Illustrator Glenn Brewer Has Got a Project to Finish
Glenn Brewer’s old comic, Askari Hodari (above), and his new, Lorreign (below) [ART: COURTESY]
Glenn Brewer, illustrator and Fort Wayne-son, hit art-puberty in the early 1990s right when the comic book industry was riding its highest, before the bottom fell out starting in the mid-90s. But when Brewer graduated from Elmhurst High School in ‘92, it was good to be an illustrator.
Brewer found a true peer art community in high school. There was a guy named Charles Humphrey who was later killed, “a phenomenal artist,” he said, who was also a rapper and a barber. Brewer’s art teacher Mr. Don Goss, way ahead of his time, had his class doing digital art back in the late ‘80s, with a camera set-up to capture an image.
“Charles would do crazy stuff, cut and paste,” Brewer said, who also remembered another kid who mocked Goss’ insistence that computers were the future. By the time Brewer graduated college, everybody was using computers. “RIP to Don Goss.”
His first professional check came from Frost Illustrated Newspaper, when he was around 13, writing and drawing editorial political cartoons for editors Michael Patterson and Ketu Oladuwa. Patterson introduced Brewer to Denys Cowan, one of the founders for Milestone Comics, a DC Comics imprint run by African-American creators; he was at Frost visiting. Cowan is the guy who drew Wu-Tang Clan member GZA’s album, “Liquid Swords.”
More high school-era encouragement…Jonathan Ray, the former head of the Fort Wayne Urban League, who was Brewer’s Big Brother at the time, told him to “draw a page every day. It doesn’t matter how it looks,” he said. And after a month or so, “my ability just improved so much.” Ray used to draw himself. He named dropped illustrator Ron Lewis as an inspiration. Not to leave them out, Brewer’s parents were also supportive.
Goss’ connection helped win Brewer scholarship money to Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD) in Columbus, Ohio; the college and the teacher had an agreement for student assistance.
Brewer won some awards in high school, but the art community found at Elmhurst was “amplified by 10 at CCAD,” he said, with better illustrators that made him listen more to learn better. One guy, Keron Grant, is doing work for movies.
80% of his classes were art classes. His style got more refined; he understood figures better, was a better environment, learned how to properly calculate shadows…got demonstratively better because of the isolated school life. “I’m a better artist, coming here. If I stayed in Fort Wayne, I wouldn’t be at the level that I am.”
He has lived in Columbus since graduating in ’96 and has had the same 9 to 5 job on campus since his freshman year; he splits his time teaching high school kids through CCAD and working on his own projects. Brewer never went full-time job as an illustrator. “It’s a hard hustle and a hard grind, particularly, if you re are doing it by yourself,” he said. Plus, he has bad asthma, so he needs the benefits.
He’s talented so he’s going to get freelance work here and there; one of his biggest commissions came from a Dungeons and Dragons project. Brewer is most known, from the Fort Wayne crowd, for his self-published Askari Hodari; first published in 2000, and sold nationally (and internationally in the UK), the black-and-white, photo-reference influenced series was about three guys living in fictional inner cities who tried to clean up their streets, very 90s in terms of aesthetics, very 80s in terms of guardian citizenship (think: NYC’s Guardian Angels).
Brewer comes home from his daytime gig, naps, then gets to work on his new series Lorreign, about a woman living through apocalyptic times. The first issue out of five is down. He writes but doesn’t consider himself a writer, so the issues are coming in long. But he knows the plot. “It’s mostly about,” he said, “her trying to navigate the world.”
His works can be found on his Instagram: geebeezy3. Lorreign’s FREE first issue can be read at Lorreign4Ever.com.
