Success story behind Cork’s comic book guy

“I WAS into reading until I was maybe 10, but by the time I got to secondary school that had dropped off.”

The reading experience of Kevin Smith was a familiar one among teenage boys, even before the arrival of smartphones and social media to divert their attention from books.

For Cork city native Kevin, however, comic books and graphic novels not only rekindled his love of reading, but sparked a creative partnership that has just published its first full-length collection of comic adventures for teens.

Comic books, he says, are a “much more accessible medium for literature” than traditional novels, with an instant visual appeal which ensures their popularity in the digital age.

They also allow creators free rein for lengthy, imaginative plots without boundaries, a case in point being his collaboration with Scottish-based illustrator Ryan Ibbotson, Tropical Punch, which is described by Kevin as a “martial arts road trip”.

“Kids are very much on their phones and social media, TikTok and all the rest, and the plots of what they’re consuming are very self-contained, very short, and repetitive,” says Kevin.

As a teenager, he recalls, “I really appreciated reading incredibly expansive series, which is a thing you can do in comic books in a way that I’ve very rarely seen even in novels”.

“What was drawing me into it was this sense of agency, I suppose,” he adds.

“When you’re a teenager, you’re told what to do, where to go; you have very little freedom. But I really liked these stories about kids my age and their friends going on big action-packed adventures that were a lot of fun.

“They got to go to all these fantastical places, whereas I wouldn’t even have known that road trips with friends was a possibility at the time.

“Also, the heightened sense of emotion was something that really drew me in as a kid. A lot of kids’ media can be quite over-dramatic, especially the action stuff, but I think that is the appeal of it, that it is so easily-understandable and digestible for kids.

“The stakes would be high. ‘If I can’t beat this one bad guy in a fight, the whole world is going to explode’. Everything about that is digestible to a teenager.”

Kevin had begun reading comics in his early teens, but his interest in writing his own was piqued by the Teen Graphic Novel Project run by Cork City Libraries.

“They would pair teenagers up together, so if you were a writer they’d pair you up with an artist, and they put [the comics] out as one cohesive anthology,” he says.

“I got into that when I was 16 and I got bitten by the bug. Then I started writing my own stories over the summer and replicated the process I had gone through with the library project, to make my own anthology.”

After creating comics entitled Patch and Scrap in his teens, in 2018 Kevin linked up online with Ryan Ibbotson, their first comic collaboration being Marco the Demon Dude, which went on to win four Irish Comic News awards, including ‘Overall Best Irish Comic’.

“I initially pitched him on a 12-page comic for Marco the Demon Dude, but we ended up producing about 80 pages in total, all throughout the first wave of lockdown,” says Kevin, who works primarily on script and speech bubbles, with Ryan creating the illustrations, though the roles in the partnership often cross over.

The idea for Tropical Punch, for instance, originated with Ryan, who had created the characters years previously, with Kevin going on to develop the plot.

“It’s about this kid from this ancient line of kung-fu fighters, but when he was younger he was kicked out and he didn’t know why - he was never given a reason,” he explains.

“He’s on his own, trying to find his way back, so the series is like a martial arts road trip. The main character is Chu and his teacher is Niko, a seasoned martial arts veteran, who also happens to be an anthropomorphic dog... and a chain smoker.”

The comic books, initially released in individual 20-page issues, quickly established a following among teenage fans of the likes of Scott Pilgrim and Manga, but also reached a wider readership.

“We were targeting the teenage boy [reader] aged 14-16, but selling the individual issues at conventions and fairs, I’ve been really surprised that a lot of girls and younger kids are interested, and some young adults,” says Kevin.

Tropical Punch was also on sale at The Comic Vault off Cork’s Parnell Place prior to the shop’s closure in May. “Whenever I was going to the shop, the shopkeeper would be like ‘There’s this kid who’s coming in every week and says ‘When’s the next issue coming out?’” says Kevin. “I’ve never met that kid, but hearing that is really nice.”

Chapters 1-4 of Tropical Punch, with new artwork and behind-the-scenes sketches, were launched as a collected edition last Friday in Cork, the culmination of a lengthy creative process for Kevin and Ryan.

Currently finishing his dissertation for a masters in digital arts and humanities at UCC while also working as a web developer, Kevin promises Tropical Punch will be back after a brief hiatus.

“It’s part one of many,” he says. “Depending on where we are in the process, both of us are putting in about 10 to 15 hours a week - it’s a very time-intensive hobby.

“We’re taking a bit of a pause now to play around with some other stories but we’re hoping to do more in the future.”

Tropical Punch is priced €10 and is available at Waterstones, comic shops, conventions, and online at livewirecomics.gumroad.com