Broken Frontier

The names of Ian Culbard, Nick Plumber, Adam Adamowicz, Andrew Krahnke, Jacob Chabot and Rafael Silveira probably don't ring a bell with you. However, on January 4, 2006, you will become a little more familiar with these six gentlemen when they make their comic book debut in Dark Horse's New Recruits anthology.

In case you don't remember, the anthology is the result of the 'New Recruits Contest' Dark Horse held from late 2003 to early 2004 in the hopes of finding new talent. And the company did. The six finalists were asked to submit original stories, tales that will find their way to a store near you early next year.

Each Thursday, we take a closer look at one of these horsemen of the future so you can get more acquainted with them. On duty today is Jacob Chabot.

Saluting the New Recruits - Part I: Andrew Krahnke
Saluting the New Recruits - Part II: Rafael Silveira
Saluting the New Recruits - Part III: Ian Culbard

BROKEN FRONTIER: What do you do in real life?

JACOB CHABOT: By day, I work in the production department at Marvel Comics.

BF: At what point did you decide to enter Dark Horse’s “New Recruits” contest?

JC: I’d previously entered Dark Horse’s Strip Search competition and although I didn’t win, it was pretty encouraging. I think I came in second according to the polls. I was attending a lot of conventions and passing out a lot of  Skullboy minicomics trying to drum up support and the stuff was pretty well received. I figured I’d give it another shot.

BF: Did you have any experience in visual storytelling before you sent your submission off to Dark Horse?

JC: Professional experience? Not really. I’ve been doing comics forever though. I had a bunch published in my college paper and after I graduated, I mostly just posted them on my website. (www.beetlebugcomics.com)

BF: Many of today’s current writers and artists have been die-hard fans of comics ever since they were kids. Has becoming a professional comic book creator always been a dream of yours?

JC: I think I wanted to be a farmer like my dad when I was a kid. I always liked drawing though. I’d illustrate stories and draw picture books all the time. Around fifth grade, I got into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and quickly traced it back to the Mirage comics. It was about that point when it hit me that drawing comics was actually someone’s job. I realized this was something I wanted to do.

BF: If you read comics during your childhood, which books appealed to you the most, and why?

JC: My uncle is to blame for getting me into comics. I tagged along with him on one of his trips to the comic store and picked up an issue of Madballs and an issue of Superman. After that, I collected Transformers pretty regularly due to one of my classmates telling me how they brought Optimus Prime back to life. I grew up in Northern Maine and we only had 3 or 4 TV channels depending on how the wind was blowing and most of them were Canadian broadcast. A lot of the comics I read stood in for the cartoons that weren’t available. I don’t know if anybody remembers those 20 packs of Marvel comics you could get out of the Sears catalogue, but I got those for Christmas sometimes. X-Men really stood out from the rest for some reason. It was when Marc Silvestri was drawing it and I really liked the sketchy, realistic art. There were all these strange characters running around and I had no idea what was going on. I loved it. And like I mentioned before, I was really into the old Mirage Ninja Turtles comics. Those guys were my heroes back then.

BF: What about the current comic book landscape? What are some of your favorite reads today?

JC: Savage Dragon has been one of my favorite reads for a long time. Invincible and Walking Dead are two of my favorites. Robert Kirkman was the only thing keeping me going to the comic shop for a while. Scott Pilgrim blew me away. It was the first time in recent memory that I wanted to read something again as soon as I finished reading it. I’m always anxiously waiting for the next volumes of Dragonball and Naruto.

BF: Has your perception of comics changed, both in terms of comics as a medium and how the industry works, now that you’ve got a story being published at a major company?

JC: I don’t know if it’s really changed. I’m still pretty much just doing the comics I want to do. I’m extremely happy to see that people like my stuff and think that there’s a market for it. I haven’t exactly quit the day job yet, but it’s encouraging!

BF: What is the story you submitted about?

JC: The main story is a Mighty Skullboy Army tale in which Unit 1 and Unit 2 attempt to recover their pawned pagers. I also did a short backup story in which the Mighty Skullboy Army battles a giant robot lobster from a rival company.

BF: Why did you decide to enter the “New Recruits” program with this particular tale?

JC: Out of all the ideas I had jotted down for new Skullboy stories, this one seemed the best introductory story that wasn’t an introductory story. Plus, it was the one I had written the most jokes for.

BF: Where did you get your inspiration from when conceiving Mighty Skullboy Army?

JC: It’s all made up! Although, I got the idea for the backup short when one of my friends told me I should put more Maine in my stories. So, of course, I went out and threw in a giant robot lobster!