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Artist Mark Wheatley works at his drawing board on a cover for one of his graphic novels.

Written By Jeffrey Roth, Photos by: John Stranovsky

Growing up in Tidewater, Va., Mark Wheatley loved comic books; a little too much, as far as his parents were concerned.

“From about the fifth grade I was one of those people who got hooked watching the Adam West-Batman, television show,” said Wheatley, an award-winning graphic novelist and illustrator, who founded and operates Insight Studios in Westminster.

“I got a little too enthusiastic about comic books, according to my parents, who took them away from me,” said Wheatley, whose voice carries an omnipresent undercurrent of humor, which is matched by a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“I was very defiant and I told them they couldn’t do that. I decided I would draw my own. That took a lot of my time and effort, so it didn’t work out too well for them.”

Undeterred, and perhaps spurred on by his parents’ disapproval, Wheatley pursued his fascination with comic book art. By the time he was a junior at Churchland High School, he began publishing a magazine about comic books. From the start, he was determined to publish a professional magazine. To do so, he reached out to comic illustrators and writers, interviewing them and asking permission to run samples of their art.

“I started working with artists and writers from all over the country, some of whom I still work with professionally,” said Wheatley, who ties his long blond hair in a ponytail, and whose usual work clothes are jeans and sandals.

In his basement studio, he is surrounded by shelves lined with classic comic books, an extensive library of pulp fiction, classic science fiction, fantasy and books that cross all the genres, which he collects for the cover art, and to read.

Within easy reach are his computers, light table, works in progress and hundreds of classic comic editions, sheathed in plastic and ordered by title. Framed examples of his art hang on the walls.

“One of the illustrations I published was by Michael William Kaluta, whose work has appeared in DC Comics and Marvel Comics, to list a few, ” he said. “About a year later, I met him at a convention in Norfolk, Va. He told me that I should go to VCU, (Virginia Commonwealth University), because it had art, but it also had three girls for every guy.”

Wheatley said he graduated from VCU in 1976, with a major in communication arts and design. Now 56, he has won some of the most prestigious prizes given in the graphic arts and heroic fantasy fields, including the Inkpot, Mucker and Speakeasy awards.

The first issue of his magazine, Nucleus: The Center of the Comic World, was photocopied – once, in a pinch, he used mimeograph – “but we didn’t use those copies,” said Wheatley, “It actually looked like a mess and we went back to the 3M copier even though it took a full 24 hours to run off the 100 copies of the magazine.”

Eventually, his father, whose office used a professional printer, stepped in and offered to have the magazine run on an offset press. For the first two years, Wheatley managed to produce two issues a year. By the time he published his ninth and final issue,Wheatley was publishing one quality issue a year.

While attending college, Wheatley worked as an art director for the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Commerce. After graduation, he moved to New Jersey in hopes of finding work as a freelance illustrator with magazines in New York City.

There, he connected with some of the top illustrators in the country, who set the standards and tone for the industry. His work has been featured often in the annual Spectrum selection of contemporary fantastic art (Underwood Books), and has also appeared in private gallery shows. Several of his originals, he said, can be found in the Library of Congress’ permanent collection, as well as the library’s 9/11 exhibit in 2002.

“When I became a freelance artist,” said Wheatley, “I was so determined to pursue my creative outlet that I turned down an offer to be the editor of Heavy Metal Magazine. I did not want to be tied down to an office.” Later, he contributed illustrated stories and comics for Heavy Metal.

“But if I had understood the politics of the business better,” Wheatley said, “I would have known that if I only worked the job for six months it would have given me all the contacts I needed for the next six years.

He spent the next six months meticulously working to improve the caliber of his work enough to stand a chance of landing an assignment.

“My first assignment was with a National Lampoon spin-off, called International Insanity,”said Wheatley.

“The first magazine I created was for Countrywide Publications; not a high-end publisher. They published everything: dog magazines, court magazines, police magazines, romance magazines, UFO magazines; and when Elvis died they had a commemorative magazine on the streets in three days.”

For Countryside, Wheatley created a comic book aimed at the adult market, called Gasm. From there, he went on to produce one of the first fully painted comic books in the U.S.

A short time later, he “went uptown” and began working as an illustrator for Heavy Metal, where he met and worked with Michael Gross, the art director for National Lampoon, the man who went on to produce “Ghostbusters” and “Throw Momma from the Train.” He was also introduced to Sean Kelly, who later worked with “Saturday Night Live.”

“In 1977, the comic book industry collapsed,” said Wheatley, who is known for his unique slant on such iconic characters as Tarzan, Jonny Quest, Dr. Strange, The Flash, Dracula and The Spider, which he helped introduce to a new generation of readers. “It virtually became impossible to sell comic art.”

In 1978, Wheatley moved to Baltimore, where his wife Carol, was looking for a permanent job as an occupational therapist. As a child, he often spent holidays in Brunswick, Md., with relatives from his mother’s side of the family. That year, he founded Insight Studios and in 2001 he moved to Carroll County.

By the mid-1980s, there was a resurgence of interest in the comic book market, at which time, Wheatley created the “Mars” series. That was when he connected with Mike Gold, editor of First Comic. Later, he worked with Gold at DC Comics. With DC, he created Breathtaker with Marc Hempel, he said.

Original art from Breathtaker is currently on display at the Art Museum of Huntington, WV. He also created Black Hood, Radical Dreamer, Miles the Monster, The Mighty Motor-Sapiens, EZ Street, Lone Justice, Titanic Tales, Prince Nightmare, Hammer of the Gods, Blood of the Innocent, and Frankenstein Mobster.

Also in the ’80s, Wheatley began creating theme music for his comics, which he composes in his studio, using special software, an electronic keyboard and a digital mixer. But, he said, at the time “there was little opportunity to share it. We did a multi-media slide show for “Mars” that we showed at two comic conventions. The music was heard there.”

“Later, for the Blood of Dracula comic,” he said, “we did a flexi-disk insert that included three of my Dracula songs. These days we usually produce ‘trailers’ for the new comics and graphic novels, and these can be seen and heard at our YouTube page, ÔInsightmovies.’”

Wheatley, who said the couple’s cat is their only child, has worked as an editor and art director for a number of publishers and is the inventor of a technology for comics’ color production. His vision for Insight Studios was to create a base for a team of talented artists and storytellers. In 2001, Insight Studios became the subject of a major “coffee table” art book, IS ART: The Art of Insight Studios, written by Allan Gross.

Currently, he is working with Gold at Comix.com., on Easy Street, a graphic novel about how movies and graphic novels are produced, which was nominated for a Harvey Award for best online comic. His soon-to-be-released “Lone Justice” series follows a rich playboy who loses everything during the Great Depression and fights crime for food.

“We are working on a motion picture version of our Blood of the Innocent graphic novel,” said Wheatley. “And I just designed and produced a book about Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan.”

Wheatley recently finished designing the cover for the Captain Action book series, being published by Moonstone. He also did the cover for a new comic book: Vampire Pa., by JC Vaughn, which is about suburban vampires living in Pittsburgh, and the cover for the first issue of Deadtime Stories for Impressionable Children, “No matter what the title says,” he noted, “it is not for children.”

Addressing aspiring comic book and graphic novelists, Wheatley said that no one in the industry these days does hand lettering. Everything is done by computer, digital tablets, illustration and layout software and special equipment, which would require a beginning investment of about $8,000.

“In the old days, you could just draw. Now, with the technology, it is beyond that,” he said. “I recommend that most people not try to break into comics. Instead they should train to tell stories with pictures; learn how to use storyboards, create Flash work, or design webpages. The structure of the web is similar to comic books.”

For more information on Wheatley and his work, visit www.InsightStudiosGroup.com; www.youtube.com/user/Insightmovies; and www.SunnyFundays.com.