For almost a decade Chris Wisnia has been conducting interviews with comics creators for a documentary he’s working on titled Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist. And now via his Patreon, he has begun releasing sneak previews of some of those interviews.
“In 2010 I was thinking about how difficult it is, in so many ways, to try to make a living in comics,” Wisnia said. “Trying to get into the industry, the stress of needing to find new work every month to pay rent, to not have benefits or insurance, the shrinking state of the industry and general public lack of interest in comics, getting your work made into films and other media, decisions about taking work-for-hire in which you get a paycheck but own nothing you create vs. ownership but no guaranteed income and having to promote yourself and your product that no one has ever heard of… Regardless of the level you’re at, it comes with struggles.”
A creator himself who frequented comics conventions to sell his own books, he recruited a crew to begin filming his discussions with other creators, including Neal Adams, Mike Allred, Sergio Aragones, Dick Ayers, Lee Bermejo, Tim Bradstreet, Jeffrey Brown, Howard Chaykin, Kevin Eastman, Steve Englehart, Ramona Fradon, Frank Cho, Dave Gibbons, Russ Heath and many more.
You can check out the trailer for the documentary below:
You can find a list of the interviews he’s released right here; some are for Patreon supporters only at this point, but they’ll become available to the public at a later date. Here’s one of them, with Jeffrey Brown: