When it comes to arts and culture, one might think it all happens in the downtown of big cities, and suburbs are void of any cultural talent or creative life. People like Howard Wong have proved that wrong. Howard is an Author, National Geographic Mentor, and Creative Development Strategist. He is a Toronto downtown native, but later moved to Richmond Hill. He’s running a series of workshops on comic design at the RHPL and other public libraries. He’s also participating in Toronto Comicon (full details here).

We sat down with Howard on a Saturday afternoon at the RHPL to learn more about his work.

We first asked how different are the city and suburban lives? Howard didn’t want to live in downtown. It was hard for him to see having a family and living there. He wanted to have access to amenities that are usually found in cities, but at the same time enjoy the safety known to be associated with suburbs.

As for when he realised he is interested in comic design, Howard says it started in high school, but he never thought he’d choose it as his career. Later as an IT Procurement professional, he feels uninspired by the repetitiveness of the daily grind. But his wife encourages him to do things that he used to do and enjoy. He starts making comic books, and even one of them gets approval from a publisher and nominated for an award. He keeps getting more encouragement from family, and chooses to push ahead and continue with comic creation at night, and doing a day job at the same time. Howard also finds the support he receives from the comic creators community very encouraging.

Howard considers the role of the public institutions and services such as public libraries, community centres, public schools as tremendous in his growth into a professional comic author. He says he did a lot of self-teaching, and books borrowed at the library helped him to become the author he is now.

Comic stores are disappearing and books are going digital. How is that going to shape the future of comics? Howard thinks digitally published comics, like e-books, have their advantages and disadvantages. But as for comic stores, he says, losing them to digital websites takes away the role that a store plays in helping the fans to choose and learn about comics.

We ask Howard about the role of AI and large language models on comic creation. He thinks developers of these systems shouldn’t be taking works of other people and making the generative tools. Howard considers the process of creating a comic work more important than the outcome.

You can listen to the full version of this interview in our podcast page.