A Q&A with children's book illustrator, comics creator and Sheridan College alum Bill Slavin: His illustrious career in children's books, his (not so illustrious) stint on the hockey rink, and returning to his comic book roots with the "Mordecai Crow" trilogy

August, 2024

Award-winning illustrator, comics creator and Sheridan College alumnus Bill Slavin spoke to GamutMagazine.org, recalling his time at Sheridan, highlighting some of his favorite work in his career and showcasing his latest creation - the "Mordecai Crow" trilogy from Renegade Arts:

How did you get into comics/illustrating/art, and what ultimately brought you to Sheridan College?

Bill Slavin: I have always loved the idea of narrative art, loving to draw and to create stories and comics when I was a kid. I was a huge Asterix fan. Sheridan College had a good reputation for the arts and originally I enrolled in Illustration. I dropped out early in my first year (I was young, only 17) and returned the next year, thinking the cartooning and graphic story illustration would be a better fit, which it was.

"Seduction of the Innocent" by Bill Slavin

Which years were you enrolled at Sheridan?

BS: Let’s see, I guess I was there in '76 (illustration) and '77/'78 (cartooning) dropping out without graduating half way through the second year.

It’s known that many famous working artists at that time, including Will Eisner, Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson and Mike Ploog, would come through to be guest-lecturers at the college. Were there other notable professionals who lectured there, and can you recall any anecdotes/interactions with any?

BS:The only person I remember was Will Eisner. Mostly I just remember him working away up in the mezzanine, and at the end of his stay (that year he was a guest artist for a week or two) leaving us with a one-off Spirit comic which was printed up in large format. Of course, now I know that Will Eisner is a comic book icon and is widely accepted as the person who first popularized the term “graphic novel” but at that time he was just a guy upstairs. It is true that youth is wasted on the young. One of my greatest regrets is that my copy of the comic that he made for us disappeared at some point in my life.

Can you recall one or two other fond memories or anecdotes from your time in the cartooning program at Sheridan? Also, I understand you were a member of the Cartooning Team X hockey team – any fun stories from your time in the Sheridan Oakville Intramural Hockey League?

BS: My year and a half were mostly a blur. I do remember we had a design teacher who we all called Sergeant Macmillan, because he had this boot camp attitude towards us, doubtlessly deserved as I am sure we were a bunch of shits. One day his challenge was for us to draw a circle without a compass or any mechanical aides. We all laboriously did our freehand best and after we presented our attempts he mocked us and took a coffee cup, flipped it upside down, and traced that. I think the lesson was that we were surrounded by these shapes in the objects around us but we all thought it was pretty lame and that a coffee cup was just another mechanical aid.

Another memory was the director of the course, Walter Hanson, was speaking to us individually, asking what our influences were, what comics we loved, etc. I remember telling him I was a huge Asterix fan and in no uncertain terms he made it pretty clear to me that he thought Asterix was derivative of Disney and lame. I was hurt! See, I must have been, I still remember that.

Yes, I was a member of Cartooning Team X. Have you spoken to Keith Milne? It was his brain child. Being cartoonists we were pretty well the most useless bunch of players you will ever see on the ice. We never had enough players and recruited a bunch of high school students to fill the ranks. We were regularly destroyed on the ice, the business guys being the worst because they just hammered us. I mean, physically hammered us. I could barely walk the next day. But we did win one game. One of our guys knew a bunch of serious tough-ass players from Hamilton, all steel mill guys, and they came out one night to play for our team. It was the business guys again that we were up against and we buried them. I am pretty sure it was our only win all year and it felt good.

Cartooning Team X (1978-79)
Front Row (L-R): Bill Slavin, Tim Cerantola, Jeff Wilson, Gary Pearson, Ernie (?)
Middle Row: Paul McCormack
Back Row (L-R): Gary Long, Keith Milne (Team originator and captain), Peter Grau, Geoff (?), Mark Challinor. Photo courtesy of Jeff Wilson

Can you describe a bit about your work after leaving Sheridan? How did the work with Kids Can Press come about?

BS: I have worked in the art field continuously after leaving Sheridan. I got a job with the Yellow Pages working in their art department, a soulless job but with the advantage that I could usually knock off about ten adds by noon (twice the required number) and spend the rest of the day drawing my own stuff. I moved on to art direction at a small publishing firm in the Ottawa Valley, landing an illustration job with KCP after I returned to Toronto, when I was about 30. In those days you simply made an appointment to speak to the art director and came in with a portfolio of your work. They liked what they saw and took a chance with this punky misfit who liked drawing goblins. No idea why - I would never have hired me!

"Drum-Dance to Bed" by Bill Slavin

You’ve illustrated more than 100 kids’ books, and with those has come an absolutely impressive list of awards and accolades – are there any specific books or awards that you’re most proud of?

BS: The books and awards don’t always match up, but Linda Bailey’s Stanley series got a lot of attention, and I still think they were very good books. Linda was (is) a brilliant writer of kids’ books. The Good Times Travel Agency series I did with her was also a lot of fun, and also did very well, really a graphic novel format that allowed me to do the kind of work I have always loved best.

Probably the book I was most proud of, however, was Who Broke the Teapot, pretty well the last kids’ book I did and one that I wrote myself. It was reviewed fantastically well, made a prestigious Library Journal list in the States as one of the thirty best books for kids that came out that year, and sold about 600 copies. So you never know…

"Big Sea" by Bill Slavin

You also co-wrote Transformed: How Everyday Things are Made with your brother Jim, and co-illustrated Drumheller Dinosaur Dance with your wife (and talented artist) Esperança Melo, both of you members of the Millbrook Gallery. How fulfilling was it to be able to collaborate with family and share these work experiences with them?

BS: The work with my brother was largely an act of desperation, when I realized that I was never going to get the book done. I asked Jim and he did a fantastic job writing up the bulk of it, with me tweaking the text snd step by steps when it got into the artwork stage. I almost bailed on Transformed, coming to my publisher Valerie Hussey, who terrified and inspired me in equal measures, halfway through the process to tell her that I was a fraud, I knew nothing about how things were made and I wanted out (the book was a KCP idea). She said, “We can’t do that, Bill, but how can we support you?”, and then proceded to talk me through my issues and offer solutions. I finished the book, it won the Norma Fleck Award that year for best Canadian children’s non- fiction and has sold I don’t know how many hundreds of thousands of copies in over 20 languages worldwide. I still know I am a fraud, but again, you never know how a book might do…

Drumheller was a very different story. My partner Esperança is a brilliant colourist and painter (I’m more of a black and white guy) and we agreed to work together on that book, just to see how it went. It was a terrific experience, each of us bringing our own strengths to the story, Esperança designing the text and painting the backgrounds while I did pencils and characters. We were literally handing spreads back and forth between us and I think the result was one of the best books either of us has ever illustrated. We did a few more together afterwards, mostly for an American publisher, and really enjoyed those as well, but Drumheller was the best.

"Drumheller Dinosaur Dance" by Robert Heidbreder, illustrated by Bill Slavin and Esperança Melo. Photo from Amazon

You reignited your love for comics creation with the "Elephants Never Forget" graphic novel series, and more recently with the "Mordecai Crow" trilogy at Renegade Arts. What prompted the return to comics, and what are the challenges/rewards in comics creation vs illustration work?

BS: Personally, I love the creation of narrative art inherent in comics. Kids’ books have that as well, but with comics I can just focus on the storytelling and drawing without getting so hung up on the finished art and painting aspect involved in my illustration work. I love everything about comic making, enjoy writing my own stories and bringing my imagined worlds to life. And I love the sheer volume of drawing involved in comics - when I’m drawing I’m in my happy space.

The major drawback is entering a new field at the tail end of a career. There is little crossover between the comics and kids’ books industries, so I really am starting over again, something that is challenging and invigorating at the same time. It’s also a hard space to make a living. There is a hustle to comics - comicons, store appearances, a social media presence - that I’m not interested in engaging with too much at this point in my life, yet it is something that is crucial to getting noticed. There is a hell of a lot of talent in the industry trying to get noticed. That’s all okay, I don’t need to make a living doing this, but I’m grateful I had the career in illustration that I had and that I don’t need to make a living doing this right now.

A special sneak preview of the first page of "Blood and Fire," the upcoming third book in Bill Slavin's "Mordecai Crow" trilogy. The first two books in the trilogy are currently available for purchase at Renegade Arts Entertainment

You wrote last year on your website about your move to fully digital with your art, saying, “If you follow this blog that’s probably no great surprise, as beginning about two years ago with Blood and Fire, I switched over to creating my art digitally” and detailing your likes and dislikes about creating digitally on the iPad. One year after that post: are you still pleased that you made the switch? Any desire to return to pen/ink/brush, or do you plan to stay fully digital?

BS: No, I will stay digital. I love virtually everything about it and I think it makes me a better artist. I don’t use any of the AI tools, it is just the ease of erasing, redrawing and resizing that allows me to skip all the mechanical limitations of analog and simply get on with putting things down on paper. Having said that, I still ink top to bottom, left to right so I don’t smear my drawing and plan to keep that habit, as I still like to sketch with my brush pen and mechanical pens when on holidays. However, I do catch myself doing the pinch to zoom motion on my drawing paper once in a while when I do that!

Learn more about Bill Slavin and his work at https://www.billslavin.com

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The first two books in Bill Slavin's "Mordecai Crow" trilogy - Secrets of Jarrow and Quid Pro Crow - are availble for purchase at Renegade Arts Entertainment. Click on the images below to buy your copies today: