PN Featured Artist: Daniel de Sosa

This weeks PureNintendo.com Featured Artist of the week is Daniel de Sosa. A talented illustrator who is very passionate about creating comics. He is actually the assistant editor and a founding member of Backwards Burd Comics collective (www.backwardsburd.com). He began a Kickstarter fund for his comic ‘Oi! Tales of Bardic Fury: Volume 1’. A fantasy comic about a bard who gets sent to a town in North Ireland that’s never heard music before. Lucky for Daniel the Kickstarter was successfully funded and the comic is set for future release! All of Daniel’s contact info can be found at the bottom of the interview if you have any questions or just want to check out some more of his awesome artwork. Enjoy!

KD: How long have you been an illustrator? When did you discover comics were your passion? 

DD: I’ve been working as an illustrator for the past two years but I’ve been drawing for my entire life. I always liked comics growing up, mainly Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, Frank Miller Batmans and the Sandman, but I wasn’t crazy in to them like lots of people are. I used to make stick figure comics on the bus rides in middle school for my friends but I never thought about becoming a comic artist while growing up. It was only in university when I read a book about indie comic legend and genius Jaime Hernandez that I realized comics were what I wanted to dedicate my life to.

 KD: What inspires you the most when creating artwork? 

DD: Game concept designs, fine art, books, movies, people I know, anything really. I find inspiration in random things around me a lot of the time.

 KD: What’s your favorite Nintendo game or series, why?

DD: Pokemon is my favorite series hands down. It’s just as good as a game franchise gets for me. Combines the puzzle solving and world exploration of Zelda with team building, tactics and training of an RPG. On top of that, I love the variety of pokemon designs. They have super cute ones like Jigglypuff and Pikachu, cool ones like Lucario and kickass monsters like Gyarados, not to mention Snorlax. On top of that, I love the deep tactics involved in the battling system, especially when you play against other competitive battlers. My all time favorite game though is Super Mario World for SNES. For me that is the best platformer ever. 

 KD: When did you get involved with Backwards Burd Comics? Is that something you’ve always wanted to do?

DD: Backwards Burd started out as a society at university, created by myself and my two friends Sajan Rai and Casper Willcock. At first we just wanted to get our comics printed in the school paper, but our university didn’t even have a school paper, so we just made our own magazine instead. Our first few issues were really rough but we kept getting better with every issue, and also started attending cons. We were doing pretty well and decided to carry on making comics and exhibiting at cons. We mainly have sold zines and single issue comics up to this point but we’re coming out with our first graphic novel in time for Christmas and have a lot of exciting ideas planned. It’s not something that I’ve always wanted to do, but I’m glad I’m doing it.

 KD: The storyline of your comic ‘Oi! Tales of Bardic Fury’ looks very interesting, can you tell us a little bit about that?

DD: It’s about a bard in ancient Ireland who gets sent to a town that’s never heard music before. Basically I wanted to tell a teen slice of life drama in a fantasy setting. I love those stories like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings but they’re always about epic warriors and kings going on epic quests and doing epic things. I just wanted to write about normal people in this time period. Also bards were like the rock stars of their time, and I have not read many stories where bards have been done the justice they deserve, so I wanted to try making one. I also just wanted to make a funny fantasy comic that is enjoyable to read and doesn’t take itself too seriously

KD: Are there any other upcoming projects or anything else you’d like to tell us about?

DD: The first Backwards Burd Graphic Novel is coming out in November, starring our mascot Kitty Jenkins. He’s an inter dimensional cosmic guru cat who sends people on spiritual journeys that they don’t want to go on. In the end, they learn nothing.

KD: Thanks for the interview Daniel, I love your art style! Where can our readers checkout more of your artwork or contact you if they have any questions?

DD: My comic Oi! Tales of Bardic Fury can be read online for free at oi.thecomicseries.com. My twitter is @bardicfury and you can find out more about Backwards Burd at Backwardsburd.com thanks!

Any artist interested in having their artwork on PureNintendo.com or in PNM can contact me at Kaelyn@purenintendo.com. Submit fan art, sculptures, baked goods, comics, etc. If the theme is ‘Nintendo’ we want to see it! You could be the next Pure Nintendo featured artist! Also to see artwork from artists featured in our magazine, PNM, please head to PureNintendo.com/magazine to subscribe! Thanks for reading.