WCG Comics Conducts Talent Search for New Artists

Long-running Independent Comic-Book Company to Use Outside Artists for the First Time

July 19, 2007

For the first time since its founding in the early 1990s, WCG Comics announced that it is conducting a talent search for up-and-coming artists to work on one of the longest-running independent comic-book series, Rob Hanes Adventures. The series features the adventures of a modern-day international spy-for-hire and soldier of fortune, and offers a modern-day spin on classic high adventure comic strips like the Spirit and Terry and the Pirates.

For more information about the talent search, interested artists should visit the WCG Comics website and click on the “Help Wanted” link.

Self-publisher Randy Reynaldo, the creator and writer-artist of the series, has been the only artist to work on the series since its inception. Although Reynaldo plans to continue working on the series and releasing new issues, he hopes that bringing new artists on board will increase the frequency of new stories, as well as bring new energy to the title.

“I plan to continue working on the flagship comic-book series as I always have,” says Reynaldo. “But I have several story ideas that I may not have a chance to get to for awhile to do myself, so I thought bringing in other artists might be a good way to solve this problem.”

Reynaldo primarily is looking for artists or artist teams that would produce finished art (pencils and inks) from Reynaldo’s scripts.

Though Reynaldo is well known for a clean black-and-white art style that is reminiscent of classic adventure strip artists like Milton Caniff and Alex Toth, Reynaldo said artists would not be necessarily expected to work in the same style.

“Of course I’m looking for an artist that has an affinity for the kind of stories I do, but otherwise I’m open to all kinds of interpretations and art styles,” Reynaldo says. “After all, part of the fun of doing a project like this is seeing other people’s interpretation of the series.”

Reynaldo admitted that he’s not entirely settled yet on whether the work will appear in the regular series as fill-in between his own issues or serialized online as part of the webcomic edition of the series as rhadventures.com. Reynaldo says he is exciting about the prospect of collaborating with a other artists for the first time.

Rob Hanes Adventures is a comic-book series about an international troubleshooter and modern-day soldier of fortune who works for Justice International, a worldwide private investigations and security agency. Reynaldo is a Xeric Foundation grant recipient and a past nominee for the Russ Manning Award for Most Promising Newcomer, which is awarded annually with the Will Eisner Awards. In 2006, WCG Comics celebrated 15 years of publishing.

More information about the series may be found at the WCG Comics website at wcgcomics.com. 

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