Jose Pimienta is a talented artist who specialises in comics and storyboards. Born in Mexicali, Mexico, but now living in California, his debut graphic novel, Suncatcher, is a nod to his heritage while exploring life as a teenager in the Mexicali music scene of the 2000’s. It is a story full of music, passion, obsession, and family expectations with a supernatural twist.
Hi Jose! Without giving too much away, can you tell us a bit about Suncatcher?
Thank you for having me here. Yes, Suncatcher is the story of a teenage musician who discovers her grandfather’s soul is trapped in his old guitar. In order to set him free, she must play the song he never got to write.
Your previous work has been collaborative but Suncatcher is your debut graphic novel where you wrote AND illustrated everything. What was your creative process like? Did it differ from your other projects?
The biggest difference was that I had never written anything that extensive before, so learning to write and re-write as I moved forward was an important lesson. The writing process was long, but once I had a structure I was happy with, I moved onto thumb nailing the whole book and making re-writes as I went along. The following process was more or less the same, in terms of drawing. I moved onto penciling the whole book and, likewise, I made adjustments to the script, added pages here and there, while also keeping an eye on the bigger picture. I had never done that before, since the re-writing was always left to the writers I was collaborating with.
What sort of research did you do for Suncatcher? Was there any influence from your own life experiences?
Yeah, there are several personal experiences that influenced the making of this book. Every character is a mix-and-match of real people in my life and all the locations are based off of real places in Mexicali.
For research, I did a lot of interviews with musician from Mexicali and music scene enthusiasts. I talked to a lot of friends who were teens during that scene and learned more about the history of that music scene. Even though I was in it, it was helpful to have a pulled back perspective in order to write about it. Yeah, a lot of conversations and learning about recording studios.
This all came about from a successful Kickstarter campaign. What was the process like? Would you recommend it to others?
Yes, I do recommend it to other creatives and my best advice is: ask others for tips that may fit your campaign and plan as much as you can. Plan everything and prepare for unexpected expenses.
For me, I was fortunate to be friends with others who have run multiple successful kickstarters before, so, I asked them out for coffee and/or meals and asked everything I could think of and listened to everything they had learned during their campaigns.
Thanks to them I was able to build a budget. I consider all expenses from printing to a print consultant, merchandise ideas, shipping supplies and so on. Once I planned all that, I launched and began promoting the campaign every day.
I learned a lot from the things I did wrong and what I did right. More so, I’m just grateful for the help.
Can you describe Beatriz in three words?
Melomaniac, creative, and persistent.
Who was your favourite character to draw?
So, this is just favorite. I loved drawing all of the characters and all the locations. Drawing Mexicali was something I had been wanting to do for a long time. But favorite?
To draw: The Guitar/Grandfather, but Ed on a close second, because of his mannerism.
To write? Diana.
The opening of the novel speaks about music so poetically. Who are some of your favourite artists/songs?
How much time do we have? My favorite album of all time is till “Hombre Sintetizador” By a Mexican band called “Zurdok.” And I’m one of those people who changes favorite musician all the time, so, right now I’m listening to a lot of Natalia Lafurcade, The Regrettes, Letter From Readers, Against Me!, Streetlight Manifesto, Cafe Tacuba, Screaming Females, Wintergatan… Even the favorites are a long list.
Songs? I’ve been listening to the Hadestown musical a lot and the Broadway rendition of “Whatsername” always makes me smile. The Ode to Joy is an all-time favorite. There’s a song called “The Jabba” by Battles that gets me in a nice groove. “Re” by Aterciopelados also always makes me happy. I guess it can also be a long list.
What medium/tools do you create art and graphic design with?
I write the formal script on my laptop’s word processor, but I take a lot of notes on sketchbooks or cue cards. Then I draw my thumbnails on either print paper or small graph paper with a .5 mechanical pencil with an HB graphite. Then I move to penciling on 9×12 Smooth Bristol Board with a drawing area of 10.5 by 7. Afterwards, I ink with micron pens and a Pentel Brush pen. After that, I scan my pages with my magnificent HP Envy 5540 scanner and I color and letter on Photoshop. My current favorite font to use is Blambot’s Chewed Pen.
Are you working on anything currently? Can you tell us a bit about it?
Yes, I’d love to. Currently I’m penciling a graphic novel I wrote for Random House Graphic titled “Twin Cities.” It’s about two siblings who finish sixth grade and one decides to continue her school in the American City of Calexico, while the other decides to stay in his School in Mexicali, Mexico. It’s another dream project I’ve been wanting to draw for a few years and I’m fortunate to be working on it with Whitney Leopard as my editor. The story is essentially about twins growing apart in border cities.
Are there any books, besides your own of course, that you would recommend to readers?
Absolutely! Right now my favorite book is “Kiss Number 8” by Colleen Af Venable, “The Runaway Princess” from Johan Troianowski is magnificent. I was delighted to read “The Magic Fish” by Trung Le Nguyen, “Stargazing” by Jen Wang, Anything by Ken McDonald, Meredith McClaren or Nate Powell, “Tata Rambo” by Henry Barajas, the Spectrum anthology, “Slowly but Shirley” by Catalina Rufin, “Jalisco” by Kayden Phoenix, “Bubbles and Gondola”… Just to name a few.
Thank you for your questions and I hope you’re having a lovely day.
