Today we’d like to introduce you to Xander Xero
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I have always drawn comic books since I can remember. I can still picture myself during the first grade drawing stories of my favorite Super Sentai show (basically Power Rangers) because I could not wait until Saturday for the next episode. I would draw comics of teachers that me and my school mates don’t like, with the teachers as the evil monsters that we would beat up. Seeing people enjoy looking at my creations both the drawings and stories always made me happy. I can say that just carried over today.
When all the social media thing was in its inception, I have always had the belief that it would be good for artists and creators. We can create to out heart’s content, jump over the middle man and actually make a living for working on the things we are passionate about. I have wanted to break into the comic book industry, but always have heard horror stories about people really loving the art form but get their souls crushed after working in the industry ran by a corporation that’s more focused about their profit margins than cultivating the stories, the artistic visuals, or the creators themselves.
Burdened by a 9-5 like most people, and with the Asian stereotypical thinking that a career in the arts wouldn’t really bring the money for me to live off of, I have decided to finish college and go on the workforce instead. All the while, never really abandoning the dream of creating my own comics. So i worked on it in the background, kept working on my art, inspired by different artists and genres, developing my own stories and art style.
I have initially published on the same platform an initial story that I have not continued around 2015. It was a good initial foray into the web comic publishing that got my feet wet. I still have the story in my head and I still occasionally work on the visuals and art of this story but this idea has taken the back seat for now. I have burnt myself out with writing the story, drawing the art for it, and dealing with my own self imposed deadlines. I got to the point of questioning myself wondering why was I driving myself mad for something I’m not really profiting in. I eventually would go back to that story and re-start it again, but I abandoned it and focused on other endeavors.
But the pull of creating my comic is too powerful. During covid, I gave in to the call of starting up another story again, same art style but with a different character and a different genre. I was keeping myself busy with a whole bunch of other things but I really could not shake my love for this art form. With the knowledge that starting up another comic will the hectic and stressful and that I really have to balance all my other activities, I jumped into creating this comic. Creation this time is much easier though with the help of an ipad and procreate and I just don’t stress out about the deadlines I imposed on myself anymore. I just focus on the art and making sure that I deliver the best quality that I can. A work that I can be truly proud of.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Initially, learning the program to create the comics has its curve. Also how to publish it. I just think that art, pretty much like life, is a constant learning challenge. Up to this day I am still learning new techniques and visual styles to express what I have in my mind.
There’s time constraints. Life always seem to be getting in the way of me just sitting down and creating the stuff I have in me and putting it down on the screen as I want it to. But at the same breath, I could also say that I cant just consistently lock myself in a room to just work on the comic. I would have instances when I just have to go out and experience the world outside, hang out with friends, experience nature and life itself… because how are we going to create if we don’t live a life in which we can draw upon?
I also understand how I need to keep on drumming up interest for my creation too. I wish I could just focus on creating but I have to be my own marketing department, creating my own hype for the comic. Social media definitely makes it possible for me to do this all by myself but I know eventually, to expand more, I need new tricks up my sleeve to reach new heights if I want my art to reach more people. But I adhere to the Rick Rubin and Steven Pressfield philosophy on art: just focus on making it, for myself, entertain the muse and the rest will take care of itself.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I do a webcomic published on Webtoons called “Paranormal”. It’s a story about a person chasing down different paranormal entities. The main protagonist is shrouded in mystery but the stories and opposition is influenced by Catholicism and drawn from different folklore. I was initially planning to learn heavily in Filipino folklore. Primarily, the supernatural beings and ways the main character would defeat them will be drawn out from that but from my research for the stories, I find myself being interested in other culture’s folkloric beasts, spirits and superstitions as well. So the story is a mishmash of different cultures’ creepy stories and anxieties and I am excited to see how that would look like in the end. All the weird, scary things when we were children are always exciting, isn’t it? And I find that the feeling is the same across different cultures. I am friends with and have come across different people and cultures my entire life and I have discovered that when it comes to these paranormal sort of things– all of us, every human being, has the same jolt when we talk about this topic. This is one thread that is very common within us all and I like to keep pulling at it.
I would also say that my art style was different in the beginning but as time goes on I have seen more and more artists that seem to come from the same influence as I have. I come from a generation that’s not exclusively influenced by neither the American style of comics (like DC or Marvel) nor by Japanese manga but more of an amalgamation of both. We all grew up at a time when all these influences came together and I have noticed it being utilized more in the artwork that’s in popular in American comic books at the moment. Most of the art in the platform where I publish is focused still in Japanese and Korean manga while I try to bring in more of the western influence into it. When you look at the site, you could see that the art tend to look the same– more of the same flavor. I try to break out of that mold and hopefully, the audience would notice and would take a liking to that.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I always liked to entertain my loved ones. I know I took special joy when I was able to make my family and friends laugh. I have always loved art. I guess we can always categorize children where we could see those who focused more on sports and were immediately good when it comes to sweaty, fast paced, more physical forms of activity and those children who are more on the quieter side of this– more focused on creating things. I would say I’m more of the later. Although I am more into rough housing stuff, getting into adventures with my friends- hiking, exploring and riding our bikes than into academics, I did find myself really spending my time and enjoying drawing. I wasn’t a child that was reading books of literary works but I loved the stories. I would be familiar with literary works and would break down the stories just from gobbling up different kinds of movies. There was a time I thought I would be like Quentin Tarantino.. I worked at a movie rental place, and just exposed myself to different kinds of culture through film. I grew up having a real interest in different cultures and delved into their art, folklore, and stories. And like I have mentioned earlier, I discovered that it doesn’t matter what culture a person is from, all of us have that same eerie feeling when we talk about our individual, paranormal stories. And we all like it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/paranormal/list?title_no=782030
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fiascocreativeslv/
- Twitter: https://x.com/xanderxero
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@xanderxero9588
