“I was always a nerd,” said Jordan Jackson — a Baltimore-based comic artist, writer and faculty for animation at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) — during my First-Year Seminar: Writing with Pictures: An Introduction to Writing Picture Books and Graphic Novels. On Monday, Sept. 30, my class was honored to have Jackson join our class to discuss his journey as an artist and his creative process.
Anna Celenza — an author and a joint faculty member in the School of Arts and Sciences and at the Peabody Institute, and my professor — first met Jackson at BaltimoreAFRAM last summer, an event which is held annually in Druid Hill Park during Juneteenth weekend. In an interview with The News-Letter, Celenza recounted her first encounter with Jackson.
“I go every summer, and, this past summer, I just went by because his art caught my eye. We started talking, and he said, ‘I teach at MICA and I teach a class on illustrating comic books,’ and I said, ‘Well, I’m teaching a class on writing the words! Why don’t you come and [give a] talk?’” she said.
Aside from Jackson’s technical skills and artistic knowledge, Celenza was excited to invite Jackson due to his identity as an artist from Baltimore.
“I want [the] class to connect with the people outside the University and get to know the Baltimore community,” she said.
Jackson began his presentation with how his relationship with art began: reading comics, watching anime and going out to Comic-Cons with his dad as a child. At the age of 10, he already knew that he wanted to become an artist, which led him to explore the fine arts — specifically oil painting — to develop his technical abilities before deciding that it wasn’t for him.
In 2019, Jackson got into drawing comics when he met a science fiction writer, Ron Van Blake, at the Galactic Con in Howard County, Md. and took an offer to adapt Blake's work into a more visual form. From there, Jackson realized that adapting novels into comics was good business. He found another writer who “took the bait” before eventually realizing that he had more storytelling power if he both drew and wrote his own stories.
Jackson primarily works within the genre of science fiction, drawing inspiration from cyberpunk and classic films like Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell. “That’s my jam,” he said during the presentation. His “jam” is also considered one of the hardest genres to write. At MICA, he learned that writing science fiction is one of the hardest thing to do because writers often spend too much effort on world-building and not enough time on developing the characters and plot of the story.
One of his current science-fiction projects is a seven-part mini-series titled The E.V.E of Insurrection. The E.V.E of Insurrection takes place in an underground futuristic city, starring a main character involved in liberating the city from the corporations that control it. For Jackson, inspiration for the elements of his story — the characters, themes and architecture — comes naturally and from all around him. He drew Lana Baker, the series’s main character, from three black women in his life, including his wife.
To create a story of black liberation groups thriving, rather than being destroyed as they historically have been, Jackson drew inspiration from the MOVE organization, the Haitian Revolution (which he mentioned learning about at MICA) and the Black Panther Party. The architecture was inspired by real architecture from around the globe. He also used ArcGIS for map data about Baltimore. I was quite surprised to hear him mention the system when discussing his artistic process, as I had previously used it in a statistics class — almost a whole other world.
As Jackson explained to the class, he doesn’t just focus on these heavy topics. While working on The E.V.E of Insurrection, realized that he was missing an audience – children. Growin’ in the Garden, a five-part mini-series centering around science, technology, engineering, arts and math is Jackson’s foray into something lighter. Since Jackson doesn’t have extensive training in the sciences, he received help from an engineer friend while developing Growin’ in the Garden.
Jackson wanted the content to be as realistic and factually accurate as possible. The dialogue in Growin’ in the Garden reflects African-American Vernacular English (AAVE); “[It’s] important to me that we see more black vernacular [in media],” Jackson said. By using AAVE in his works, he hopes to raise awareness that it isn’t unsophisticated or informal, especially for young children.
After Jackson’s main presentation, my class was given the opportunity to ask him more specific questions. When asked about how he plans to market Growin’ the Garden to its target audience, Jackson said that he’s still working on it.
His main marketing strategy for his other comic works has been to table during conventions, though, understandably, children don’t quite have the means to access conventions by themselves. As such, he talked about how he’s looking to get more book orders and “ins” with schools and their principals.
Another student in the class asked Jackson about his thoughts on AI art, which has become more developed in the past year and can prey on artist’s work, which could be used to train AI without their consent. His response surprised me. “I’m not bothered,” he said. “I don’t believe that AI can prey on my art. I’m not famous enough.”
He also believes that his art style isn’t the type that’s often used in the development of AI image production. Through the intentional imperfection that Jackson embeds in his work, he reminds us that there’s value to be seen in the human aspects of art, something that AI art still can’t mimic.
“Some of my lines aren’t perfect, and that’s intentional. I want to remind people that it’s made by hand. Even if it’s digital, it's made by hand,” he said.
A question I was able to ask Jackson after his presentation was if he believed in the ‘starving artist’ stereotype, to which he responded, point blank, “It’s a lie.” Jackson talked about how, despite the difficulty of being a creator, the starving artist stereotype is a myth. Artists aren’t doomed to fail, and many can make it. He says that they key is to build a project or craft that they begin cultivating early on as they explore other ways to support themselves before making art their full-time job. He used his own comics as an example of time’s effect on art; his comics are doing alright at the moment, but, in a few years, he knows that they’ll be doing even better.
In general, art has become fairly accessible to many people of all ages and ability, especially due to online art, programs and apps that are either free or decently affordable (such as Procreate and Procreate Dreams, which are quite versatile and only cost $12.99 and $19.99 respectively). Jackson himself uses Procreate to do much of his work as he explained in his presentation.
Afterwards, Celenza expressed gratitude to Jackson for giving our class a presentation from the perspective of an artist who’s just launched his career.
“If a speaker has been doing [art] for 20 years, there can be a gap between them and the students,” she said, referring to how students might not be able to imagine themselves in the position of established, long-time creators.
Celenza also finds great value in Jackson’s ability to adapt to where life takes him, and hopes that students understand that they don’t have to be set on one predetermined path into the future.
“Sometimes, it's just about being aware when opportunities come your way,” she said. “He was really set on being a fine artist, and then a guy said ‘will you illustrate my sci-fi novel’ and he said ‘sure.’ He [kept an open mind towards] the multiple doors [he could] go through, rather than saying ‘this is the path.’”
At the end of the day, writers and artists like Jackson are continuing to explore the genres of their choosing — creating worlds and sharing them with their audiences. Being a writer, an artist or both requires additional entrepreneurial skills and the knowledge of how to sell your skills and work. It might not be the easiest profession, and, to some, it might seem too difficult. However, for the artists and writers in the field who flourish, creating is a passion — a passion tied to the production of beauty, community and social change.
For those who are interested in learning more about Jackson and exploring his works, you can visit his website or his Instagram page, @jpjacksonart.
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