By Cameron Kerkau, Staff Reporter.
It has recently been announced that Delta alumnus, Jay Fosgitt, has been hired by Marvel comics. Fosgitt will be the artist for the fifth issue of “Rocket Raccoon and Groot,” and he will also be providing a cover for the first issue of “Avengers Standoff: Assault on Pleasant Hill Alpha.”
Fosgitt has made a name for himself with his creator-owned titles, “Dead Duck and Zombie Chick” and “Bodie Troll,” as well as his work as an artist on IDW Publishing’s “My Little Pony” comics, the cover artist for issues of BOOM! Studio’s “Adventure Time” and “The Amazing World of Gumball” comics, and more.
Fosgitt began attending Delta in 1994 after having spent a semester at Saginaw Valley. He left in 2001 with an associate in the arts degree.
“I wasn’t having a great time at Saginaw Valley, so I came over to Delta and really enjoyed myself to the point where I stayed a long time,” says Fosgitt.
During this time, Fosgitt was the staff cartoonist and the editor of the entertainment section of the Delta Collegiate. In his last year with the Collegiate in 2001, he was a co-editor in chief.
Fosgitt says that his time attending Delta and working for the Collegiate influenced his career ‘“tremendously.”
“It was my very first publishing experience, so I had a lot of hands on education in art production, which goes hand in hand with what I do in comic books now,” says Fosgitt. “Also, [Delta] had a tremendous art program there that I loved and I learned a few things there as well, but working… on the newspaper for years was definitely my best education and best overall experience at Delta.”
Though he has always known that he wanted to be a professional cartoonist, Fosgitt says that his goals have shifted to different areas of cartooning over the years. In high school, Fosgitt wanted to work in comic books, but that shifted to newspaper comic strips in college. After leaving Delta, Fosgitt attended Central Michigan University until 2004, when he acquired his bachelor in applied arts.
“By the time I was done at CMU, I wanted to get back into comic books and that’s what led me to create my first graphic novel and get that published,” says Fosgitt.
According to Fosgitt, it’s very difficult to successfully enter the comic book industry.
“I was just out of college and I didn’t know how I was going to break into comics. I kinda took a gamble and I saved up some money and… took a train to Wizard World Chicago.”
Wizard World Chicago is a four-day comic book convention held every summer in Illinois. It was there that Fosgitt first networked with Ape Entertainment, who would come to publish Fosgitt’s first graphic novel “Dead Duck and Zombie Chick,” in 2009.
“Dead Duck and Zombie Chick” is an adult comedy about a literal dead duck delivering souls for the grim reaper with his side kick Zombie Chick, a voluptuous undead chicken/girl amalgam. Fosgitt created the character Dead Duck when he was about 15 years old.
“That idea had kind of bounced around in my sketchbook for years until I started to flesh out the concept around 2004 while I was still in college,” says Fosgitt. “I started writing these kind of MAD magazine type stories. Stuff that made me and my friends laugh.”
The “Dead Duck and Zombie Chick” graphic novel features a foreword by Doug Jones, the actor famous for his depictions of characters such as Abe Sapien in the “Hellboy” films, the Pale Man in “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and many others.
“He was actually shooting a movie in France at the time, but he took time to write this great foreword and we’ve been pals ever since,” says Fosgitt.
The graphic novel also features a pin-up of Zombie Chick done by Chris Sanders, who is most famous for co-writing and co-directing the films “Lilo & Stitch” and “How to Train Your Dragon.” A pin-up is a standalone illustration of someone’s character done by another artist.
“I was a big fan of his work because of “Lilo and Stitch,” so I reached out to him online. As it turned out, he was following my work online at the time and he said ‘I’m a big fan of your work, I’d love to do this, I’ve never drawn in comic books before,’” Fosgitt explains.
Copies of “Dead Duck and Zombie Chick” are being sold on amazon.com for upwards of $150.
“I don’t put a lot of stock in that. I don’t know who’s setting these prices, but if Dead Duck has any popularity after having been out of publication for the past seven years then I’m happy,” says Fosgitt.
Fosgitt will be premiering a follow-up one-shot to his graphic novel titled “Dead Duck and Zombie Chick: Rising From the Grave” in March at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2). The one-shot is being published by Source Point Press, a Michigan based publisher, and is available for pre-order on their website sourcepointpress.com.
Fosgitt wrote “Dead Duck” for the adult underground comic scene. His next creator-owned project would be “Bodie Troll” an all-ages comic book that could appeal to anyone.
“I had this idea for this fairy tale monster that wanted to be big and scary but he’s too cute and cuddly and no one took him seriously,” says Fosgitt.
“Bodie Troll” is a four issue limited series that was published in 2013 by Red 5 comics. The first issue of a second volume, titled “Bodie Troll: Fuzzy Memories,” was released in 2015. This series has seen some delays however as Fosgitt has been busy with other projects, such as drawing issues of “My Little Pony” for IDW Publishing.
“I put that first issue out last May and then work on My Little Pony started to take precedence so it took a while to get issue two done,” says Fosgitt.
According to Fosgitt, issue two of “Fuzzy Memories” is finished and will be released in October of this year.
Fosgitt is also excited to be working on two projects with Marvel comics.
“[It’s] a dream come true. I was really into Marvel ever since I was in elementary school and I’ve always wanted to work for them in some capacity,” says Fosgitt. Though he says this dream drained out in the last few years. He explains, “I thought ‘Oh they’re never going to hire someone that draws as cartoony as I do.’” As it turns out, several editors at Marvel were familiar with his work and he was encouraged to submit to specific editors such as Tom Brevoort.
Brevoort is the Senior Vice President of Publishing and Executive Editor at Marvel Comics. He has overseen titles such as “New Avengers,” “Civil War,” and “Fantastic Four.”
“So I sent [Brevoort] some artwork and he really liked my stuff. He said ‘We’re definitely going to use you for something, just bear with me, we’ve got to find that right project,’” says Fosgitt.
A few months after that, it was decided that Fosgitt would provide the Gwenpool variant cover to the first issue of “Avengers Standoff: Assault on Pleasant Hill Alpha.”
Gwenpool is the mash-up of Gwen Stacy, the classic Spider-Man love interest, and Deadpool. She made her debut as a part of Marvel’s “Gwen Variants” promotion, in which Gwen Stacy was reimagined as different superheros in a variant cover of their books.
Fosgitt has also been announced as the artist for the fifth issue of Marvel’s “Rocket Raccoon and Groot.” The comic features the anthropomorphic duo popularized in the 2014 movie “Guardians of the Galaxy” and is being written by Skottie Young.
“I’ve been a fan of Skottie for a long time and I introduced myself to him about two years ago at motor city comic-con,” says Fosgitt. “He was like “Oh I know you, you do ‘Bodie Troll’… your works great.” I was like ‘Oh my god this is so cool.’ So we became pals and he called me up last month and said ‘would you be interested in drawing an issue or two of Rocket Racoon and Groot?’”
Details on this issue are sparse but, according to Fosgitt, it will carry a “space viking” theme.
“I’m really looking forward to sort of playing in Scotties imagination,” says Fosgitt.
Fosgitt says that he has been drawing since he was two, and he cites “The Muppets” creator Jim Henson as one of his biggest idols and mentors. When he was still very young, Fosgitt began corresponding with Henson through letters.
“He was very encouraging at the time of my artwork and he told me ‘Hey come see me when you get out of highschool and we’ll talk about you working with the Muppets,’” Says Fosgitt.
Unfortunately, Henson passed away in 1990 while Fosgitt was still a freshman in highschool. However, Fosgitt explains the affect that corresponding with Henson still has in his adult life.
“In 2013, I was having a very difficult time… Bodie hadn’t really gotten off of the ground just yet… and out of nowhere I get this email from a woman named Karen Folk who is the archivist at the Jim Henson company. She emails me and she says ‘You don’t know me… but it seems that when you were 11 years old you wrote Jim and he wrote you back.’ ”
Though Fosgitt had sadly lost the letter that Henson had sent him, it would turn out that Henson had saved Fosgitt’s letter in his files, as well as a photocopy of his letter to Fosgitt.
According to Fosgitt, Folk said “I was curious to see if you became a professional cartoonist when you grew up like Jim predicted you would.”
Folk sent Fosgitt scans of the letters between him and Henson. Fosgitt says that this experience gave him hope. “It felt like Jim was sort of looking over my shoulder when I needed him the most,” says Fosgitt.
The fifth issue of “Rocket Raccoon and Groot” will be available sometime in May. “Avengers Standoff: Assault on Pleasant Hill Alpha” will be released on March 2. For more information on Fosgitt, you can visit his website, jayfosgitt.com.
