#icon9

ABOUT HÉCTOR: Héctor Casanova is an Assistant Professor in the Illustration Dept. at the Kansas City Art Institute, and an Instructor at The Illustration Academy, teaching courses on Comics & Sequential Art, Illustration and Muralism.

He has been working as a fine and graphic artist for over 20 years, doing work for collectors, magazines and corporations nationally and abroad. He was staff Editorial Artist at The Kansas City Star from 1999 - 2014. His comics work includes the graphic novels Screamland with writer Harold Sipe (Image Comics, 2008, 2010) and The Lurkers with writer Steve Niles (IDW, 2006), as well as his own weekly comic strip Guffman & Godot (2000 - 2003). He was co-founder and curator of the Green Door Gallery, an alternative art space dedicated to showcasing the work of established and emerging artists from Kansas City and beyond. He has received awards from American Illustration, Print, and Society of News Designers, and was the recipient of The Pitch’s 2008 Mastermind Award for his artistic contributions to Kansas City.

Where did you first learn about ICON? 

I first heard about ICON from my colleagues when I started teaching Illustration at the Kansas City Art Institute. ICON8 was my first time attending.

Tell us about the best part of your ICON experience.

Being able to soak up so much information and inspiration is a fantastic experience as an attendee. I was a presenter at ICON9, and that was also a thrill and an honor.

How has your experience with ICON impacted your creative career?

The networking opportunities have led to new friendships and professional relationships, which in turn have led to new projects and being invited to participate in other art and comics-related conferences.

Any advice for ICON first-timers?

@Mariya_Illustrates: I am really bad about keeping a neat sketchbook. Most things are done on loose sheets that are all over the apartment. But for #littlemossbigtree I wanted to get a flow for the page turns and have a bird's eye view of the entire project. So I grabbed one of the huge sketchbooks that were leftover from #icon9, and based on the initial storyboard sketches created rough black and white drawings over the span of two pages. Each drawing is not large, about the size of a small postcard, but in the same proportion as the final. This way, since I can see all of the drawings at one time, I can make sure that they all work well together before investing too much time into rendering. I also would not run the risk of losing them ^_^

Over the summer, I met the creative genius Andy J. Miller at ICON9. He’s the brains behind the Creative Pep Talk podcast. He and I chatted about what art directors really want, but maybe aren’t getting, and he was so nice to include our conversation in a podcast along with the wonderful Martin Gee of Time and amazing Len Small of Nautilus.

In the episode, Andy identifies the artist’s hierarchy of needs and how clients are people, too.

Check it out!

Look at our awesome haul from ICON9! Photo by Meredith Rizzo/NPR

1. IDEAS FIRST  You don’t have to “be able to draw” to be an editorial illustrator. The power of a concept is more important and many artists have made fulfilling illustration careers without going to art school.

Illustrated GIF by Rebecca Mock via:  http://rebeccamock.tumblr.com/post/81226029540/wow-almost-50000-notes-thanks-tumblr-and 

2. GIFs They were cool in the 90′s and they’re still cool. Smartly used, they add depth and texture to a concept and in the case of subtle GIFs like Rebecca Mock's, they can enhance the narrative of a piece. It also means you spend more time with the illustration trying to make sense of what you’re looking at.

Marquee painted by Norma Jeanne Maloney on "Honky-tonk Row" in Nashville, Tenn. Photo by Faythe Levine and Sam Macon/Princeton Architectural Press.

3. YOU DO YOU Process is individual. Norma Jeanne Maloney began hand-painting signs in the 70′s during what some were calling the death of hand-painted signs. Now, she is flooded with commissions. If she had left the traditional way completely, she would not have stood out.

LA Johnson (right) discusses with illustrators the ways to work with NPR. Photo by Meredith Rizzo/NPR.

Why Yes! I had a great time at Icon9 being a Volunteer. That’s where I’ve been. Thanks for asking. I can’t write any volume of texts without thinking of a "Singular Strand of Thought” so the thesis is “this is a year in the future and an enthusiastic undergrad has googled icon9 to see what volunteering was like back in the old days”

Prior to heading to Austin, I had the mindset of settling for “small fish looks longingly at big fish”, but the board members running the show let us feel immediately at ease and a part of the team. I was assigned to the bookstore, and it was a great gig because well, loitering around books is awesome, I got to chat with the other volunteers during off-peaks, and also our I/Cs were the coolest. Asking for permission to take breaks or attend talks was always met with an approval. If you managed your responsibilities and shifts well you could go to most of the conference events you wanted.

Other volunteers got assigned to very different tasks with different hours, which entail a completely different experience. But either way it was easy to be mobile during the conference while performing your duties to attend the talks, workshops, parties, and make friends and connect with people. Being stationed at the bookstore was also fun because I got to have 30 second encounters with most of the conference including art crushes who came by to get books. 

Another cool thing was helping out with the book signings, where it was really nice to chat with the signers when they were done, when hanging around in the bookstore most of the time was part of me job. Everyone was really really nice and no one at all was on a high horse– which in hindsight was a silly thought to imagine, but I definitely had a constant sense of awe in the conference because there were certainly people who I think *should* have large majestical horses to ride around on. I got to make sentences with illustrators who have been pivotal points in my artmaking experience, and also industry leaders who I got to newly know and admire through interactions or talks, that ended with the occasional friendship or an actual hug. Crazy.

It was fun to run around and help at other things too, helping out when it was needed, occasionally with a workshop, or setting up the roadshow, headcounts, looking for illustration legends for their signings, etc etc. This post was mostly made for posterity so that if any future volunteer wanted an account of what Icon was like – because I signed up for it from a recommendation as well. This is a 10/10 to look out for the next one and write a killer letter to the future volunteer coordinator (s/o to Katherine for being the best mama bird) and get a’helping :-)