Few people are as genuinely approachable as Michael Cho. Born in Seoul, Korea, the Toronto-based artist is happy to talk about his childhood as he is to effortlessly draw a Silver Age superhero. His artwork is instantly recognizable for its uncanny timelessness—to be rooted both in the past and the present. When Cho isn't working on his own comics for his site Papercut, he's illustrating striking images for such clients as Canadian Business (above) and the Ryerson Journalism Review. Recently, he revealed his latest project: the jacket art for the Penguin Classics edition of Don Delillo's White Noise (you can learn more about its design on his sketch blog).

Over an email conversation, I heard the artist wax on about Toronto, the immigrant experience, and the demise of indie bookstores.

The last time we spoke was at FanExpo 2009. Our conversation was interrupted by a large Deadpool trying to rope you into a quest. Does that happen regularly at conventions?
Well, this is my second FanExpo--I only started doing them last year.  Its definitely a noisy, crazy and chaotic show.  I personally prefer the more indie shows like TCAF [Toronto Comic Arts Festival], but if I have the proper amount of coffee in me then I'm all set and ready to get with the FanExpo program. That's not to say I'm a comics snob and prefer only indie comics instead of mainstream super-hero stuff.  I like both, since I grew up reading both.  FanExpo allows me to meet a lot of the mainstream fans, and geek out with them, talking about favourite Spider-Man issues from the 80's and things like that.  And from last year to this year, it's definitely gotten bigger.  

For artists, comic conventions have to be odd experiences. How do you juggle commissions, sweaty fans, and hanging with your peers?
That's a good question.  Regarding fans and commissions, when I started doing these cons, I quickly learned that I have that innate ability to draw a sketch of Captain America while having a conversation about "who would win in a fight: Wolverine or the Hulk?" all while tapping my feet to the blare of video-game music playing in the background.  And believe me, its an important skill.  

The one part that is hard to juggle is trying to get out to see friends and fellow artists who've come into town for the show.  There never seems to be enough time for that at the shows themselves.  Last time, like most artists, I was stuck behind my table sketching for most of the weekend, so I never got out to see much of the show itself, or chat with fellow artists at the actual convention.  This year though, I was more prepared and took some commission orders online before the show itself, so I found slightly more time to mingle. Still, as my wife has noticed, whenever it's time for one of these things, my body goes into "con-mode" and I can talk and draw all day, socialize all night and do it all again on 3 or 4 hours sleep.  Of course, afterwards, my body goes into "zombie mode" and I turn into a vegetable for a few days.
You rendered the banner that graced the late Pages Books. How did you get involved with that?
Thanks, when I was starting out years ago, I illustrated a book that had a launch co-ordinated by Pages.  So after that, Marc Glassman, the owner of Pages asked me to illustrate some signs  for the store.  Having done that, he would call me occasionally to do some other branding work, like the sandwich board, a fun window display or the website banner.  I was always happy to do it, since Pages was my favourite bookstore in town. 

Is it jarring to know it's gone?
Well, I'm still saddened that they're closed.  I've been asked a few times how I felt about it, and most of the time the question is framed around the idea that Queen Street has lost part of its indie soul, or something like that. Personally, I think Queen Street has been  very corporate for years, so losing Pages isn't the death-knell for that section of the street.  I mean, the Gap opened up there, what, over 10 years ago?  The flavour that was in Queen street moved further west, or to other parts of the city years ago. But it is sad to lose a great bookstore like Pages.  I went to OCAD [Ontario College of Art & Design] which is around the corner from there, and Pages was a great refuge to check out art-books or as a common meeting place where you could browse while waiting for friends.  And indie bookstores like Pages are part of the lifeblood of local culture.  You know, when you make a zine or when a small press puts out a tiny 200 copies-edition run of a local poet's work, who's going to stock that but an indie bookstore?  Pages always had sections for that, and the staff was very supportive of locally produced works.  So, that's the part I'm going to miss the most.  I've never enjoyed the homogeny of the big book retailers.

As a fellow immigrant, I'm always fascinated by the experiences of other 'settlers'. How much do you remember of Seoul? 
Oh I remember it pretty well, even though I moved here when I was about 7 years old.  Interestingly, a lot of my memories are associated with drawing -- like, I remember how my mom would buy me 11 sheets of newprint paper for a penny and I'd spend afternoons just doodling pictures of Astro Boy or giant robots.  And I remember watching cartoons on our black and white TV around 6pm—TV in Korea back then only began its broadcasting day around 6 and stopped around 11pm.  So I remember watching Mazinger Z (my all time favourite giant-robo show) while eating dinner. 

Life in Korea in the 70's was very different than life there now.  For example, we had no indoor plumbing, so we drew water from a pump in the front yard, and we had an outhouse (which scared me terribly).  Our house was insulated with hanji paper which my grandmother replaced every year, and we had a little coal stove that heated the house.  In our neighbourhood, we were considered well-off because we had a telephone.   I also saw only one western person ever, in my entire time there -- and he seemed freakishly tall.  I think If I went back to Korea now, I wouldn't be able to recognize it—its so advanced and cosmopolitan now.  The Korea I grew up in is gone.

The experience of coming to Canada was a bit traumatic at first, but like any child at that age, I adjusted and adapted pretty fast.  I remember that the first meal I had in Canada was of roast beef, mashed potatoes and peas -- and I threw up immediately afterwards.  I mean, I was raised on kimchi, rice and anchovies after all.  I remember thinking right after I threw up that there was NO WAY I could eat this kind of food!

Conversely, what was growing up in Toronto like?
Well, I never grew up in Toronto.  I only moved here when I was about 19.  When we first came to Canada, we landed in the maritimes, so my first memories of this country are associated with that area, and I have a real fondness for places like Halifax or Charlottetown.

Eventually, after a few moves we settled in Hamilton, Ontario—just down the road from Toronto and I spent the remainder of my childhood there.  Hamilton is a steel-town, so it has a different flavour than Toronto.  I enjoyed it when we lived downtown, but when we moved to the suburbs later when I was a teen, I liked it a whole lot less.  I've never liked suburbs very much and have always felt like an outsider when it came to that kind of lifestyle.   I couldn't wait to move away to Toronto then.

Your Toronto Back Alley series is incredibly revealing. I picture the west end but it could be any of the city's micro-neighbourhoods...
Toronto is my home.  I love this city, and I've lived here longer than I've lived anywhere else.  But I moved here, instead of being born here, so for a long time I had that outsider's eye and that outsider's affection for places in the city.  For example, if I'd seen some of the  same neighbourhoods in Hamilton, they would have been invisible to me, but here in Toronto, they evoke a a sense of strangeness and wonder. And because I've always lived downtown, whenever I travel up to North York or even north of St. Clair, then it's no longer the Toronto I know. 

When I moved here, I liked the abandoned warehouse and factory areas, whether it was near Dufferin on the west side, or down near River Street on the east.  I lived for a long time in a warehouse loft in the east side, and I enjoyed biking around to those places and checking out the buildings and the traintracks and such, before they all got turned into condos.

Apart from the neighbourhoods, Toronto also has a pretty lively and supportive arts scene, which was very influential to me.  Growing up in Hamilton, I had maybe 2 friends that I could talk to about art or books.   So often I felt like an outsider, and didn't belong in that city at all.  But when I came to Toronto, I was grateful to find that most of the people I met were into the same things that I was into--I no longer felt like such a freak for reading T.S. Eliot, for example.

How do you go about creating a specific piece?
My process is pretty organic.  But it all depends on whether its a personal piece or if its an assignment.  And obviously, if it's for a client, it depends on the assignment itself.  

For client work, I read the article/book/visual brief and an idea or two usually comes to me fairly quickly.  If it doesn't, then I go through some brainstorming, either doing some word association or by talking it over with my wife who is a very experienced designer and art director herself.  Once I have a concept, I sit down and do some rough sketches, which I usually do in colour.  I find that if I hand in pencilled linear roughs to art directors, they can be a bit misleading since my work isn't very linear at all.  So I tend to hand in a colour sketch.  Once that gets approved, I then paint up the final using gouache and ink, or with markers if I want to loosen up.  Gouache is a time-consuming and unforgiving medium, and there's no easy way to correct a painting if I screw up, unlike say, oils or acrylics.  So sometimes I work in markers, just because its easier and I can do it again quickly if I botch it.  I then scan the final art and do some colour correction in Photoshop and send it in.  Although a lot of people think I work digitally, I'm really an old-school guy and prefer to do everything with brushes and paint.

If its personal work, then there aren't any steps.  I just follow my muse.  Usually that means working late at night, listening to the right music and working on it until it expresses what I feel.

Your style's reliance on tone to carve out a world harkens back to the golden age of children's books. How did you develop this aesthetic?
Well, I was very much into retro illustration when I was starting out.  And you're right, the golden age of illustration and children's books were a big influence.  I used to collect children's annuals, especially the ones that were printed in limited colour—like say, a red or a green and a black ink.  I loved the look of those books, and the specific feelings they evoked of an earlier era, and I wanted my work to have  that quality.  So my style when I was starting out was consciously retro. 

However, as I progressed, I didn't want to be a "retro guy" anymore.  What I really wanted was that timeless quality, which evoked some of the feeling as that era, but had the versatility to express a wider range of experience, including contemporary life. I saw too many illustrators who were shacked by a consciously retro style, and their work was limited.  Like, for example, they couldn't draw a convincing modern car or evoke a scene from the 1970's—they were consciously stuck in the 40's or something like that. Their work was an anachronism.  I didn't want that, so I tried to make my work more versatile.

Mainly, my work is built on two things: light and atmosphere.  Light defines forms, and makes my drawings breathe.  And atmosphere gives it the emotional connection I'm looking for.  In works I consider successful, I feel like I've managed to convey the subtle emotions that I'm looking to express.

Your characters in Papercut—from David Rhee to Delmont's unnamed friend—all view their world from a considerable distance. Does this detachment stem from the 'permanent outsider' status a lot of child immigrants feel? Am I completely wrong?
No, you're right. A lot of my inspiration comes from the outsider's viewpoint, which is the viewpoint of many immigrants.  A lot of my comics characters are stuck in the grey space between two worlds.  Some are stuck between a life they  have no place in and the life they hope to lead, or between the past and the present.  Most of the comics I write are reflective pieces, so there's a lot looking at things from a distance.  I tend to write a lot of internal monologue, instead of dialogue, so that contributes to it.  

Even when I write a historical and factual comic, I can't resist turning it into an personal piece.  I  have trouble writing things that I don't consider emotionally honest, so my work always becomes subjective -- I'm basically saying "well, you may not feel this way, but this is definitely how I personally feel."  

Those are the kind of stories I'm interested in writing though.  When I got out of college, I tried to write and draw comics, but I found that the stories I wanted to tell were mainly about internal struggle and reflection, and that was very hard to draw.  So I spent several years learning how to best illustrate and evoke internal states and emotions before I felt comfortable enough to able to draw the comics I wanted.

Papercut is currently on hiatus as you manage fatherhood. What's the experience been like so far?
Fatherhood is utterly beautiful, challenging, rewarding and unpredictable.  I couldn't have asked for more.