Check Out Chris Solis’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Solis.

Hi Chris, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Without making it my goal above goals, writing was always a part of me. I spent my earliest days playing with action figures and creating stories for multi-genre, multi-IP stories weaved together, as children are naturally gifted to do. Later, I found a deep love for poetry and music through my cousins and friends, which grew into a self-taught guitar practice. I found patterns and thoughts to explore in my writing as I entered high school.

I then joined a group of friends doing backyard wrestling with the IWL. Without realizing it, I started building story bones in the idea sessions to produce those shows. Though crude, they highlighted the grand scope of story, protagonists vs. antagonists and how fluid those roles can be in a multitude of genre and plot twists.

After high school, I worked low-wage jobs while trying to put together bands. The two best attempts were the music duo False to be Flase, and the Sailor Moon inspires garage-rock band Pretty Soldiers. After a long period of growing into the business side of music and live entertainment, I went to see a writer who has since come to be known as a horrid piece of human trash, and they said something that hit me square in the chest. “Writers, write.”

I realized I had written many things—letters, lyrics, journals and poems, but never stories. As soon as I started to think of ideas, an artist friend and I got tickets to Desert Trip with all the major classic rock acts. This was the start of a conversation that gave birth to a story of Ringo Starr outrunning a dark-powered Paul McCartney who had siphoned the power of the two other Beatles.

The comic was never made, but it did ignite my engine on the road to coming up with multiple stories and diving headfirst into teaching myself story structure and the comic book medium. Through books like The Comics Trilogy by Scott McCloud, The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Denny O’Neil and YouTube videos like those from Matt Garvey, Overly Sarcastic Productions and Hello Future Me. I learned from every teacher I could.

During the pandemic, I joined the highly revered DC writer Scott Snyder’s (Absolute Batman, Justice League, Barnstormers) substack class for writing comics. This was my first introduction to the creators’ community. The students almost automatically decided to start an anthology of students’ work. My first attempt was not accepted, but after finding a way to make it appear more of a professional effort, I had my first story, Jacket Racket, with artist Ruel Deguzman, published in a Kickstarter-funded anthology.

Now, I am working hard on building a group of books to have a solid presentation at local conventions. A big goal is to be able to pitch ideas to publishers while self-publishing some of my own under the publishing company Solis Sequentials LLC. It would be nice to grow that brand to include friends’ stories as well. My current project is The Order of the Nun-Ya. A sci-fi nuns in space story that rings close to Sailor Moon fighting Alien and Predator. It is seeking funding now on Kickstarter until 4/19.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Growing up mixed race, it was very easy to feel like I wouldn’t be easily defined. There have been tons of times of doubts, especially since most of the artistic learning was done on my own or with amateur friends. Overcoming substance abuse was a strange time, but it was all growing experiences. The biggest challenge was later in life, right before I turned 30. I went to Las Vegas to work at EDC Las Vegas, unknowingly finalizing my change into an adult-onset Type 1 diabetic. I finished the month-long job and then woke up a week later in the hospital. After the morning of doctors checking on me without talking to me, I learned from my mother I had fainted in the hotel shower with ketoacidosis. After that, I had to figure out a huge lifestyle change. It was changed even more drastically, losing both my parents relatively close together in 2019 (my mom from breast cancer) and 2021 (my father from Parkinson’s). I took a few years as their caregiver before they passed. I even got a chance to talk through some of my original story ideas with my father in his last years with Parkinson’s.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My favorite thing about music is the collaborative aspect. A group of angry teens getting together to make sounds that match their tone and attitude. Once it became a challenge to get my alternative bands to have shows in my area without pop aspects, I started working on more events with DJ performers. There were tons of artistic elements to the shows I saw with DJ/Producers, but the fact it was implied that one or two people were responsible for a whole orchestra of sounds made things feel a little cheaper to me.
Comic books are the medium equivalent in my life. Something that had been in the background of every major moment in my life while I only gave it partial credit. I started to give it more attention while sitting for days with my father, as he was coming to his final days with Parkinson’s.

Meeting more people specializing in the different aspects of comics, like lettering or color, was like meeting keyboardists and bassists. I started looking for supergroups of creators and what they were doing. I still believe the core ideas and emotions are the biggest thing in my stories and songs. So, it’s all been an evolution of things I want to see in the world and figuring out how to bring those into reality.

Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
I had many birthdays at Knott’s Berry farm in Buena Park. One of my favorite memories there is the first time I rode the Boomerang roller coaster. It was my first roller coaster that had loops, which had terrified me up until then. It also went backward once it reached a point. It was a thrill that made me feel what confidence really was—doing things scared.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.SolisSequentials.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solissequentials/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557725319980
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/pretty-soldiers
• Other: https://linktr.ee/solissequentials

Image Credits
Personal Photo by Josh Bagel Klassman @jbk_photos

Fan Photo at the Comic Book Hideout in Fullerton @comicbookhideout

Lucia pin-up by Alyssa Meier @alyssamvss

Group Picture of Scott Snyder’s Black Jacket Members at CominCon SanDiego 2024

Self Portrait

PAC Trading Card by Peter Collins @pacillustration

Sobrecubierta art by Alyssa Meier @alyssamvss

Jacke Racket art by Ruel DeGuzman @xenobrane

Order of the Nun-Ya art by Minerva Fox @blue_troller