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ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: HOTELITOR
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BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
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COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: Welsh
LAST VOLUME: SATA 383
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1991, in Wales.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, illustrator, director, and storyboard artist. Carp Publishing Endeavours, Cardiff, Wales, proprietor; cofounder of Cardiff Comics Carnival, Wales.
WRITINGS
Contributor to publications, including Off Life, Atomic Elbow, Dirty Rotten Comics, Good Comics Reader, and the Broken Frontier Yearbook.
SIDELIGHTS
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2021, review of Glorious Wrestling Alliance: Ultimate Championship Edition.
School Library Journal, October, 2021, Nancy McKay, Glorious Wrestling Alliance, p. 98.
ONLINE
Josh Hicks website, https://joshhicks.co.uk/ (March 9, 2022).
Lerner Books website, https://lernerbooks.com/ (March 9, 2022), author interview.*
Hello. My name is Josh Hicks, and I’m a cartoonist and filmmaker based in South Wales.
I wrote and illustrated the comic Glorious Wrestling Alliance: Ultimate Championship Edition for Graphic Universe. My new book, Hotelitor, will be available starting May 2024, also from Graphic Universe.
I also make animated work via CPE Productions, a small animation studio I run out of Cardiff. In 2023 we wrapped on Spectre of the Bear — an animated short I directed starring Bill Nighy & Craig Roberts, written by Ioan Morris & produced by Nia Alavezos with funding from Ffilm Cymru and BBC Wales — and are currently touring at film festivals across the UK and beyond. We’re also in the process of trying to develop some comics stuff for TV and film. Outside of animation, CPE also publishes comics, card games and any other art project I fancy doing.
Before all that stuff, I worked at the great Bomper Studio. My time at Bomper saw me co-direct a music video for Foo Fighters, art direct Tony Moore’s video for Tyler Childer’s Country Squire and work on various other fun things.
If you want to chat, get in touch via josh@cpeproductions.co.uk. For enquiries about books and graphic novels and whatnot, I’m represented by Rachel Petty at the Blair Partnership.
Knowing Is Half The Battle: JOSH HICKS Gives Advice on the Publishing Industry
Continuing our feature at SOLRAD titled "Knowing Is Half The Battle," where published cartoonists give advice on the publishing industry, today we talk with JOSH HICKS.
Daniel Elkin
June 30, 2021 7 Mins Read
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You’ve been working on your comic for what probably seems like forever and finally, you feel that you are ready to share it with the world. Of course, you can always go the route of self-publishing, but that carries with it a number of obligations and expectations — printing, shipping, marketing — that you may not have the desire or the knowledge to take on. Thankfully, there are a number of amazing small press comics publishers who are constantly looking to expand their catalog and bring new voices into the world.
Unfortunately, though, as much as there are ethical publishers who want what’s best for the artists they publish, there are also bad actors who prey on the talents of young and new creators.
Part of the goal of Fieldmouse Press, the nonprofit press that publishes SOLRAD, is to advance the comics arts. We see the continued social and economic success of cartoonists as integral to that goal. SOLRAD has devoted and will continue to devote resources to this area of focus.To this end, we are running an ongoing feature at SOLRAD called KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE where we both feature an artist every week and ask for their advice about navigating the world of comics publishing, best practices for the business of comics, and other general advice. Today on KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE we’re featuring tips from JOSH HICKS.
Josh Hicks is a cartoonist, illustrator, and animation director from Wales. His debut full-length book, Glorious Wrestling Alliance: Ultimate Championship Edition, will be available from Graphic Universe on October 5th. Josh is online at Twitter, Instagram, and his website. He also runs Carp Publishing Endeavours, a comics micropress based in Cardiff.
JOSH HICKS
Hello Solrad readers. Just a disclaimer: while I am now a committed freelancer, I worked a full-time animation job for the entirety of my comics career to date, and, even now, it would be disingenuous to say that pure comics work makes up even 25% of my yearly income. I also don’t know if you could class me as a success by any sane barometer, so please take all advice here with a pinch of salt. Thank you!
The main thing(s) I expect from a comics publisher is/are…
At a basic level, just putting the book out there, publicizing it, handling all shipping/stocking, and some kind of financial exchange in your direction. The specifics change depending on the project and size of the publisher — if it’s a big book you’d want some kind of advance; if it’s a minicomic with a small press publisher, some kind of fair profit split on the backend (if there is any). At the bare minimum though, I think a sense of enthusiasm about the work and a gut feeling that they are a trustworthy enterprise are key. I’ve worked with five publishers: Lerner Publishing; Good Comics here in the UK; Bazgrolle in Poland; Ioan Morris’ now-extinct Dry Comics and myself, and aside from me they’ve all been great.
My #1 advice for submitting to agents and publishers…
I have had zero success in submitting to agents, and have now made two book deals unagented. I don’t know if this is a good idea, but it is the hand I’ve been dealt. My first book, Glorious Wrestling Alliance: Ultimate Championship Edition (coming out October 5th), was picked up after it was essentially finished – I just coloured it and made some tweaks for Lerner – and they picked up my next book, due out in 2024, based on a pitch deck I put together with some sample pages, a synopsis, character breakdowns and a sort of artistic statement of intent. Something similar is what I would send to agents, although again, no success in that department.
A sneaky red flag or shady thing I would warn new creators to look out for…
All my dealings with publishers who have actually put out my work have, again, been great. I have been burnt a couple of times by people promising contracts and then ghosting me, and so I would consider somebody not replying to an email for four weeks a “red flag”. I’d also be loath to take on any substantial amount of work for free or cheap, just because it can be hard to estimate the energy required to do something to completion at the outset. I will probably contradict this advice later in this article.
I think it can be worth it to take a lower-paid illustration job in return for ___…
Here we go, contradiction time. If a job is for a friend, or looks really fun, or can allow you to try something you’ve wanted to do for a while but never had the chance, then maybe go for it. I’d avoid taking really low-paid jobs just on the basis of exposure or because the client is big — if the client is big you’d hope they’d pay properly. Still, what do I know? I’ve broken all these rules in the past — I think the best thing is you just trust your gut.
If a publisher/offer seemed too good to be true, here’s how I’d check it out…
If this were to happen, I’d probably just look for horror stories online and at their past output and history and see if you can decipher anything sketchy. Basic due diligence. I’d also get someone who knows about legal stuff to look over any contracts that come your way or, failing that, just do a lot of research and make sure you properly understand any document prior to signing it. Don’t be afraid to ask questions — if they are reluctant to answer then there’s an issue.
An organization I’d go to for support if I needed advice or if something went wrong…
I am extremely lucky in that there is a great small business centre here in Wales, Welsh ICE (Innovation Centre for Enterprise), that I’ve been peripherally a part of for years. It’s basically a bunch of small start-ups and sole traders working together; you get a lot of different kinds of businesses at a place like that, and so there are always friendly and knowledgeable people to ask about, say, web hosting, or tax, or contract wording, etc. I think if you’re approaching your comics practice like a business — which I didn’t for a long time because it wasn’t making any money — then affiliating yourself with some kind of small business network can be a good idea for a lot of reasons. If I had to restrict myself to just comics people I know for advice on this stuff I don’t know who I’d turn to.
My best tip for promoting your work online and at cons…
Even when I’ve had a great day at a con, I’ve never really made enough to substantially profit after taking out table fees, accommodation, travel, food, etc. — so I would try to disabuse yourself of any notion that you need to make those shows profitable — or that you need to constantly pretend to your peer group that those shows are profitable — in order to make them feel worthwhile. It will just stress you out. Do them to get your comics to people who might like them, meet other people making comics, to “get your name out there”, and to have fun. If you don’t get anything out of them, don’t feel like you need to do them.
You can make money at those things though, I’m sure, but I haven’t cracked it and it doesn’t represent much of my cartooning income — which is mainly from advances, page rates, and online sales. Selling prints, bits of merch, and little tchotchkes can help cons go more smoothly financially, but just think about whether you actually want to spend your time making those things as opposed to comics. It took me a long time to get a semi-decent table setup; I used to just plop stuff down on the bare, dirty tables and let nature take its course. Just get a tablecloth, a nice stand to put your comics in, be friendly behind the table, and, eventually, people will come by.
It’s also great to have a con companion. Me and Ioan Morris have run a hustle for years where we buy a half-table space and then squeeze both of us on it. A quarter-table is fine, one of us can watch the stuff if the other wants to walk around, and we have someone to commiserate with if things go poorly.
As for promoting your work online, I just use Twitter and Instagram to share work when I feel like it and try to just use it naturally. I send books to reviewers who’ve reviewed similar things in the past and that has helped a lot. I think a review of one of my minicomics is what first led my editor at Lerner to first get in touch, so it’s definitely worth doing.
To take care of your health / mental health as an artist, I recommend…
I would recommend all the things I don’t do properly because I know that I need to do them. Exercise, going outside, eating well. I would avoid comparing yourself to other artists, especially in terms of online following and whatnot, and just focus on what you’re doing. It is key that you enjoy the process, otherwise it will be a nightmare. Paradoxically, don’t beat yourself up if sometimes it feels like a slog because everything can sometimes feel like a slog if you do it enough.
I wish someone had told me ___ before I started working in the comics industry…
Don’t be overly critical of your own work, trust your instincts, get a tablecloth.
Glorious Wrestling Alliance: An Interview with Cartoonist Josh Hicks
Newly released, the Glorious Wrestling Alliance: Ultimate Championship Edition gathers the best wrestlers in the universe to compete for championship title! The Great Carp, an amphibious wonder, is feeling the weight of his championship. Miranda Fury has donned a mask to smash wrestling’s glass ceiling. And Gravy Train is desperate for a new gimmick, but it’s hard when you’re shaped like a giant gravy boat. This hilarious graphic novel pays homage to the surreal theater of pro wrestling while diving deep into the identities and anxieties of these zany characters.
Today author and cartoonist Josh Hicks shares his favorite comics, the start of Glorious Wrestling Alliance, and why wrestling provides the perfect backdrop for this story. Read on to find a special video and book trailer!
Hello Josh. What is Glorious Wrestling Alliance?
Glorious Wrestling Alliance is a comic book about the behind-the-scenes goings on at a professional wrestling promotion. We follow a bunch of characters around as they navigate life in and outside of the ring – at work, at home, on tour and more. We’ve got world champions with crises of confidence, we’ve got wrestlers shaped like gravy boats, we’ve got wrestlers who secretly wish they were poets. It’s a heady mix of wrestling, bickering and internal struggle, plus jokes!
You’ve been making comics for a while. What got you into comics and graphic novels? What were some of your favourites growing up?
I read comic books a lot as a child – in the UK we’d get versions of American Spider-Man comics that were a couple years behind what people were getting in the US, and we had a really great UK-only Sonic the Hedgehog comic that I devoured when I was like 8 or 9. Then I kind of fell off it as I approached my teens, only to get back into it at the end of high school via stuff like The Umbrella Academy and Scott Pilgrim. Great formative texts. It was still slightly shameful to like comics then, so I kind of just enjoyed them privately. Luckily (and rightfully) that doesn’t seem to be the case any more! I also really liked anime and manga – Dragon Ball & Evangelion were huge for me growing up.
How did Glorious Wrestling Alliance come about?
I’d always made comics in some way or another, but mainly I just doodled them and threw them away. In my early twenties I actually started finishing short stories and getting them published in anthologies here in the UK. I started thinking up these little Glorious Wrestling Alliance stories based around these characters that I had in my head, and then started self-publishing them as little zines and minicomics, carting them around different comic shows in the UK. After a while Lerner reached out and we put together this deluxe full-colour version of the book. I couldn’t be happier with the experience.
What do you hope readers will get out of Glorious Wrestling Alliance?
I hope they laugh, mostly. There are a lot of characters in this world, all with their own distinct concerns and quirks, and so I hope that readers can find things to empathise with and see bits of themselves in there, and maybe take some solace from that. I also really took pains to make it a satisfying read that looks after the reader from page one and gives them a solid, rewarding comics experience. Mainly though I just hope they laugh.
Spread from Glorious Wrestling Alliance in which Miranda Fury wins a match.
Why wrestling?
Like comics, I loved wrestling as a kid, but it fell by the wayside as I got older. I feel like this is everyone’s relationship with wrestling, for the most part. What didn’t fall away though was my love of these old Japanese wrestling video games – I don’t know why that’s the case, psychologically, but it is – and revisiting stuff like Fire Pro Wrestling Returns on the Playstation 2 and Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 on the Nintendo 64 was the main creative inspiration when I started these stories, really. I’d love to look at these rosters filled with characters I didn’t know anything about and imagine what their stories would be like – and when you boil the book down to its core elements, that’s kind of what it is. That was the impetus, really. Since starting the book I actually have gotten back into wrestling in a big way, and it is great. It is by no means for everyone though, and enjoyment of wrestling is by no means a prerequisite for enjoying this book! More than one person has told me they loathe wrestling but love this book, which is cool and weird.
Do you have any advice for young artists wanting to get into making comics?
My advice would just be to make them, even if you don’t really show anyone straight away. The thing with comics is that if you write and draw them yourself, they can be a really rewarding creative thing that you can do without having to wait for anybody or get anyone’s approval. Make short stories first, maybe put them online, maybe print them and attend some small comics shows (that’s what I did!) The main thing is just committing and finishing something, even if it’s small. That’s the biggest hurdle, but luckily it’s the first one – and it gets easier from there. Make comics! And don’t let anyone tell you what to do in them.
New Video from Josh Hicks!
Praise for Glorious Wrestling Alliance
“Spine-crushing fun.”—Kirkus Reviews
“This campy graphic novel is a knockout.”—School Library Journal
“[A] delightful story about characters beating their self-doubt with metaphorical steel chairs. It’s a mix of silly fun with gentle introspection. Wrestling fans will get a superkick out of this.” – AIPT Comics
“A comical, affectionate take on wrestling culture, this will be especially appealing for professional wrestling fans.” – BookRiot
“Josh Hicks does a tremendous job satirizing professional wrestling in Glorious Wrestling Alliance. Every facet of pro wrestling, from art to ego to commerce, gets a shot at the title with Josh’s witty dialogue and vibrant art! A very funny and entertaining read!” —Christopher Daniels, All Elite Wrestling
“Josh Hicks knocks it out of the park with Glorious Wrestling Alliance.” —Voices of Wrestling
“[A] kinetic spectacle of leg drops, championship title matches, and anxiety that captures the glory of sports entertainment.” — The Beat
Hotelitor: An Interview with Author and Illustrator Josh Hicks
Welcome aboard Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit. This is the finest hospitality craft in its colony, equipped with jet feet, a hyperspace engine, and single, double, and adjoining rooms. When an alien attack strands the craft in deep space, 18-year-old intern Anna Greene must save its guests from chaos!
Today comics extraordinaire Josh Hicks joins us to share his inspiration for this wacky premise, his artistic process, and some work-in-progress sketches. Read on to watch the official book trailer!
How did Hotelitor come about? What inspired the book?
A lot of my work has to do with taking quite a stupid idea and really committing to seeing it through to its logical endpoint. I’d drawn this big cutaway illustration of a giant robot hotel for some reason. One of the prints just sat in the corner of my office for ages, and after seeing it every day for a while I started dreaming up the kind of stories that the image suggested. I couldn’t really stop thinking of stuff, so Hotelitor was born.
When I’m making something I tend to try to take my stupider instincts and ground them in, like, a legitimate concern I have. For all sorts of reasons I was thinking a lot about work when I was writing Hotelitor, and was especially thinking back to the kind of anxiety and stress I felt as a young person who was about to leave school and start working for the first time. I had a few bad jobs and unpaid work experience things straight out of school (being the worst employee in game store history; getting up at 5am to file exam papers in a big warehouse; basically being an unpaid janitor for a really bad reality TV show) and I wanted to try and channel all that stuff into the medium of cathartic giant robot punching action.
Where there any specific reference points when it came to building the world of the comic?
The world of Hotelitor is kind of steeped in the stuff I love. Japanese superhero shows like Ultraman and Ultraseven, mecha anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Mobile Suit Gundam, old Godzilla movies, Super Nintendo games, Thunderbirds… There’s a ton of stuff I wanted to try to evoke while still making the book feel like it fit in with the rest of my work.
Most of my other comics feature a lot of people standing around talking, and I wanted to prove to myself that I could pull off my version of a proper action-packed sci-fi adventure. In terms of comics, things like Shotaro Ishinomori’s Mazinger and Umezz’s The Drifting Classroom were big influences, as were some of the American comic books I really gravitated towards when I was a teenager. Hopefully the book feels like a mix of some or all of those things, but with more jokes.
What is the most surprising thing you discovered while writing the book?
I wrote Hotelitor during the pandemic, and I think looking back on it now the most surprising thing is how much that situation subconsciously filtered into the story. I was writing it at a time when we couldn’t really leave the house, and that in itself sort of felt like being stuck in a spacecraft. Maybe the whole thing is a fantasy about what it’d be like if my house had limbs. There’s also a bizarre thing about actually kind of feeling like you’re weirdly flourishing in crisis when other people are having a really bad time of it, and there being an element of guilt involved in that. I think a bit of that bled into the book too – but hopefully in a way that is light and funny and relatable and not, like, super depressing.
How do you approach comics compared to animation?
When I’m doing stuff for animation, whether it’s a short film or a music video or whatever, I’m always trying to think cinematically, and in terms of rhythm and pacing and sound and image. There’s an element of all that in comics too, but my goal is always to do things in comics that you can’t really pull off anywhere else. That’s why I love making comics about groups of characters in one main location – you can do all sorts of things with maps and diagrams and charts and stuff that you can’t do in any other medium. I love trying to figure out ways to use design to make holding a book feel like you’ve got an entire little miniature world in your hands.
Also in animation there’s the constant issue of budget, whereas in comics you’re only limited by what you’re willing to attempt to draw. I’m not like a virtuoso action artist, so I really tried hard to get the mech fighting stuff in this book to look and feel good on the page. I didn’t necessarily want the action to feel slick – I kind of wanted the fights to feel like someone was taking big action figures and bashing them into each other. Hopefully it worked!!
What do you hope readers will learn or discover from reading your book?
If there are young adult readers that are currently as freaked out by entering the adult world as I was at that age, then I’d hope the book could give them a tiny bit of comfort or at least the sense that they’re not alone in feeling that way. That would be the highest compliment. Ultimately though my main concern was just showing readers a good time – if a someone has fun for an hour or two and gets a few laughs out of the book then I’ll feel like I did my job. It’d also be nice if at least one person successfully completed the crossword I spent ages making for the back.
Watch the Official Book Trailer!
Praise for Hotelitor
“A searing satire that cleverly lampoons the excesses and contradictions of late-stage capitalism…With wit as sharp as a laser beam, Hicks takes aim at the absurdities of our capitalist society, inviting readers to laugh along while also reflecting on the deeper issues at play.” — Geek Vibe Nation
“A fun, satirical sci-fi saga that’s big on laughs and big on ideas, all delivered with a kind of wide-eyed innocence that does well to hide its fiendishly delightful satire.” — COMICON.COM
“It’s a fun story about giant robots and aliens, but also has deeper themes around the struggle between classes, how we think of the service industry and late-stage capitalism.” — SMASH PAGES
“A journey into the absurd and hilarious… Hicks, a Welsh cartoonist celebrated for his wit and storytelling prowess, invites readers on a sci-fi adventure like no other.” — TOONS MAG
Connect with Josh
Josh Hicks is a cartoonist from Wales, UK. He has been creating comics since 2015, working with anthologies and independent publishers in the UK and self-publishing his own minicomics.
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Josh Hicks
Josh Hicks is a cartoonist from Wales, UK. Born in 1991, he was raised in a small ex-coal-mining village and has since moved to a city that is twenty minutes away by train. He has been making comics since 2015, working with anthologies and independent publishers in the UK and self-publishing his own minicomics. His work includes Glorious Wrestling Alliance and Hotelitor. When not making comics, Josh is usually thinking about them. He also works in animation as an art director, animator and storyboard artist.
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Interview
What was your favorite book when you were a child?
Comics-wise, I loved Spider-Man, Dragon Ball and Tintin as a child. Society wrongly shamed me out of reading comics in my early teenage years but I got back into it with stuff like The Invisibles, Scott Pilgrim and Ice Haven, and have only briefly looked back since.
What’s your favorite line from a book?
I somehow have no memory of any specific lines from books or comics. I’m trying to think of one now but all that’s coming to my mind’s eye are panels of Astro Boy hitting other robots in the head.
Who are your top three favorite authors or illustrators?
Taiyo Matsumoto is one of the greatest of all time. I’ve been re-reading a lot of Moebius lately. Wai Wai Pang’s Ripples remains one of the coolest British comics ever.
Why did you want to become an author or illustrator?
I’ve always loved stories and have always just defaulted to trying to make stuff to entertain myself. As a kid and a teenager it was little animations and short films (which I still do). When I first seriously tried making comics in my early twenties and properly discovered my medium it was sort of like a religious experience. A mild-to-moderate religious experience.
Do you have any advice for future authors or illustrators?
Find the creative thing you really like doing and try to reasonably structure your life to spend as much time doing that thing as is healthy and enjoyable. Work on small projects early on so that you actually get things finished. And sometimes too much advice can feel crippling, so there’s no shame in ignoring it all and just going in with reckless abandon.
Smash Pages Q&A | Josh Hicks on ‘Hotelitor’
The creator of ‘Glorious Wrestling Alliance’ discusses his latest graphic novel about a hotel shaped like a giant robot.
Josh Hicks has worked many odd jobs in his life, which is relevant to the topic of this interview, but right now he is a Welsh animator, cartoonist and director. His work spans comics, animation and music videos. As a filmmaker, he directed Spectre of the Bear, and he helped create animated music videos for the Foo Fighters and Tyler Childers.
On the comics side, Hicks created Glorious Wrestling Alliance, a comic about the surreal world of professional wrestlers, and he’s followed that with a new graphic novel, Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit, which comes out next Wednesday from Graphic Universe. It’s the story of a mobile hotel, shaped like a giant Shogun Warrior or other manga-inspired robot, and the denizens that work and stay in it. When a giant alien monster attacks the hotel, the surviving guests and staff find themselves stranded in deep space, leading to all sorts of chaos, and it’s up to 18-year-old intern Anna Greene and her fellow workers to find a way home.
It’s a fun story about giant robots and aliens, but also has deeper themes around the struggle between classes, how we think of thr service industry and late-stage capitalism. I spoke with Hicks about the project and the themes it touches on, as well as the UK wrestling scene and what he’s working on next. My thanks for his time.
How did you come to comics, both as a creator and a fan?
I always read comics as a kid. I loved everything, but I specifically remember being big into Spider-Man, Tintin and these weird British Sonic The Hedgehog comics. When Dragon Ball hit the UK, I started drifting toward manga, and then got into more alternative American and European stuff in my late teens and early 20s, which opened the door to thinking maybe I could make comics myself. I’d always drawn privately, but I then started putting out comics and never really looked back. Fast-forward 10 years and I’m drawing a sci-fi book about a giant robot that is also a hotel. I’m not sure if that’s a natural culmination of all these influences or just a symptom of mental collapse.
We’ll get into Hotelitor in a moment, but after perusing your Twitter feed, I realized you were the creator of Glorious Wrestling Alliance and I was digging some of your posts about UK wrestling. I haven’t followed it much since NXT UK shut down, but what’s the current state of UK wrestling? Who are some of your favs right now?
Thanks for perusing! One of my greatest joys in life is going to Attack! Pro Wrestling shows here in Cardiff. That’s my local. I’m friends with Mark Andrews, who runs Attack! and is also a great, great wrestler in his own right. He, Flash Morgan Webster and Dani Luna are doing amazing things here in the UK and around the world. I think Wales, specifically, has an insane amount of talent given how small a country we are. Wrestlers like Jay Joshua, Nico Angelo, Mike Hitchman, Brendan White, Danny Jones – these are great Welsh talents who would be at home at basically any big roster in the world. Everybody in the UK should feel very fortunate that we get the chance to see them ply their trade in our bars and bingo halls.
Getting us back on topic, how did your work on Glorious Wrestling Alliance (or even just being a wrestling fan in general) prepare you for a story about a giant robot hotel that fights aliens?
The whole premise for Glorious Wrestling Alliance was that it was a wrestling comic where you’d barely see any actual wrestling: it was all about the backstage dynamics and the characters’ weird idiosyncrasies and neuroses. Hotelitor is more plot-driven, but it still has that ensemble character focus – it’s about what happens to the staff and guests in this mechanized hotel when it gets trapped in space – and I really wanted to expand on the tiny amount of action I did in GWA by leaning into the giant robot fight sequences and whatnot. There’s still plenty of bickering, but it’s hopefully now drawn a little bit more dynamically. Dynamic bickering.
I think a lot of people will identify with the intern Anna and how she has to hold things together without much support from her superiors. Did you draw from your own experiences here — as a worker in general, not specifically as an intern at a robot hotel? Is she based on anyone you know?
A lot of the writing for Anna draws on my late teens and early 20s, when I was working odd jobs and unpaid work experience things to try to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I’ve been lucky to have had a few really good jobs, but I’ve also had some stinkers. That feeling of being young, out of your depth and beholden to the whims of a middle manager on a power trip is a visceral memory for me, and that was a big jumping-off point for the book. One of my friends did work at a fancy hotel for years. He was a personal trainer, so anyone who reads the book or glances at the cover for five seconds will know which character is vaguely based on him.
Getting serious here, you do offer up some poignant points in the graphic novel about late-stage capitalism, resource hoarding and the struggles of the service industry. Was it difficult to balance that with the more light-hearted fun parts of the book?
We all contain multitudes, and as much as I love drawing jokes and fight sequences, I do also have things I want to say or work through when I’m writing. The balance for me was trying to thread those elements through the book without sacrificing any of the fun. I didn’t want it to be a didactic comic — it’s a space romp, essentially – but I also wanted it to have some depth. I do like the idea of some legitimate ideas sitting right next to some of the stupidest drawings I could come up with. Hopefully it’s a good mix!
As a bonafide fan of the cutaway drawing, I was excited to jump into Hotelier when I saw you were using them. They always remind me of the Official Marvel Handbook and those drawings Eliot R. Brown did of Wolverine’s skeleton or Avengers Mansion. Can you talk about some of your artistic influences, both for the cutaways as well as the graphic novel overall?
Yes! I am all about the cutaway. As a kid I had this book about medieval castles that was essentially one giant cutaway, and I think it left some sort of permanent imprint on my brain. I love Chris Ware comics, I love old action figure playsets. There are also tons of beautiful cutaways of Astro Boy and Ultraman and Mazinger Z out there, and those are super inspiring to look at. A lot of those classic anime and manga influences show up in the action sequences, too. Part of finding the balance we spoke about earlier was about juxtaposing the real and the potentially overwhelming with the joyful – I kind of wanted the comic to visually represent a big smorgasbord of things I love.
With Hotelitor finished and hitting stores, what are you planning on working on next?
I’m in the middle of making some projects for a younger audience – there’s a comics thing I’m working on and a book project that has an interactive element, and both of those should be announced soon. There are some parts of my brain that haven’t really changed since I was 11 years old, so writing for that age range feels like a good fit. In the shorter term, I’m just excited to get to go to comic shows and festivals with Hotelitor. I’ll be at TCAF in Toronto in May and Thought Bubble in the UK in November, and it will be fantastic to be out of the house.
Finally, if you had the opportunity, would you book a trip into space on a Hotelitor?
Sure. I’ve stayed in weirder hotels.
ComicBuzz Chats With Josh Hicks
With the release of Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit from Graphic Universe on May 7th, we are delighted to be joined by cartoonist and filmmaker Josh Hicks.
Hi, Josh; it’s so nice to have you here with us.
Thanks, it’s lovely to be here.
Could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
My name is Josh Hicks, and I’m a cartoonist and filmmaker based in Wales. I work in comics and animation, and my new graphic novel, Hotelitor, is out May 7th from Graphic Universe. It’s a sci-fi action comedy about a giant robot that is also a hotel.
Can you tell us about the origins of Hotelitor?
It started out as a silly illustration I made to entertain myself. I drew a print of this big hotel robot a few years ago, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I have no memory of where the idea for that initial drawing came from, which is usually how things go for me. One flash of momentary inspiration, followed by years of hard work to bring to fruition this story of a giant mechanical workplace that gets trapped in deep space.
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How would you describe Hotelitor?
It’s inspired by a bunch of things I love. I’ve always loved big mechs, giant monsters and space-opera-type stuff, and all of that got rolled into Hotelitor. The book starts with our titular bipedal hotel getting attacked by a mysterious space entity and finding itself adrift in some unknown corner of the universe. A group of low-level service workers then have to band together to try to save the day and get back home. Along the way, they have to battle bad bosses, music-themed cults, existential alien threats and shadowy corporate conspiracy, while also navigating the pitfalls of late capitalism and fighting over who gets the biggest room.
What can you tell us about Anna Greene?
Anna is a student on an unpaid work placement onboard Hotelitor. At the start of the book, she’s out of her element and not really suited to the jobs she’s being asked to do, but when crisis hits she becomes the only thing that’s stopping the entire hotel from falling apart. I wanted to use the book to write a little bit about my work experiences in my late teens and early twenties, and Anna kind of represents that time in my life: she’s got no real idea what she wants to do or the kind of person she’s going to be, and she’s very nervous and stressed out and trying her best to survive it all minute-to-minute. She’s probably better at piloting a giant robot than I would be, though.
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How long have you been working on the Hotelitor graphic novel?
I drew that initial illustration in 2018, I think, and I pitched the book at the tail end of 2020. I started writing the script and penciling the book in 2021 and it took me around two years to finish it around other projects. It’s been a year since I finished the book. I am a big proponent of having a really stupid idea and then committing the maximum amount of effort to making it happen, and Hotelitor is definitely a product of that way of working.
What has it been like working with Graphic Universe?
I love working with Graphic Universe. They were really supportive of everything I wanted to do. My editor, Greg Hunter, and Graphic Universe’s designer, Mary Ross, were super integral to the making of the book, and it’s been great to work with their current graphic novel editor, Sean Tulien, on the release, too. A great bunch of people working really hard to make good books.
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Is there a particular character from Hotelitor that you enjoy illustrating?
I love drawing Hotelitor itself. Part of the reason I wanted to make the comic in the first place was to be able to play in the world of mechs for a bit, and I really wanted to channel my love for 70s and 80s mech manga into Hotelitor’s design. I’m also a sucker for a good map or a diagram, and getting to lay out the interior of the mech and figuring out how it would work as both a character and as an environment was a really fun challenge. There’s also a disgruntled dog/journalist character that I love to draw, but I think that’s because I just really enjoy frowning.
How did Graphic Universe get involved with Hotelitor?
Graphic Universe put out my last book, Glorious Wrestling Alliance: Ultimate Championship Edition, and so it felt like a no-brainer when it came time to pitch Hotelitor. I can’t stress enough how much of a good time I had working with them on that book, and Hotelitor was no different. I also knew I wanted to draw on some of my teenage work experiences, and they’ve got priors in that world, so it was a good fit.
As a creator, do you prefer writing or creating art?
I love them both. Drawing is definitely harder on a physical level. I drew a few sample pages first, but I then wrote a full script for Hotelitor before drawing anything else, and I think that process took me a few months. The drawing, on the other hand, took years. But a lot of the fun lies in the drawing: problem-solving, getting to actually bring this stuff to life… the two processes are really entwined in my mind. I’m always tweaking and editing the writing as I work on the art. I can’t really imagine drawing somebody else’s graphic novel, but maybe I would write something for somebody else to draw. So there’s that.
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We did check out the trailer for Hotelitor; could you tell us about the trailer?
Games are a part of my DNA at this point, and whenever I work on a book I tend to think about it in those terms quite a lot. I think that’s helpful in visualizing what kind of experience I’d like readers to have. I co-designed a card game based on Glorious Wrestling Alliance, and the two book projects I’m working on at the moment are game-related in different ways. Here, I got obsessed with making a trailer for a Hotelitor game that never existed. I was thinking a lot about SNES RPGs while making the book, and I think animating this trailer might be the most fun I’ve ever had doing anything – it was especially nice to get my go-to collaborator, Ioan Morris, to do some original music for it. There may also be a minor interactive element to the book itself, but you’ll have to read it til the end to find out.
With Hotelitor releasing on May 7th, how do you feel?
I hope people take a chance on Hotelitor, and I’m excited to get to talk to them about it at comic shows and conventions and stuff. It’s been a long time coming, so at this point I can’t wait to get it out in the world. I’m mainly just looking forward to getting to share this weird thing with as many people as possible.
Any message for the ComicBuzz readers?
If you’ve got any tolerance at all for sci-fi, comedy and giant robots, please check out Hotelitor at a book shop, comic store or library near you. I am 85% sure you’ll have a good time. 90% if you’ve ever worked in the service industry. There’s always a margin of error. Failing that, maybe watch the trailer on loop and have fun imagining your own version of what the book might be. Oh, and you can find me at @ajoshhicks on all the social media platforms if you want to find out more about my work.
We would like to say thank you to Josh for chatting with us and wish him the best of luck for the release of Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit.
Josh Hicks
Author
Agent: Rachel Petty
Josh Hicks is a cartoonist, writer and filmmaker from South Wales. His work includes the Glorious Wrestling Alliance comics, the graphic novel Hotelitor, and the animated film Spectre of the Bear, starring Bill Nighy and Craig Roberts. All of Josh’s work combines comedy with real heart and a unique approach to visual storytelling.
Josh has also designed card games, done some light journalism, and helped bring to life music videos for Foo Fighters and Tyler Childers.
HICKS, Josh. Glorious Wrestling Alliance: Ultimate Championship Edition. illus. by Josh Hicks. 112p. Graphic Universe. Oct. 2021. Tr $29.32. ISBN 9781541589797; pap. $14.95. ISBN 9781728431086.
Gr 9 Up--Glorious Wrestling Alliance is a tongue-in-cheek homage to pro wrestling that will have readers rooting for a scrappy crew of misfit athletes. Great Carp, who has a fish for a head, is the current champion, but he's having an existential crisis ("I just feel ... empty. And lost. And overwhelmed. All the bad feelings"). Other team members are grappling with identity issues: Miranda Fury resents being seen as a lesser wrestler because of her gender; Gravy Train, who has a gravy boat for a body, wants a different persona; and tortured poet Death Machine wants his writings to be taken seriously. A traveling tour results in comedy and mayhem as they all struggle to move into new roles. Cult classics in some circles, Hicks's comics have been collected and colorized for the first time. His straightforward six-panel format, with occasional breaks for amusing maps or sidebars, capably brings to life the characters. The story has a "Scott Pilgrim" vibe, with witty dialogue and spot-on satire poking fun at the world of pro wrestling. Miranda Fury and Death Machine appear to be white; Gravy Train is cued as Asian. VERDICT This campy graphic novel is a knockout; sure to be popular with older youth and adults, who will enjoy the quirky illustrations and humor.--Nancy McKay, Byron P.L., IL
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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McKay, Nancy. "HICKS, Josh. Glorious Wrestling Alliance: Ultimate Championship Edition." School Library Journal, vol. 67, no. 10, Oct. 2021, p. 98. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A678583665/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=06330c48. Accessed 9 Aug. 2024.
Hicks, Josh GLORIOUS WRESTLING ALLIANCE Graphic Universe (Teen None) $14.99 10, 5 ISBN: 978-1-72843-108-6
When even suplexing people can't cheer you up anymore, what's an unhappy professional wrestler to do?
Cartoonist Hicks delivers an affectionate body slam to the world of pro wrestling with this compilation of graphic episodes chronicling the ups and downs (mostly the latter) of a struggling troupe of ring warriors--led by fish-headed veteran Great Carp, who's feeling the existential depression more than the pain these days. He's accompanied by frustrated Miranda ("If you can't beat 'em, join 'em and then beat 'em to death!") Fury, who secretly adopts a new persona as Hyper Mask so she can take on men too; and struggling poet Death Machine ("I gaze upon her beauty, her flowing, glistening hair / shimmering in the moonlight, like a reflective steel chair"). Great Carp's departure to find himself (and make a fortune selling branded vodka and housewares) nearly causes the Glorious Wrestling Alliance to founder, but in a properly rousing climax that underscores the spectacle's timeless appeal, he returns in the nick of time for a final, torch-passing Ultrabrawl XXVI bout that will have sweaty readers pounding their seats and saluting a new GWA champion. The art's cartoon style (not to mention the costuming) makes it hard to distinguish racial identities, but the cast does show a range of skin tones.
Spine-crushing fun. (Graphic fiction. 14-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Hicks, Josh: GLORIOUS WRESTLING ALLIANCE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2021, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A673649780/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=2f71a49f. Accessed 9 Aug. 2024.
HICKS, Josh. Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit. illus. by Josh Hicks. 144p. Graphic Universe. May 2024. lib. ed. $30.65. ISBN 9781728446073; pap. $16.99. ISBN 978 8765623350.
Gr 8 Up--In a not-too-distant future, Earth is depleted of its natural resources and becomes a destitute orb, forcing humanity to take to the stars. The Apatus Corporation turns planetary catastrophe into luxury living and ferries the populace between colonies, including Colony 4CX, where Hotelitor--a "luxury-class defense and hospitality unit"--offers VIP treatment to its guests. When Hotelitor falls under alien attack, Anna, an 18-year-old intern, rallies her fellow service workers to send the hotel unit into space to escape the aliens, but the group finds themselves navigating class warfare, corrupt hotel management, and the formation of a cult as they try to find their way back to the colony. As Anna and her team search for a way home, they uncover secrets about Apatus that could cost them their lives, if the aliens don't get them first. Relying on often hilarious situations and dialogue, Hicks delivers a sharp story about the service industry, social classes, and corporate greed. Vibrant illustrations are colorful, incorporating a diverse group of characters. VERDICT Hotelitor blends sci-fi and class comedy with entertaining results. A good choice for YA graphic novel collections.--Rosemary Kiladitis
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Kiladitis, Rosemary. "HICKS, Josh. Hotelitor: Luxury-Class Defense and Hospitality Unit." School Library Journal, vol. 70, no. 3, Mar. 2024, p. 94. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A786340717/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f5ede068. Accessed 9 Aug. 2024.
Hicks, Josh HOTELITOR Graphic Universe (Teen None) $16.99 5, 7 ISBN: 9798765623350
An interstellar intern fights aliens, giant robots, and social inequality.
In this insightful extraterrestrial graphic novel, the Earth has been stripped of its resources, leaving humans to live among the stars on corporate colonies run by a company called Apatus. Eighteen-year-old Anna Greene is an unpaid intern at Hotelitor, a luxury hotel housed within a giant robot in the Apatus Colony 4CX. The guests live in plush accommodations with a spa, pool, and generously stocked bar, while the staff occupy different levels within Hotelitor. When a dazzling pink-and-purple wormhole opens in space-time, and an imposingly large purple creature bursts through it, Hotelitor falls under attack. As the hierarchical constructs of staff and guests dissolve and re-form amid the chaos, Anna must step up to save Hotelitor and its humans. As the cause of the attack becomes clearer, Anna also contends with something she never imagined: the fact that Apatus Corporation itself is a foe. Using cinematic action scenes rendered in a dazzlingly hued palette, Hicks blends space opera with clever commentary on wealth and social inequality. Despite its slim page count, this work is jam-packed with big robot fights, an alien cult, an evil corporation, and the trials and tribulations of working in the hospitality industry, making for an utterly intriguing genre mashup that's sure to stay with readers. Anna is white; there's racial diversity among secondary characters.
A razor-sharp and action-packed science fiction romp that tackles social issues with aplomb. (Graphic science fiction. 12-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Hicks, Josh: HOTELITOR." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A786185586/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=13f45b38. Accessed 9 Aug. 2024.