By day, Alexis E. Fajardo is lead editor at the Peanuts Studio, working with creators such as Paige Braddock to make a new ongoing comic book based on Schulz’s lifelong work.
By night and weekends, he single-handedly writes, draws and publishes his own comic series “Kid Beowulf,” where the young hero travels the ancient world with his future mortal enemy Grendel, who in this version is also his brother. The comic series has been Fajardo’s dream project as it combines his two greatest loves – ancient mythology and comics.
Fajardo’s love for comic books can be traced back to a childhood full of them, but his desire to make comics himself can be traced to three specific works. “Asterix The Legionnaire,” part of the long-running European comic series “Asterix,” was one of the first comics Fajardo remembers reading, and his art style takes heavy inspiration from it.
Walt Kelly’s seminal comic strip “Pogo” was also a big influence, even if Fajardo wouldn’t get many of the jokes until he was older. Finally, Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” was the first time Fajardo realized you could make a comic series that had a complete story with a beginning, middle and end.
His love for mythology also started at a young age with Greek myths, but reading the epic poem “Beowulf” in high school “just lit my brain on fire,” sticking with him for years afterwards.
In 2003, Fajardo responded to an ad on Craigslist, not knowing it was for the Peanuts Studio and posted by Braddock, whom he had already met on the comic book convention circuit. He didn’t get that job, but left a good enough impression that he was the first choice the next time there was on opening.
Fajardo started working on his own comic book shortly after moving to Santa Rosa in 2007. Bowling Hat Publishing in Portland was the publisher for the first two graphic novels in the series, but the company went under while Fajardo was 150 pages into the third, so he funded its creation on Kickstarter and released it in 2013.
The comic series has been especially popular in schools; teachers have found it invaluable in stirring up interest in ancient history.
His two jobs creating comics are very different from each other. Making the “Peanuts” comic book involves several people all assigned to different tasks – editing, inking or coloring – and a large part of the job is finding who’s available to do what. Fajardo writes “Kid Beowulf” whenever he has time, and with the exception of friends helping him with colors, does all the tasks himself. He does most of the work in Photoshop, although he said “I have a font made to look like my handwriting so it looks more homemade.” He also says if he’s very lucky he can manage about 10 pages a week.
Even though Fajardo is already working for a publisher, he has little interest in taking his independent work to it. This is partly because BOOM! Studios mostly make comics for properties that are already licensed, and partly because he enjoys the control he has over his own work. “We [cartoonists] are all control freaks to a certain degree,” he said, although he admitted that being solely responsible for his work is also more difficult and time consuming.
He still enjoys working in the Peanuts Studio with his fellow cartoonists. “We inspire each other,” he said. “I’m very fortunate to be a part of that.”
Fajardo is taking a sabbatical from “Beowulf” to prepare for his wedding in June. “Kid Beowulf” is currently available for free at gocomics.com.
