Steenz Visit

It is evident from listening to Steenz in class that they have extensive knowledge of the comic book industry. They talked about how their careers began by working in comic book stores and libraries. They had a humble beginning to their career, but in the end, they managed to land a larger contract that enabled them to work on more ambitious projects and a daily strip called “Heart of the City.” Steenz’s contract on this specific strip is set to last for many years. This comic strip is produced every day and is finished weeks in advance. In class, we talked about the entire process of creating the daily comics, from beginning to end. Before characters are introduced, they are just words on paper. Before being published, the comics pass through an editing team as well. While they don’t perform all the work, Steenz does most of it. I discovered how enthusiastic Steenz is about the comic book industry as a whole after listening to them speak. Steenz’s success can be attributed to their broad experience in all facets of the comic book industry. Although Steenz admitted during the presentation that they don’t have much free time for drawing for fun, they did display a few of their creations. I questioned Steenz about whether he had ever competed with the Marvel cartoonists as I was wrapping up the talk. They made it abundantly evident that there wasn’t much competition between their comics and Marvel comics. I assumed that smaller cartoonists would have a tough time competing with larger comic industries as a whole.