Nick Dragotta, the artist and co-creator of East of West and one of the people behind the new comic creator grant Creators for Creators, joins the show this week to talk about what he’s up to these days. Dragotta talks about the genesis of Creators for Creators, what the appeal of the project was for him, how East of West came together, how putting together a creator-owned book helped keep him in comics, the process he and Jonathan Hickman use on East of West, character acting, pace of storytelling, how the book’s schedule works, the impact of Frank Martin and Rus Wooton on the book, character design, photo reference, where the book is headed, and more.

You can find Nick on Twitter, on Tumblr and in East of West at Image Comics.

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Header image is from East of West #22, art by Nick Dragotta and Frank Martin. Intro music is Yo La Tengo’s “Periodically Double or Triple”, used with their permission (if they remember…I swear it’s true YLT!).