Correction: Arkansas comic book artist Dusty Higgins resides in Bryant. He and his wife are expecting a son later this year. This story incorrectly states where he lived and the sex of his child.
Little Rock comic book artist Dusty Higgins isn't a huge Batman fan.
Or a DC or Marvel comics fan.
He gets why they're popular. There's a comfort in having characters people recognize.
"That's why Mickey Mouse is still around," he says.
Higgins, graphic designer in the office of communications at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and formerly an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette artist, is bored with the popular comic book characters flooding today's pop culture. He'd rather work on small, independent graphic novels like his first series Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer.
Which is why, when New York Times best-selling author Robert Venditti approached Higgins to illustrate his newest graphic novel, Miles Taylor and the Golden Cape: Attack of the Alien Horde, Higgins was all for it.
"I know the story of Batman -- I'm good, I don't need any more," Higgins says. "That's what I like about [Miles Taylor and the Golden Cape] -- you don't have to know anything about the last 30 years of this book to read it."
The book tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who inherits a golden cape with special powers, but has to figure out how to use it.
In one instance, Dusty says, Miles tries to put on the cape to get back at a bully who is picking on him.
"The cape isn't going to work because he isn't using it for the right reasons," Higgins says. "He has to either be saving people or using it for altruistic reasons."
The book goes back and forth between prose and comic strips. When Miles puts on the cape, the book switches from words to visuals, and Higgins is given the reins to do what he loves: tell a story through pictures.
That's what many people misunderstand, Higgins says: Being a comic strip artist is telling stories, not just drawing pictures.
"Even if I didn't write the story, I have to think about how to convey how the writer wants it drawn," he says.
For Higgins, storytelling began when he was a kid. His father was in sales, so the family moved often. He had stops in Hot Springs, Bryant and attended two schools in Benton before sixth grade.
"I'd go to a new school and just start drawing and kids would gather around the desk like, 'Oh what are you doing?' So that's kinda how I made friends," he says.
Higgins enrolled at the University of Arkansas as an art student and joined The Arkansas Traveler, the student newspaper.
At one point, Higgins says he was the highest paid employee on staff, producing three comic strips, an editorial cartoon and feature art every week.
In Fayetteville, he found his calling -- trying to explain the world in comics. One of his most popular strips was titled God, the Devil and Monkey. Every week, the comic strip depicted the three characters and their misadventures together.
"I'm really interested in religion and how people feel about religion," Higgins says. "So that's sort of me exploring that."
Now, as an artist for comic books and graphic novels, Higgins says he goes out to "see what people are doing -- how people are tackling their problems. And pull bits and pieces from that and from other experiences."
There has been a huge resurgence in comic book popularity in the past several years. According to the film website IMDB.com, more than 50 movies based on comic books will be made between 2015 and 2020.
"Comic book characters are our modern day heroes," Higgins says. "But we've also kind of gotten away from traditional literature. People are much more likely to watch TV now as opposed to reading a good book. And the comic books are sort of the bridge between -- the literature aspect as well as the visual aspect."
The dream, Higgins says, is to be a full-time comic book artist. But he says life nowadays is pretty perfect.
Higgins, who lives with his wife and daughter in Little Rock, has a second daughter on the way and enjoys making pamphlets, brochures and billboards for UALR. In the fall, he'll teach a class titled "Sequential Art" -- a fancy name for comic art, Higgins says. He's also working on the second Miles Taylor book.
"It's what I enjoy doing," Higgins says. "Even though I am doing all of this work, that's sort of energizing. I can work on that and forget to eat because I'm pulling so much energy from the art that I'll forget that I'm starving and half asleep."
Higgins will appear at book signings at 1 p.m. Saturday, Faulkner County Library, Conway; and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 29, River City Comic Expo, Statehouse Convention Center, Little Rock.
Style on 07/14/2015