Today we’d like to introduce you to Gerimi Burleigh.
Hi Gerimi, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Like many artists, I’ve been drawing since I was able to hold a crayon. My first loves were toys I played with as a kid; robots, ninjas, alien warriors and such. By middle school, I’d started reading comic books and never stopped. That eventually evolved into drawing and writing them.
I studied fine art and graduated from UCLA with a BFA in drawing and painting. After bouncing around from one graphic design job to another, I landed a position as a packaging designer at a toy company. Throughout high school and college, I’d flirted with indie comic book publishing through small studios and creative co-ops, but around the same time as I started working in the toy industry, I began seriously working on what would be my first graphic novel, Eye of the Gods.
I was offered the opportunity to shift from packaging designer to product designer and leaped at it. Since then, I’ve been balancing these two great joys, making toys and making comics. I feel incredibly fortunate to be living out my childhood dreams.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It has not even remotely been a smooth road. I basically gave up on making comic books by the time I finished college. I still loved reading them and continued to be passionate about them as a creative medium, but as a job industry, I viewed it as very small.
I had done some simple guesstimates and had come to the conclusion that at its best, there were maybe 500 monthly comics if you included all of the books published by Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse Comics and all of the smaller indie publishers put together.
If each book had a writer, penciler, inker, colorist, and letterer, that would mean 2500 total jobs (not including editors/assistant editors). And writers, colorists, and letterers usually work on multiple books. But even if we keep it to everyone working on a single title, when you compare comics to the number of players in the NFL (Just shy of 1700), it dims career prospects considerably.
I spent about a decade just bouncing around from design job-to-design job, saving up money when I could to sustain me through the dry periods of a volatile creative market. What I found was that I couldn’t kick the desire to tell stories with pictures and words. When I finally reached a point in my design career where positions were lasting for years instead of months, I decided that I was going to make a comic for myself, regardless of whether it was a profitable endeavor. It just made me happy.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a comic book creator. I write, pencil, ink, and letter my own comics. Stephen King is a huge influence on me and my work tends to be a blend of fantasy, horror, and thriller.
My first book, Eye of the Gods, is a psychological thriller about a man cursed with visions he can’t control. He witnesses a murder in one of his visions, only to find out it is being reported in the news as a death by natural causes. His curiosity leads him to pull on threads unraveling a conspiracy manipulating our collective perception of reality.
My second series, Morningstar, is a retelling of Lucifer’s Fall from Heaven as a supernatural western. At the dawn of creation, existence is a raw untamed frontier, like the wild west. Heaven is defended by seven archangels, and Lucifer is the marshal, their leader. But the darkness inside him corrupts those around him and draws them into his rebellion against order and justice.
What sets my work apart from others is the contrasting tones. I try to explore the beauty in horrific things and find the horror in beautiful things.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I was an athlete in high school and college. I ran track and field on an athletic scholarship. It taught me a tremendous amount about discipline and hard work. It would surprise people because I’m not much of a sports fan. I enjoyed the challenge of pushing my body, but I’ve never been much of a competitive person. Unless you count ping pong.
Pricing:
- Morningstar vol. 1 – $14.99
- Morningstar vol. 2 – $14.99
- Eye of the Gods – $10.99
Contact Info:
- Website: http://gerimi.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gerimib/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GerimiArt/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Gerimi
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/gerimi
- Other: http://amazon.gerimi.net/
