the rush that the medium provides.”
I ask him about his top horror titles for comics and film.
“For comics, I always look at Alan Moore, the guy is a master of writing. The first comics that got me into drawing horror and loving horror were titles like Tales from the Crypt. As for moves, the last couple of years, Talk to Me was pretty good. I think one of my top ten movies of the last twenty years is still Hereditary, and you know I liked Nosferatu from last year, even though that’s got mixed bag reviews. I’m always geared up and looking for the next big horror project that’s coming up. I was really happy to watch In a Violent Nature not too long ago.”
As far as what’s new, don’t take your eyes off of Schmalke. “My wife and partner at Midnight Factory convinced me to work with several other creators who are doing the artwork on some of my newer properties. So, I’ve got Prophets of Doom coming out next year… about Evangelicals, tired of waiting on the Apocalypse, who summon ancient evils to invade heaven and trigger Armageddon. One last thing is about a cybernetic escort who uncovers a plot by the corporation that made her to enslave humanity to Eldritch beings. And of course I’ll be continuing We Don’t Kill Spiders with We Don’t Kill Spiders: Season of the Witch.”
Whoa. That is a lot to take on. But Schmalke is just the guy for the big imagination. A firm believer in having an ending when he has a concept, Schmalke will never have an unfinished work, it seems.
Jed Thomas
The only featured artist who wasn’t housed on Artist Alley was Jed Thomas. A professional artist and tattoo enthusiast, he does a lot of Godzilla artwork, a lot of monsters, and some horror art.
When did he become the ultimate Godzilla fan? “I wouldn’t say the ultimate Godzilla fan,” he says as onlookers stare at the towering tributes to one of the world’s famous monsters. “I’m a big Godzilla guy since I was a kid in the 90s. I’m a ’90s kid. I’m also half Japanese, so Godzilla is part of my culture. I grew up with Godzilla in the 90s, and I really liked the idea of Godzilla, that unstoppable force.”
I asked him which one of the many representations he was most drawn to. “So, I’m very biased with “Legendary Godzilla” simply because from an artist’s standpoint, I’m drawn to design and aesthetic. I feel like the Legendary pictures of Godzilla have the best design. People may hate that, but I really do like Legendary Godzilla best.”
When asked how he turned his love of Godzilla into a career, he explained, “I started in 2019, I would say. So, it’s pretty recent. Before that, my debut in the professional world as an artist was with Batman. So, I worked on Batman first. Batman is actually the biggest thing in my life. But going back to Godzilla, I started in 2019, but it peaked like a rocket in 2021, that was the year it spiked.”
I noticed some of his work was horror-based, so I had to ask him what some of his favorites were in the genre.
“One of my favorite horror characters of all time is Michael Myers. But what’s funny is I’ve asked myself what it is about Michael Myers that I really like? I don’t know! I just really, really like Michael. He is the less-is-more type. Like, if you look at Jason, and, man, I like Jason… Jason has that design all out there. And then you have Freddy. I don’t like Freddy, it’s so outrageous. There’s something about Michael. He looks normal-sized, just wearing this pale, expressionless mask—and in that, to me, is something scary.”
Other than that, he is a big fan of The Exorcist and anything paranormal (which I love), including a deep love of The Conjuring series. He even went so far as to keep track of a now allegedly touring Annabelle doll.
After geeking out over horror together, I asked him what makes his work distinct in such a diverse marketplace. He says, “One thing I think I do that sets me apart is I mix Japanese tattoos with Godzilla. Which is something unique, and you really need to know how to do a Japanese tattoo the correct way to achieve this look. It’s a style, it’s a look, you’ve got to get it down right. I can’t explain it with words, but it’s something that is visual. You know it when you see it. I can show you and help you understand.”
When asked about some of his favorite tools and techniques, he explained, “Nowadays, I do everything digitally. For me, once I go digital, I never go back. I still know how to use a pen or pencil for covers or commission, but my personal preference? I love digital media. I hand-draw everything on my tablet.”
He says when it comes to commission, there’s not much difficulty-wise he can’t take on, but notes the tediousness or repetition of some works as being the “difficult” portion of the work. Some characters like Ghidorah are a pain for him, with those three heads, three necks, and tons of scales, it’s very time-consuming. It’s part of why he says he doesn’t draw comics, specifically panels, the repetition doesn’t stimulate his mind, and he can’t achieve flow state like most fans assume he does when he works.
“I’m that extroverted artist who likes to be out all the time, versus a lot of artists who prefer to stay at home. I’m all about ‘let’s go party’, going to concerts, I like fun.” Thomas finds inspiration in staying active, which helps counterbalance a stationary job. What’s his favorite piece he’s created? “It’s hard. It’s one of those things where you draw something and you’re so proud and stoked about it—and then you draw another one that’s like, well, that’s good, too. It’s hard to say you have a favorite. You’re always improving, you keep drawing and creating something you’re really excited about.”
I ended by asking him what the one thing he wants customers to know about his product was. He enthusiastically responded:
“I did all of them! I hand-draw all of them, and one thing that I want people to know: just because they are done digitally, they are still hand-drawn digitally.”
He continues, “I am not pushing buttons or using AI. A digital tablet is just as much a tool to me as a tattoo machine, or a pencil, or a pen. Your hand still needs to produce those strokes.”
Follow Us!