COMIC(?): When I was 14, I read Whiteout.

(Originally published November 9, 2017 on my previous account.)

I had cocooned myself under my dad’s bulky feather blanket as sunlight poured through my tiny basement window but really I was in Antarctica with Carrie Stetko as she lost her finger to frost bite during a deadly snow. I was lost in that world with her, absorbed into the illustrations telling her story.

At the time, books just existed.

They manifested fully formed into book stores, waiting for me to buy them with my parents' money.

Which is to say, I saw Greg Rucka's and Steve Lieber’s names on the cover, but I didn’t really think about how one had actively written and the other actively drawn it over months, over years, applying decades of technical skill they had painstakingly learned to work in this medium.

When I was 19, I met Steve Lieber.

I was an excited fan meeting my favorite creators at San Diego Comic Con. I was buzzing from adrenaline and hormones, surrounded for the first time in real life by the best friends I’d found on the internet and the professional creators responsible for the comics that I loved so much, that I revolved my life around.

Steve Lieber, this real person, DREW Whiteout. He made that with his hands. And now he was talking to me, the way humans do when they meet.

As a nerdy fan, Steve Lieber struck me as kind.

When I was 23, I moved to Portland.

The comics scene was blossoming then and I eagerly joined the great migration of young cartoonists who had connected online and were now relocating to this quirky, affordable city. I knew I would never be one of the professionals, I’d only ever be a hobbyist with a day job who drew my silly stories after hours as my pastime.

On my lunch breaks from work, I’d eat at the comic book studio Steve Lieber helped found. He would look over my amateur pages drawn on printer paper and offer me feedback. He condensed his decades of hard-won knowledge into bite size critiques, teaching me the craft of just how uniquely comics work. It’s an art. It’s a discipline. It’s a structured visual language unique to this field. He taught me how to guide my readers with my artistic decisions so they would lose themselves in my comic pages the way I had lost myself in Whiteout a decade earlier. My work improved with his guidance.

When I was 25 I joined Steve Lieber’s studio and began my career as a full time cartoonist.

He referred jobs my way and taught me how to navigate the world of self-employment. He held my hand while I took my first shaky steps into this unstable occupation and made it my home.

Now I am 34.

Nearly a decade has passed at our studio and in that time I have witnessed Steve Lieber mentor dozens of brand new cartoonists who have passed through our doorway. The same kindness, patience, and knowledge that he generously shared with me, I have watched him extend them those same gifts as well. Our work may not resemble each others’ in the slightest, but the way we approach our pages, the consideration we put into structuring our visual narrative, Steve Lieber’s fingerprints are all over that.

He guided me into the cartoonist that I am today and I truly believe --I know-- that he helped mold a sizable chunk of the next generation of cartoonists coming up as well.

Whiteout is 20 years old now.

To commemorate its anniversary, Oni Press re-released it in a full compendium that includes the sequel and an afterword from the author. Whiteout - The Definitive Edition.  (Affiliate link)

Stories last a long time when they’re crafted from skilled hands.

Thanks for everything, Steve.