Roderick Thornton is a Houston based independent artist. Founder of Angel Comics, Mr. Thornton is an Air Force veteran, former Houston firefighter, and comic book artist and developer. I was able to interview Mr. Thornton and ask him about some of the opportunities he has had and ones that are coming down the road. Roderick Thornton’s responses are in italic.
What inspired your series, Alien Hunter?
Alien Hunter was inspired by the research I was doing for a project about the Nephilim and fallen angels. And I said well, how can I tell a story that would interest people of every background. What came to mind was to tell a story about the Nephilim fleeing the destruction of the flood, they took humans and seeded other worlds. Long ago, the Seven Lords of Darkness fell from Grace and sought to spread their corruption amidst all creation. One of the Fallen, Tanis Lor, seeking to escape the destruction about to be poured out on the Earth, devised a plan to take humans to another realm, to the planet Zoria-3 where he seeded a new race human hybrids to worship him. But God raised two champions, men who walked with him known to us as Enoch and Elisha taking them from the realm of earth He called them, The Triune In the book they are known as Jasher and Krillen, equipped with Angelic powers and technology they lead a rebellion to overthrow Tanis and entomb his spirit in crystal prison deep within the planet.
A new order was established, and peace reigned for thousands of years. Jasher and Krillen established Vá-Das Academy, a facility used to train an elite force known as Alien Hunters to protect the planet, to seek out and eliminate any threat from the followers Dark Lords.
Mika, an advanced Janari (Alien Hunter trainee), is enthralled by their history and the prophecies that foretell the end times, the War of Revelation. Mika drags two friends on an adventure deep into the wilderness, but their quest ends in horror when Mika finds a crystal tomb and accidentally frees Tanis Lor from his cage.
Guess I’ll stop there, you have to read the book to find out what happens next.
Doing a book inspired by your faith does it ever get hard to balance between Bazinga effect of a story and blasphemy?
No, because what I find is telling a story that has to do with faith doesn’t have to deal with religious creeds, colors, and anything else. If there’s a situation that happens, my faith is what makes me strong and it helps me to face the situation and do all I can to help myself and others overcome it. That’s the way I write my stories so that they never talk about I putting down another person’s faith or religion or anything like that. I just tell the story of a character who is put in a situation such as a world-ending disaster, the characters whose faith just happens to be Christian, in this case, helps him or her to meet the challenge.
Do you feel doing commissions of characters other than your own, help to attract readers to your original works?
Yes! I got to work with other books, people get to see my style of art and how I approach another character like when I did the Ninja Turtles. I was really interested to see how Kevin Eastman accepted it so when he looked at it he was like, ah this is one of the best pictures of my characters I’ve seen and what he did to show his appreciation of the work was that everyone who bought my art that day he signed it for them. As though it was part of his project and promotion for the Ninja Turtles. I will never forget that. When I did the Black Panther drawing (Fan Art not Official promotion) I got a chance to release that overseas in Dubai and it drew so many people to my table. I was really appreciative that they invited me to Duba for the MECC in the first place but I was really surprised when I found out that they announced it was the first American movie to be released in 30 years in the Middle East and I was there with the artwork. that drew tons of people to me and I was blown away when I found out that I had followers in Dubai, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Israel, and Egypt. WOW! Mind blown.
Having been an artist at a show in Dubai is it cool sort of being a comic art ambassador?
It’s overwhelming, exciting, and something I’m so appreciative of because I am not connected with Marvel or DC or Disney like most of the artists that I travel with. I’m an independent and a true independent that creates his own books, and have the privilege of people buying my work, I would never have thought that I would be able to go all over the world doing something I love to do and it’s never considered work. I never thought of myself as an ambassador but in a way, I guess I am and yeah it’s very cool.
Being a Houstonian, and knowing our history for some past cons, how cool is it seeing a legit, big new show, Fandemic, in Houston?
I think it’s great and it will benefit the Indy Art community in so many ways. After meeting John and Joe, knowing how they feel that the fan first, the fan first, the fan first is awesome. It’s the same approach that I’ve always had about giving people the opportunity to afford to buy my work. I don’t overcharge for work and I don’t charge for signatures and different things like that. This convention I believe is going to be one of the best fan base conventions and I’m looking forward to seeing everybody there, and I like their approach in the way they want to make sure that you feel like it’s an experience that you can remember for life, one that you can bring your family to and just enjoy. And that’s where I am on cons, I want to make sure that my grandkids are able to come to my shows and enjoy themselves and I don’t have to worry about them being treated poorly because this show is about the fan first.
