Ferndale resident goes back to his roots, starts online comic series

By Jeremy Selweski
C & G Staff Writer

FERNDALE — Clifford VanMeter has dreamed of working with comic books since he was 9 years old.

Three decades into a whirlwind career that has taken him through a variety of jobs in dozens of cities and states, he has returned to his first love.

On Dec. 8, the 53-year-old Ferndale resident launched the Web site for his new independent company, Arctos Comics. The site currently serves as a vehicle for “Orion the Hunter,” the first Web comic strip series bearing the Arctos name.

“Comics is a really hard way to make a living,” VanMeter said, “but it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. I guess I just never really got over that passion for telling stories.”

“Orion” is a graphic novel set 230 years in the future that Van Meter said was heavily influenced by old western movies and film noir. The titular character is a marshal in the massive war between humans and aliens, a peacemaker bringing law and order to the frontier. But when Orion returns to Earth, a chain of events unravels the façade of peace and prosperity in his native city.

The 64-page comic is being unveiled piece by piece, with VanMeter and artist Joe Querio posting one page per week online as “Orion” is completed. While VanMeter wrote the story, Querio serves as the primary illustrator. For VanMeter, this collaborative process is one of the most enjoyable aspects about creating comics.

“There’s a lot of back and forth between Joe and myself,” he said. “The cool part is that everything the reader is experiencing is a product of all those individual parts. … Even in this highly fictionalized world, every element of the story has to click into place.”

Querio agreed. “I’ve only gotten into comics more recently, but I really got interested once I started to appreciate the story aspect of it,” said the 34-year-old Sterling Heights resident. “You’re trying to convey artwork in a storytelling format, not just painting a pretty picture.”

As a newcomer to the field — “Orion the Hunter” is the first artwork he has ever released publicly — Querio was surprised by the level of freedom that VanMeter gave him.

“I’m normally more into concept art and horror type of stuff,” he explained. “This was in more of a sci-fi genre, but I’m just applying my own style to it. I didn’t feel any pressure to change the way I draw because Cliff encouraged me to keep my dark, moody tone. He’s so laid-back and carefree, which makes him very easy to work with.”

VanMeter believes his go-with-the-flow personality was largely shaped by his nomadic childhood years, in which his family was constantly moving to keep up with his father’s job as a computer programmer for the U.S. Navy. By the time he was in high school, VanMeter had lived in seven states and three countries.

That spirit of wanderlust continued into adulthood — in the early 1990s he had jobs with major comic book companies like Marvel and DC, as well as independents Image and Valiant. Later, he founded Comicolor, one of the first companies to color and letter comics by computer.

He has also contributed as a writer to a national design magazine and to books about video and Web publishing. He has worked in movie and animation studios, helped film and create music for TV commercials, served as a guest speaker for Apple and designed role-playing board games. Currently, he has a day job as a Web designer and developer for the Detroit-based multimedia company Butler Graphics, and in his spare time, he creates original wildlife paintings.

“I’m like a bee buzzing from flower to flower,” VanMeter said with a laugh. “I guess I’ve always had itchy feet — I get bored pretty easily.”

It doesn’t appear that he will be growing restless with comics anytime soon. After being away from his biggest passion for more than a decade, he is eager to get Arctos Comics off the ground.

VanMeter already has the company’s next two titles planned out and hopes to release them in 2010. For “Belter,” an “urban pop drama,” he is working with a comic artist from California. And a third, as-yet-untitled series is a collaboration with an artist from Argentina that, he said, will have “a lighter, more whimsical tone.”

For now, VanMeter is just doing Arctos Comics for fun, but he would eventually like to see it become profitable. Although Web comics cost very little to produce because there are virtually no overhead costs, he knows that print will always be the classic medium. Still, he noted, online series are beginning to gain more respect among hardcore comic aficionados, and it could only be a matter of time before the Internet becomes more prominent in the industry.

“Comic book stores are really struggling right now,” he said, “and independent artists are moving to the Web in order to cut out the middleman.”

With that in mind, the long-term longevity of Arctos Comics ultimately rests on his own shoulders. “The only real barrier to success in this medium is your talent level,” VanMeter said. “The thing that’s keeping our passions bubbling up for this project are the really positive comments we’ve gotten from readers. So hopefully, it will consume my life for the foreseeable future.”

To view “Orion the Hunter” or for more on Arctos Comics, visit the Web site http://arctoscomics.com.