Openly gay coloring artist Jeff Balke is on a roll. Along with his husband, he's making his own comic book called Urban Legends ( launching now ) and has big plans for more series this year and next. This dynamic duo hit conventions all year long where they showcase his color sketching.
He won the Shel Dorf Award for Coloring of the Year in 2011, and has been nominated for Favorite Colorist multiple times at the Eagle Awards.
Wizard World's comic convention took over the town of Rosemont recently. Windy City Times went to meet Balke and his husband, who is the editor and co-creator of Urban Legends.
Windy City Times: Hi, Jeff. You lived in Chicago originally?
Jeff Balke: It is my hometown. I was born in Chicago but was actually raised in Lindenhurst. Living in Chicago was fantastic because I do comic books. There are about 34 comic stores just in the Chicagoland area so I am busy all the time—or at least try to be. I try to stay active in the comic industry, not just creating but also meeting the fans that pick up the books. I like meeting the store owners who are selling what I do. I love it!
WCT: Were you always into comics growing up?
Jeff Balke: No. I remember the day exactly in sixth grade where I was walking into lunch period. My friends were talking Spider-Man and Thor, I knew those characters, but then they talked about Blob and Mr. Sinister, who I didn't know about. They were playing a role playing game like D&D.
I went to Gurnee Mills to my first comic book store and picked up my first book: Fantastic Four #188. I sold it but I shouldn't have. I am trying to find it again.
WCT: It might be here at Wizard World.
Jeff Balke: If I can't find it here, I won't find it anywhere! That actually started my entire career. I wanted to do that for my life. I came to my very first convention in 1991. I knew it was what I wanted to do. Here I am now.
WCT: Did you go to school for this biz?
Jeff Balke: No schooling believe it or not. There was a little website called MySpace—I probably just dated myself—where I put up my own black-and-white pictures and people liked them. They wanted things colored. I hated coloring then but now it is my career, 100 percent. It grew into my livelihood.
WCT: So coloring pays well?
Jeff Balke: Sure, but you really have to work it. I would get two books to work on and you only have a week to color it up if you are lucky.
WCT: Each page takes a while to do?
Jeff Balke: It can. The company I work for didn't have a lot of inkers at Zenescope. They do Grimm Fairy Tales and Charmed. They are awesome books but no inkers. It can take sometimes a full day to clean up the page. It can get a little rough but I do it for the love. I have done it at this show for seven years as a pro. I've been coming to this show for 23. I'm a big geek!
WCT: Talk about making your own comic.
Jeff Balke: I learned from working with companies such as Zenescope and Image. Sandy Carpenter, who is John Carpenter's wife, has her own company and I worked with them on a comic. I saw she was building from zero and growing her business. I wanted to do that one day and get my own stories out there.
I didn't want to just do superhero or horror stuff, but be very versatile. [Laughs] Don't look at me like that!
WCT: It is called Urban Legends.
Jeff Balke: Yes; it is exactly like it sounds. It is all of the urban legends that we know. We are putting a little twist on them. You will also notice starting with issue four and five that we have all of the urban legends in one town. There's a reason for that but I am not going to give everything away. You have to get the book!
WCT: You make this comic book with your partner?
Jeff Balke: Yes, with my husband [Brandon]; he's also the editor. He quit his job two years ago to work full time with me on the road. On top of the book we still do about 30 conventions a year. He helps me out at every show and I couldn't do a lot of this without him.
WCT: It's not difficult working with your significant other?
Jeff Balke: No, it really isn't.
WCT: You are planning on two ongoing series by the end of this year?
Jeff Balke: If we can get it worked out in time ( because we are always on the road for shows like New York Comic Con ), we want to introduce a brand-new series. It is a spinoff of Urban Legends. We are still going over legalities of the title so I don't want to reveal that quite yet.
We have a Halloween special coming out that we are working on as we speak. It is of a scarecrow in Urban Legends.
WCT: Four more series next year, also?
Jeff Balke: That's our goal. We are funding this ourselves and dumping our entire savings into it because we believe in it so much. Issue three is coming out in a couple of weeks of Urban Legends.
We want four more series next year but we will see how it goes financially.
WCT: Explain your sketch-coloring at these conventions.
Jeff Balke: How that started was in 2008 at Wizard World Texas. I did it for free and anyone could bring up the black-and-white sketch covers. Marvel, DC and many others would make black-and-white variant covers as a second printing. Everyone wanted me to do a sketch but I don't draw I color so I offered to have them bring up the book and I would sketch-color it, leaving a portion in black and white. It allows certain characters or things pop right off the page for you. That took off. I did 109 in two and a half days at that show! I had a huge line. I debuted in 2007 as a professional, then this happens.
Now what it has become today is where people bring up anything black-and-white and I color it up for them. It is still part of sketch-coloring.
WCT: Is this part of your tour?
Jeff Balke: It is part of the Get Balked Tour!
WCT: Do you have any down time?
Jeff Balke: What is that? [Laughs] We try. We got married April 23 here in Chicago. We haven't had any down time. We went from a convention, got married on Wednesday, set up for C2E2 the day after then we had five shows in a row. We had one week off and now we are working back on the road. We have had no time for ourselves.
WCT: You need a honeymoon.
Jeff Balke: November, when all of the conventions are over.
WCT: You are based out of Chicago?
Jeff Balke: We are from Chicago but now we live just outside of Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. We get our haircuts in Chicago still!
For more on this emerging artist, visit jbalkesart.com and at JbalkesCOLORS on Facebook.
