Farinas and Freitas to headline this year's London Comic Con

The weekend of Sept. 25 will see the Western Fairgrounds Progress Building hosting the London Comic Con, a three-day event, which includes cosplay, videogame and geek culture.

Comic book professionals Ulises Farinas and Erick Freitas will be at the event headlining for its comics section, which will also be their first Canadian appearance at a convention.

“[We came] because we were asked, I’ve never been to Canada before,” Farinas said. “Usually I try to not go to that many conventions but when asked to go I’m more than happy to show up.”

The duo are currently co-writing the upcoming Dec 2015 Judge Dredd comic, which will be released by IDW Publishing, as well as their own anthology Amazing Forest released by Monkeybrain Comics with issue 11 coming out January of 2016.

Farinas and Freitas have come a long way from writing stories together in high school art class, now making it their full time careers. Though Freitas also works with location scouting for TV and films in New York City, a career Freitas said is quite time consuming.

“I find a location for a television show or film to shoot in ... I scout them, find them and negotiate the deal, I kind of work as the event manager throughout the process of the shoot and wrap all the loose ends up when we’re all over and moving on to the next location,” Freitas said.

Having known each other since they were teenagers, the pair work together on numerous projects including Gamma, a one-shot comic set in a Pokémon/Kaiju monsters/ Power Rangers mash-up world where the good guys lose. The oneshot proved so popular that the duo has been working on a follow-up and finding a home for the story to continue as a series.

“We’ve been doing this since we were younger [when] we had art class together and we were always just working on stories together... as we got older that’s just always what we were talking about...and eventually it turned into something that allowed us to get paid to do it,” Freitas said.

The collaborative process between Farinas and Freitas works by having guidelines for each other.

“We have certain rules that we have to abide by, if I give him a draft on Monday morning, by Tuesday morning he should have his draft... that’s that goal, so everyday when the other person wakes up they have something to work on,” Freitas said.

When asked how he developed his unique ultra detailed style, Farinas pinpointed a specific project in college giving him the inspiration.

“I wanted to recreate a Winsor McCay page from Little Nemo in Slumberland. I went through the whole process, I found the same [types of] tools that he used and I did it.”

With the Little Nemo in Slumberland, Farinas knew instantly that this was the way he wanted to draw.

When asked about his active social media presence and whether it affected sales, Farinas wasn’t shy about its effect.

“I don’t really worry too much about sales, I worry more about being reliable as a worker for editors and publishers … I just decided I was going to be who I was and not really worry about the consequences.”

Though Farinas noted his online presence and its effect on fans is certainly apparent.

“Definitely some people that do respond [online] have become more engaged with me as an artist [and have] looked for more of my work.”

Farinas uses a website called Patreon, where fans can decide on a monthly payment for an artist’s work and exclusive content on the site.

“It’s helped me as far as conventions go... going to conventions you’ve got to pay so much for airplane tickets and a hotel and it does help to have a little extra just to cover food expenses.”

The pair is also set to host a Q & A panel at the convention during the weekend, further details can be found at www.londoncomiccon.ca, including the events daily, opening times and ticket prices.