After proving his serial artwork chops with the online graphic novel Subterfuge, Chris Pritchard is returning to his cyberpunk roots with a new story. This provides a perfect opportunity for us to learn a more about the source of all this illustrative energy, and a little of the man himself.

What was one of your earliest fantasy experiences?

“My immaturity wants to take this question into an inappropriate direction:) But honestly, I can clearly remember seeing the animated Hobbit movie when I was a kid and being taken away by it. It was a few decades before I read the book, but the movie had a magical effect on me.”

How did you become a professional artist?

“Professional is a word I’m not entirely comfortable with calling myself since I’m not yet making my entire living from artwork. But people have paid me to do art for them so I guess I am a professional. Outside of regular practice and constantly figuring out how I can improve, I went to conventions to present my work to art directors and posted work online (message boards or contacting companies direct). Those are the two ways I’ve gotten work.”

Where do you find inspiration for your work?

“Everywhere. Other artists, movies, books, comic books, as well as life in general. I try to be receptive to ideas at all times. You never know when something will come to you.”

Is there a single message that you find yourself most drawn to?

“Probably empathy. Stories require you to feel some connection with characters and situations, whether it’s a series of words, images, or a single image. So I think to appreciate stories in any form you need to feel some sort of empathy, and to tell a good story you need to be able to invoke that and play with it a bit. Being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes is invaluable in life and art.”

What has been your most challenging project?

“My current comic book project.”

What are you working on now?

“A personal comic book project named after the main character, Sunsara. It’s the story of a cybernetically enhanced assassin, on a world ruled by corporations, whose purpose in life is to avenge her father whose persona lives on in the form of her robotic sidekick. I’m almost done with the first issue and will start a Kickstarter campaign for it soon. I did submit it to a publisher and haven’t heard a thing from them so I’m moving forward with publishing it myself. It’s a huge undertaking to do everything in a project like this and I’ve really made an effort to try to flesh out the world and characters before jumping in to creating the book.”

That Sunsara Kickstarter campaign is now underway!