iFanboy Upstarts: Elisa Féliz

Some of the greatest artists are never discovered because they don’t know how to get their work out in front of people. The comics industry has a long tradition of showmen (and women) who are just as comfortable promoting their works as they are doing their work. This week’s iFanboy Upstarts is a renaissance woman who’s adept at penciling, inking, lettering, and even publishing.

Born on the island nation of the Dominican Republic, Elisa Féliz has been creating art since a very early age. At the age of ten she hard a copy strip published in her home country’s leading newspaper El Listen Diario, and in 2008 Féliz moved to the United States to attend the Kubert School. While attending school, she made her formal comics debut coloring the independent press book RX Tales and followed that up doing a two issues of a comic based on the television series Dallas. In 2009 she did the covers for six-part Villikon Chronicles: Proclivity  for publisher Silent Nemesis Workshop, and illustrated that series fifth issue. That same year, Féliz started her own comic publishing outfit — XSIDE Comics — for her own creator-owned work which are still in progress.

Since then Féliz took jobs as a colorist for 803 Studios’ KIP: Knowledge Is Power and worked with Jens Altman on a comic pitch titled Intrepid. During this time she also picked up a unique gig drawing and lettering a comic for the Girl Scouts called Your Multi-Gen Workforce, but her most well-known work to date was illustrating a story inside the Womanthology: Heroic anthology released in late 2011.

Although Féliz work isn’t as honed as the A-list talent drawing the top comics today, her work shows a lot of potential and an immense amount of progress, especially for someone so young. Her enterprising skills self-publishing in addition to being a freelance artist are something rare in comics, and something that will almost assuredly bring her more into the mainstream as time goes on.

Look over these samples of her penciling work and let us know what you think: does she have a long future in comics, and where would you like to see her work show up in next?