iFanboy Upstarts: Mike Hawthorne

If you look at the most popular comics out there, all of those top-selling comic creators got their start somewhere. Some worked their way up through the independent scene or on small work-for-hire  projects, while others cut their teeth working in a related field before coming into comics. But what they all have (and what no one can take from them) is talent. In this week’s installment of iFanboy Upstarts, we look at artist Mike Hawthorne.

Artist Mike Hawthorne has been working in and around the comic industry for the past ten years. After making his comics debut in the 2000 CBLDF benefit book Occupational Hazards, he got his first chance with a story published in Grendel: Red, White & Black #2 in 2002. While prepping his own series Hysteria, Hawthorne continued showed a diversity not unlike Stuart Immonen, doing series as far ranging as the cowboy/fairy tale mash-up The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty to the romance comic Three Days in Europe as well as issues of Queen & Country and a Terminator comic.

In 2005 he got his first taste of the big time doing the Marvel miniseries Machine Teen with former editor Mark Sumerak, but then returned to the independent scene with more Hysteria as well as another creator-owned comic, Umbra. Hawthorne became in effect a journeyman artist, doing work for Mirage Studios’ Tales of the TMNT, Dark Horse’s The Goon, Vertigo’s The Exterminators and The Un-Men, and licensed work for Dark Horse with G.I. Joe: Origins and Star Trek: Aliens Spotlight: Tribbles. It’s around this time that he became a part of the Fear Agent team with Rick Remender and Tony Moore, doing layouts and other work. After some rumors of a creator-owned series of his own at Vertigo, Hawthorne opted to stay with Dark Horse and currently works on the Conan: Road of Kings miniseries.

But besides his day job of drawing comics, Hawthorne’s grown a second life of sorts online as a contributor to the popular Comic Twart blog and through his own webcomic Raising Crazy. Over the past ten years he’s produced a variety of stunning work while avoiding settling down with one publisher for too long. Although his freelance life given him the opportunity to draw a variety of characters, it seems only a matter of time before a larger publisher like DC or Marvel might swoop him up in an exclusive agreement.