This past weekend, Emerald City Comic Con brought a number of talented comic artists to Seattle.  One of those artists was Joe Keatinge with Image Comics, who I had the privilege of interviewing about his work on Tech Jacket and other projects!

When asking Joe about how he got into writing comics he said, “I’ve read comics my whole life.  I read everything. Not just comics; prose, if it’s printed, and there’s words – I’m into it.  I had a natural predilection towards writing as a kid, and my parents were really encouraging of it.”  His first book was Glory, which was what first blew up for him (in a good way), and lead to him working in the Marvel & DC universes and now Skybound and Image.

Funny enough, Joe says he first got into Tech Jacket because just as a guy who wanted to read it: “I’ve been friends with Robert for awhile and I asked him about Tech Jacket just as a guy who wanted to read it, and a little while later he was like “Hey, do you want to write it?”  And I was like “Yes, I do!””  On working with Robert Kirkman, Joe says he knew him pre-The Walking Dead blow up and commends him on his personality not changing despite how successful he has been.

Joe says something he’s passionate about currently is Creators for Creators, which was announced at Image Expo.  It’s a group of creators who started an independent 501(c)3 non-profit and the idea is once a year (or more) they will take open submissions for new, never published, creators to get a $30,000 grant to create their own comic.  What drew him to the project was the idea of getting an extensive mentorship program going through CfC and pay it forward to new creators.

Below is a full audio clip of the interview!