With the box office domination of superhero movies, tie-in videogames, and what’s felt like an endless pop-cultural takeover, comic books have now fully crossed over into mass media, providing fodder for some of the world’s biggest franchises and moneymakers.
But just as in the worlds of music and filmmaking, the most compelling and creative comics are still most often coming from the underground and indie-level creators chasing down and exploring their own ideas and interests, no matter how weird, wild, or whimsical, all of which can be used to describe “The Lost Wizard,” the new indie comic that just celebrated its first official issue from OKC-based publishing upstart Careful Kitty Books.
Born from the brain of artist and writer Hezekiah Hamlin under his moniker regularcandy, “The Lost Wizard” follows the adventures of the titular unnamed wizard across an irreverently magical and densely colorful cartoon fantasy world.
After years as a freelance cartoonist working with local magazines, breweries, bookshops, and bars around Oklahoma, the new comic is a way for regularcandy to explore the extremes of his style and creativity entirely unhinged and unfettered by anyone else’s expectations.
regularcandy: This is my humor. These are the talks that I have with myself and what makes me laugh, like, alone, like, just a weird old wizard being goofy? Like, what's not fun about that?
Brett Fieldcamp: It’s that kind of creative confidence and personal voice that the artist known as regularcandy hopes to convey through the new comic.
After studying art, cartooning, and even animation - spurred heavily by his open love of the modern classic “Adventure Time” - he now wants to broadcast to other aspiring cartoonists and creators that breaking the rules is often the only way to find your own unique voice and aesthetic.
regularcandy: Especially in your own style, you shouldn't be limited to what somebody else thinks.
It was ingrained in me for forever, and then, like, I started doing my own sketchbook, and I was like, “I'm not gonna do that. I don't care.”
Like, you need to learn some of the fundamentals and then, like, shed it. Think about what you want to do, pick apart what you like, take those elements and do a rehab and just, like, act like you never went to art school ever. Like, just do a complete hard reset.
You kind of find your niche. Like, it's kind of a natural thing. Like, no one's gonna know that you are an illustrator unless you tell them. Shout it from the rooftops. Reach out and like, make yourself known.
Brett Fieldcamp: That’s exactly the defiant, spontaneous design that’s informed the entire oddball tone and world of “The Lost Wizard,” where characters and consequences can be created from practically any random flight of fancy that Hamlin has.
But as an artist first and foremost, he had to work to learn the mechanics of writing and storytelling in a largely visual medium, and that meant overcoming a lot of the same self-consciousness that can plague young creators and embracing the stories that have been brewing in his mind for years.
regularcandy: Luckily, with comics, the writing doesn't have to hold a lot. At least in mine, like, there's not a lot of text in the first “Lost Wizard” comic. The drawings get to carry it, luckily. They convey it better, I guess.
Like with this first book, I had a great spark where I sat there and, like, wrote forever. I wrote more than probably ended up in the actual comic. It felt good writing knowing that no one's, like, checking my spelling or checking my commas or whatever, like I was just kind of going ham.
I've got so many old DnD campaigns that I never played, so like, this has to come out somehow, like it has to.
Brett Fieldcamp: It’s not all just wacky wizards and goofy comedy, though.
Like many of his biggest cartoon and comic influences, he wants to explore different tones and emotional themes, offering himself a way to confront and consider his own feelings.
regularcandy: I know there's an overarching story that I want to tell with “The Lost Wizard,” and I want it to get, like, deep, and I want it to get emotional, and I I want to kind of mirror my issues with depression and anxiety.
I want to kind of mirror myself into the Wizard a little bit more. I think it's good to do that. Like, I think the representation is good. And you don't really see that done in, like, 2D media.
Brett Fieldcamp: It’s that peculiar intersection of escapist fantasy and absurdist comedy that regularcandy is aiming for with “The Lost Wizard,” with his behatted and robed fantasy hero battling mythical monsters just as often as he navigates hypermodern ads and commercials for new items at his local magic department store.
Whatever the scenario or the level of ridiculousness, it’s a way for Hamlin to escape temporarily into something fun, and hopefully to bring along some readers that need a similar escape from the less magical reality.
regularcandy: Immersing myself in the world and being there, like, I want to make a world that I want to be in. Whatever crazy sci-fi, mythical, magical thing that he's in, I want to live there.
Like, I just want to go there when I'm having a bad day. I'd like to close my eyes and be the Wizard and, like, fight a Cyclops.
Brett Fieldcamp: You can keep up with the ongoing adventures and new issues of “The Lost Wizard” by following @regularcandy and @carefulkittybooks on Instagram, and by picking up a physical copy currently on sale at The Floating Bookshop in Oklahoma City.
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