Colouring Outside the Lines

Nathan Fairbairn, '00 BA, didn't think he had the talent to make it as a comic-book artist, but he wasn't about to let that stop him.

"I didn't worry about talent," he says. "I thought the only thing stopping me was doing the work."

He was right - Fairbairn is now one of the top colour artists in the industry. But like the circuitous route he took as a kid to scour various stores for comic books, the road to his career was neither fast nor easy.

After earning his English degree and an after-degree in teaching ESL, Fairbairn got a job in Vancouver teaching English to Swiss students. It was a good job but something was missing.

He figured if that if he was going to make a change from a job he liked, it had better be a move toward something awesome. "It would need to be a dream job," he remembers. "So, in my late 20s, I thought I'd give comics a shot."

Fairbairn knew he wanted to write and draw, based in part on his experience as editor-in-chief of The Gateway and as a creator of several of its comic strips. ("All terrible," he admits.) With that in mind, he started sending unsolicited scripts to the two industry powerhouses, Marvel and DC.

"I'd get these really nice form rejection letters, with Spider-Man swinging across the letterhead, saying, 'Please don't send us any more unsolicited material.' "

Rather than give up, Fairbairn decided it was time for an honest self-assessment. "I figured I needed five years of constant study and practice to get my chops up to professional level."

Reading the wind of industry trends, Fairbairn decided to pursue his nascent interest in digital colouring. "This was in 2003, pre-social media. I Googled 'how to colour comic books' and found a message board for comic-book colourists."

Run by fellow Vancouverite Dave McCaig, the board turned out to be a haven for professional colourists - including established artists like McCaig, Matt Hollingsworth and Laura Martin, who were willing to offer the kind of advice and critique that could help turn a dedicated pupil like Fairbairn into one of their own.

For the next two and a half years, Fairbairn would download line art and tutorials, colour for hours each day and post his work in the morning, then come home and go over the feedback from his online mentors. His big break came when artist Timothy Green got in touch through the message board to try him out.

"A month or two after that, he [Green] moved to Marvel to do Starlord," Fairbairn explains. "He told his editor he had a guy." The guy turned out to be Fairbairn. Three years after discovering the message board, Fairbairn had his first professional gig.

Since then, his vibrant work has appeared in comics featuring the likes of Batman, Wonder Woman, Wolverine and the Guardians of the Galaxy. He's also worked with many of the biggest names behind the panels, including frequent collaborators and fellow Canadians Yanick Paquette and Bryan Lee O'Malley, creator of the Scott Pilgrim series. And Fairbairn's own comic series, Lake of Fire, came out in 2016-17.

"I've had 11 years of a dream career as payoff for those three years of effort."

For aspiring Canadian artists hoping for their big break, Fairbairn is convinced that their nationality is no limitation. "I tell kids, just work. Tell yourself you're just going to do 20 minutes of drawing or colouring, and you won't be able to stop. It'll be two in the morning, you enjoy it so much. Before you know it, it'll be a year later and you'll be way better than you were.

"It's a meritocracy. If you're good enough, you can work in comic books."

BECAUSE YOU WANT MORE: It's a golden age for new Canadian comics. Find out about them.