PEGGY PEATTIE / Union-Tribune
Billy Martinez started Neko Press five years ago to produce his own work and that of comic-book artists he admires.
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The heroine of Billy Martinez's newest series of comic books is called "Kickass Girl." She lives up to her name, vanquishing everyday villains like an abusive father and cosmic enemies that threaten all of humanity.
Meeting her 36-year-old creator, you can see where his heroine gets her can-do spirit. Only five years ago, Martinez started Neko Press to produce his own work and that of comic-book artists he admires.
He'll publish the final installment in his "Kickass" series in February. Meanwhile, he's issued a steady stream of work by other artists. There are also encore editions to oversee of an earlier series called Wildflower that Martinez did with another publisher, as well as offshoot products, such as skateboards and posters.
But Martinez has a second calling, and it's taken a dramatic rise in recent months: the teaching of drawing and illustration. For about six years running, he ran his classes out of a modest-sized room at French's Art Studio in La Mesa.
He is still conducting his classes in a modest-sized setting, but since October it's been in a La Mesa storefront of his own, Neko Press Art Studios. The class schedule is considerable: Tuesday through Sunday, with hours running from midafternoon into the evening. The students now number more than 100.
But Martinez has no complaints. In fact, he's happy that the teaching helps to subsidize the press and help pay the bills. He treats his growing popularity as a teacher of drawing and illustration as a surprise, if a welcome one.
"I plan on being there as long as the community wants me there. I'm glad to teach what's going on now."
One weekday afternoon, the students trickle in beginning about 3 p.m. Thirteen-year-old Rachael Armor, an eighth-grader, quickly begins work on a project in progress. She's been at it about seven months and simply says "I like coming here. I was at Comics-N-Stuff, I saw a brochure for the classes and thought it was cool."
HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune
"I plan on being there as long as the community wants me there," says Billy Martinez.
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The rest of the students are of middle-or high-school age – with one exception. Dougg Archer, 35, works in advertising and sales.
Of his class time, Archer comments, "If every adult would do this, the world would be a happier place."
Martinez's first local forays into teaching were at Comics-N-Stuff. For several years, Martinez worked for the local retail chain, both to pay the bills and to glean how the industry worked.
"There was a big boom in comics then," he recalls, referring to the mid-'90s, "and people wanted to learn the 'how-tos' of the stuff."
This wasn't his first exposure to teaching, either. In the early '90s, while living in Sacramento, he had taught troubled kids who couldn't function in a normal school setting.
"It was almost a kind of therapy for them. I had come from a troubled background, and I could understand them."
Some of his own dysfunctional family life as a boy fuels the drama in his comics. Like Martinez, Kickass Girl – aka Katrina Vasquez – transcends her troubles.
"It's a spiritual story as much as an adventure," he says of this series. Martinez's dad had a professional career in music – touring as a drummer with popular country singers Barbara Mandrell and Marty Robbins – which gave him a passion for the same. But because his father was on the road so much, Martinez feels as if their relationship was emotionally distant.
Perhaps in reaction to his own childhood, he seems to be a doting parent. When discussion turns to his 12-year-old daughter, his smile widens.
At an earlier phase of his life, while living in Los Angeles, Martinez also pursued a music career. In spare moments, he's recently recorded "Kickass Girl: The Soundtrack." He and a second musician, Superfly Brown, co-wrote and performed 11 tunes for a Neko Press CD.
With his students, Martinez takes a gentle approach, coaxing rather than exhorting them to take their work to another level.
It's clear he's always telling himself to do the same. Of late he's extending his imagery beyond the page. A couple of times a year he does live art events at local clubs, selling the larger-scale work he produces on stage with the use of pastel pencils, watercolors, house paints and oversized markers.
Even if it is arduous to make his own work, manage a press and run school at the same, Martinez feels lucky.
"Not many people can say they do what they want to do," he says. "I can."
Robert L. Pincus: (619) 293-1831; robert.pincus@uniontrib.com
