Lansing Community College graduate Eric Wilmoth is doing his best to break into the exclusive comic book industry with his first full-length graphic novel.
Wilmoth, 27, graduated from LCC last year with an associate degree in sequential art. He has since started his own company, Archetypal Images, and been accepted into Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit artist sponsorship program. The Howell resident is releasing the Archetypal Images Sponsorship Special, a graphic novel, on Saturday.
“Basically, it touches on the spiritual journey I’m on and the calling I have,” Wilmoth said. “But, also trying to focus on the world concerns that we’re facing these days, which is something we share as a planet.”
Wilmoth said the book marks an important point in his career, as it is the first full-blown project that he’s done. He also plans to use it to help break the walls that surround the comic book industry, which Wilmoth said is a very challenging industry to get into.
Wilmoth believes that, in today’s world, there is a definite need for artistic messages on how to overcome the world’s difficulties. By using a new perspective, comic books, Wilmoth hopes to get his message across to a different audience.
“Whether in art or any other vocation, if you are really following your interests and dreams you can create a better place to live in,” Wilmoth said. “It’s just a message about the creative spirit as a solution to the problems we face as a whole.”
He began thinking about doing comics as a career when he was 15 but really got serious about the medium in his mid-20s. Wilmoth taught himself most of the skills that he now has without any formal artistic training, and he paid for his projects with funding from sponsors and his own money.
Wilmoth said a real turning point came for him when LCC began offering a degree in sequential art, which includes comic books, story boards and other scene-by-scene forms of art. LCC is one of a few schools in the country to offer such a program.
Wilmoth will be releasing Archetypal Images Sponsorship Special on Saturday at Gone Wired Cafe, 2021 E. Michigan Ave., in Lansing.