MEET THE PROS is a lecture series featuring local heroes from the Champaign-Urbana creative community

I was born and raised in Tuscola, the youngest of 5 kids in an Irish-Catholic family. Throughout school, I always had an interest in art and when I discovered comic books at about age 9 I was hooked for life. I graduated from Tuscola High School in 1978 and went to ISU where I got a bachelor's degree in art in 1982. I then moved to Oregon state but returned home to Illinois a year later, got a job in Champaign and have been here ever since. I have worked at Precision Graphics in downtown Champaign for over 25 years now, doing everything from paste-up to camera work to illustration to desktop publishing.

I first came up with the concept for Jason and the New Argonauts many years ago when I was in high school Latin class. I've always been a fan of mythology and I was intrigued by the idea of writing and illustrating a comic book about the classical Greek myths, whose characters are considered by many to be the first "super-heroes." After about 30 years of mulling it over, I finally decided to take a stab at it and see if I could actually make it happen. My initial concept was to gather a group of heroes each representing a sign of the zodiac. All the characters in my novel actually exist in the myths, but I had to do some embellishing to some of their stories in order to make them fit into my grand scheme. I enlisted the aid of long-time family friend, Tim Stiles, an experienced comic book inker, to ink my pencil sketches. The books were printed by Ka-Blam, an on-line, print-on-demand publisher that specializes in comic books.

Signed copies of Jim's new graphic novel Jason and the New Argonauts will be available at the book signing immediately following the lecture.

(Download PDF poster of the event)
(Read an interview with Jim Gallagher on Smile Politely)

 

 

 

MEET THE PROS is presented by Graphic Design at Parkland College and 40 North/88 West
For additional information, please contact Paul Young