Indie Artist Alley Interviews at New York Comic Con

Who are you?

My name is Marcus Williams, aka Marcus the Visual; you will find me online at Marcus the Visual. Oh man, I’ve always loved art. I’m a character designer, but character design is what I guess got me excited about drawing all those years when I was a kid. I thought I wanted to do animation, but my excitement doesn’t come from that. I love creating characters. Looney Tunes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter, it was all very distinctive. That’s what I’m doing now.

How would you describe your art style?

I’m actually a mixture of many people. Bruce Lee had three different masters, didn’t he? But in the end, he actually came up with his own version of it all. So, as a child, I tried to draw like everyone I just named. Now collectively, because I’ve studied all these different styles, I can pull and somewhat combine everything I know from them. So I came up with something like this [Williams pulls out a print from his “Old Ninjas” series]. Some people may see this and say it reminds me of something. But ultimately it’s a combination.

What goes through your head while you paint?

What do I want to convey, what energy do I want this to have? It’s pretty much the same thing as a photographer trying to frame something interesting. But I only focus on character. So any character art I create I want to tell a story, what would make someone pick up on that? So I guess the construction of it all comes down to anatomy and dynamic energy and things like that. I don’t always think this happens to everyone. You can have a character that stands completely still, doing nothing, and still be very engaging.

What is your big current project and where can people find you?

I work with a partner of mine, Greg Burnham, on The Tuskegee Heirs. It’s a futuristic sci-fi action adventure set 80 years in the future. It features five young pilots who were trained by the Tuskegee Heirs, but at a time when manned flights were sort of illegal. But the leader of the Inheritors feels that they will have to be the last line of defense against this sinister threat. Turns out, he’s right. So it’s very cool, very anime-inspired, and looks to the history of the Tuskegee Airmen. We love what we do, for all ages. We have been working on it since 2016.

You can find me on my website, Marcus the Visualand mine Instagram.