Today we’d like to introduce you to Devin Kraft
Devin, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started drawing when I was a kid – I have ADHD and tend to run around a lot, so my parents would sit me down with a yellow legal pad and a pencil and it served as a good tool to keep me busy. During high school and college, I used art as a way to split my focus so I could pay attention to school and still be creative at the same time.
This led me to doing little comics and eventually longer, more complex stories. All of my college notes are on the backs of a five-issue series I was working on at the time!
Through college I was able to study abroad in Japan, picking up Japanese and getting to rifle through every used bookstore’s manga section that I could find. I submitted a few projects to various manga companies but ultimately returned back to the US to work in film for a bit.
After moving to Dallas, I started attending conventions and crowdfunding my comic projects, eventually finding several publishers. Over the years I’ve been able to work with some dream clients, like Sega, Capcom, Heavy Metal, IDW, and many many more, while selling art at some of the world’s biggest comic and anime conventions!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I can’t imagine a harder challenge, personally. I love comics, and I love storytelling, and making books takes a great amount of thought, practice, and effort to execute a vision. Making a graphic novel can take years of your life if you do it part-time, and that’s only the first challenge.
Advertising the project is an equally daunting, equally difficult challenge, and that’s followed by either finding a publisher or self-publishing. I do all of this on my off hours at nights and on weekends, which can make it really tricky to find time to experiment or catch my breath!
This all assumes you can stay inspired, motivated, and actively move towards finishing your goals. If you can make it to the end of creating a book, finding an audience and being profitable are the next challenges. With so many stories and how easily everything is distributed, it’s tough to be the story someone wants to spend their money on that week.
Comic creation can often be thankless, but there is something wonderful about holding the finished product in your hands, or getting a letter from someone telling you your comic meant a lot to them. Currently the biggest high is getting a hat tip from established professionals in the industry – it lets me know I’m moving in the right direction.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My work is a mix of dynamic illustration and vibrant graphic design combining influences from Japan, Europe, and the US primarily to create both original comics and new takes on established characters.
My favorite thing to do is take an overriding emotion and start to build a world around it, abstracting or exaggerating a theme to really drive home an issue I see with the world. I’ve finished three graphic novels so far, each with different themes, genres and design styles.
Dragon Slayer centers on a revenge triangle between a king, a dragon, and an outsider, all three of whose lives are inextricably entangled. Silence follows a girl whose father becomes lost at sea, likely due to a group of local sirens disrupting the local trade routes. Neverender is about an earth born brawler who dreams of making it to space, only to find that survival depends on his instincts for combat.
I’ve currently been working on a book called Whitewall about wartime triage, and how at some point you have to save yourself to be able to save others. It focuses on a protagonist who works as a psychic doctor during an endless war, and her colleague who finally succumbs to a mental breakdown. My plan is to make it four issues, two of which are close to finished and one that I’m working on currently. I’d love to get Whitewall to print soon, but for now the best way to see the progress is on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/cheshirecatart).
I think I’m most proud of my persistence – juggling a dayjob, a comic career, and using weekends to sell at comic and anime conventions takes a great deal of effort. Each have their own unique challenges requiring their own set of solutions, and those challenges are constantly changing and evolving. Being competitive in all three realms takes just about everything I have!
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
The best way to support me is via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/cheshirecatart), or by picking something up from my shop (https://www.cheshirecatart.com/shop)!
I do take on commissions and projects from time to time, pending my schedule – my website has a contact form for that. I have a wide variety of skillsets, ranging from copywriting to storyboarding to animation, as well as illustration, design, and sequential storytelling.
Pricing:
- Posters: $25
- Pins: $20
- Commissions: Project Dependent!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.cheshirecatart.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/cheshirecatart
- Facebook: https://bsky.app/profile/cheshirecat.bsky.social
- Twitter: https://x.com/devinkraft
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/cheshirecatart
Image Credits
Author Photo taken by Micah Nunley
