This creator spotlight is a part of a series of interviews featuring artists from Cloudscape’s latest comic anthology, Fantastic Frights. Click here to check out the Kickstarter campaign for the book.
Eric Button is a freelance artist who lives in beautiful Vancouver, BC. Nature, science fiction, fantasy and Canadian culture are often the subjects of his drawings, which he explores with a sense of humour and a touch of cynicism.
What were you scared of as a kid?
EB: Spiders. They still give me the creeps.
What’s your favourite aspect of the horror genre as it applies to comics?
EB: The monsters of horror comics are my favourite part. I love drawing them because the more marks and texture you add the uglier and scarier they get. Unlike in a horror film, there’s no distinguishing them from the rest of the reality of the comic. The monsters of film are expertly made with make up and prosthetics and cgi, but comic book monsters are made of the same ink as everything else in the comic.
What was the most interesting/challenging thing you experienced when working with the book’s two-tone colour scheme?
EB: I’m most comfortable working in black and white so I decided to use the pink spot colour sparingly and thematically. Because my comic is all about greed, I reserved the pink for signifying wealth and power.
What was the inspiration behind your story for this anthology?
EB: I was reading a lot of tales from the Brother’s Grimm for inspiration. I was particularly inspired by the story The Hand with the Knife which is about an elf who gifts a young girl a magic knife from a tree only to have his hands cut off by her scheming brothers. That visual of a hand appearing out of the trunk of a tree really stuck with me and I chose to build my story around it and give the elf some revenge
Where can people find out more about your work?
EB: People can follow me on instagram: @ericjbutton or visit my website: www.ericbutton.com.
The Kickstarter for Fantastic Frights is live Oct 19th – Nov 5th.