It's rare that a new series will grab you by the back of the head and smack your face into a soft, comfy cushion of fun goodness. Yet that's exactly what Johnny Hiro does. It's hard to describe in the usual Hollywood pitch-style loglines--"Scott Pilgrim meets Bruce Lee and dates an adorable girl in a fantastically weird New York City" is about as close as you'll get, but even that doesn't convey the pure energy and enthusiasm evident in every panel of Johnny Hiro.

An illustrator and graphic designer by trade, writer/artist Fred Chao has published three issues of Johnny Hiro through AdHouse Books. He took some time to talk about his influences and inspirations, as well as the background on how Johnny Hiro came to be.--Matt Springer

HeavyInk: Tell me a little bit about your background as an artist--you do design and illustration as well as comics, right?

Fred Chao: Yeah. I graduated college with a film degree, concentration in screenwriting and directing. After working in Los Angeles for some time--mostly bringing coffee for people like Mel Gibson--I realized that my liberal arts degree didn't mean much unless I had the funding to make my own indie film. So without marketable skills, I needed to rethink my life. During that time, I took on a lot of odd jobs; one of them was writing for a small arts and social awareness mag in Boston. Having drawn all my life, I contributed illustrations. It was a lot of fun and the graphic designer and I worked closely in composing pages. Soon I learned Quark, InDesign and Photoshop. I decided that this was something I could be happy doing, so for the next few years (including now), my paycheck largely comes from freelance graphic design.

As far as illustration goes, I'm still learning how to navigate the freelance waters. People don't really post for illustrators on Mediabistro, so that kind of self-promotion is still new to me. I will always do non-comics illustration for fun, simply because it's a skill I find important and fulfilling in my life. But I'd love to be able to supplement my paycheck with it.

Most of my illustration skills are self-taught. I took a class here and there, an anatomy class, a couple painting classes. But largely, I grew up drawing and it's a skill I've always kept up, mostly because it was fun to sketch what was in front of me.

HI: Have you always been a comics fan?

FC: Absolutely. I've always loved comics. I grew up largely on the strips. I used to cut out the Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County strips from the Sunday pages and the dailies, before they started collecting them into books. I still think those are the most influential on my art style.

Sometime in late-elementary/early-middle school, a friend gave me an issue of Groo the Wanderer. I loved the comic book format and soon got my hands on anything I could. I was big on Spiderman and Hulk for a long time. Then fell out of comics for a while until Vertigo came around. Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man and Grant Morrison's Invisibles drew me right back into comics, and I've been a regular visitor to comic shops ever since.

HI: What led you to Johnny Hiro as your first published work?

FC: I had tried to make some other comics. Unfortunately, the scope of the stories I wanted to tell were much too large for me to complete. I've always had to work, so there was never enough time for me to write and draw a 200-pager. I had submitted spec pages to some publishers, and almost all the indie publishers were interested, telling me to send it to them when I was finished. I was young and naive and hoping for some kind of advance to buy me the free time to complete it.

After realizing that advances within indie publishing are rare, I decided to do something shorter. A beginning-middle-end story that could be told in less than 32 pages. It started off as the fun project I wasn't suppose to care about, but amazingly, while writing the first issue, I cared about it more than the other projects I had been working on. It was just a lot of fun, had a good amount of humor, but still held a sentimentality that I always appreciated in comics. I'm hoping it evokes for people the same kind of feeling I got while reading Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes.

Long story short, I finished the 32-pager, sent if off to some publishers. Adhouse was the first to respond. I liked them a lot from the Project anthologies and Skyscrapers of the Midwest. I ended up in good company.

HI: As a reader, I see plenty of influences in your work, but I'm curious to hear what you feel has most influenced Johnny Hiro. What movies, music, comics, books, etc were put in your mental blender to create this series?

FC: Aside from the obvious (Voltron, Iron Chef, Talking Heads, etc), I'd really have to say there's an equal slew of the ridiculous and pretentious. A book that's always moved me is Tobias Wolff's The Night in Question. The writing is simply beautiful, and the poignant and revealing observations of his characters has been something I strive for. Even though my Johnny Hiro stories are a lot more light-hearted, I do hope there are some bits that come through as undeniably relatable yet somewhat rarely vocalized. I don't know if I accomplish it, but I try as best I can to have small interactions that resonate. Even if it's resonating in a laugh.

I'm also an avid fan of the movie Point Break, and no, not because it's a bad movie. I legitimately like it. Yes, it's Keanu; yes, it's surfing bank-robbers. I still think it's beautiful, exciting and smart. One of my favorite nuances of the movie is that I believe the characters can get hurt--a quality that doesn't exist much in action movies or comics anymore. Everyone will somehow end up okay, there is no real danger, people will survive and for the better. As fun as Johnny Hiro is, I'd like to think I offer enough to make people wonder if things will turn out okay--emotionally if not physically--rather than take a happy ending for granted.

Perhaps the most important influence is just modern culture. I read the New York Times for inspiration. There's so much going on around us, and I'd like to set the comic in a world that we find real. I used to love Amazing Spider-Man because, at least when I started reading it, Peter and Mary Jane had moved to Soho and were arguing about how they were going to afford the apartment. Nowadays, it's all massive crossovers of multiple universes. I don't understand a lot of comics anymore. I hope that, as silly as the Johnny Hiro adventures are, the world comes across not too distant from our own.

HI: Is there an autobiographical slant to Johnny Hiro?

FC: I think, aside from high-octane books like Avengers, most stories are somewhat autobiographical. I used to cater Mayor Bloomberg's parties at Gracie Mansion, so I'm sure it's no accident that he ended up guest-starring in the first issue. I've worked in restaurants and in publishing, so I gave those jobs to Johnny and Mayumi. The apartment in issue 2 is the layout of my first Brooklyn apartment, which I've had to move out of. *Sigh.* But those are just tidbits, not the plot points that make up the story.

I think the most autobiographical aspect of Johnny Hiro is his relationship with his girlfriend. Mayumi is wonderfully upbeat, and my girl is the same way. Like Johnny and Mayumi, we are trying to make our way in New York, which, for now, involves being close-to-broke. It's relieving to have a domestic co-pilot with such a positive outlook because it's easy for me to get caught up in my own head and feel down.

HI: How does your illustration work compare to your comics work, from the perspective of how you approach each discipline?

FC: *Whew* You got some good questions, Matt. Illustration is amazingly different than comics. With illustration, I don't have as much responsibility in creating a scene, keeping up consistency, completing a narrative. I'm also not as responsible to the literal. Illustration and painting are a lot more freeing for me. I know people who love to make comics. For me, I think comics kind of suck to make. It's so much hard work for a 20 minute read. What makes comics worth it is not the creating, but the end result. After it's been published, holding it in my hand, that's when it all sinks in. That's when I'm happy with what I've made. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have a natural inclination towards storytelling, which is why I put so much effort into making comics. With my other art projects, there's more fun in the moment. I allow myself to get indulgent, which, for me, delves into an equal blend of the humorous and the weird.

HI: What comics do you follow now, on a regular or semi-regular basis?

FC: I love the Popeye collections that Fantagraphics has been putting out. I love Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey. Surprisingly, Raina Telgemeier's Babysitter's Club is one of the best comics being made nowadays. I know, you wouldn't expect it. But I'm a huge fan and can't say enough about that series.

As far as the super books, I usually go by writer. I loved Peter David's Hulk, and am still waiting eagerly for his return. I think Paul Jenkins is consistently one of the best writers out there. I'm a big Greg Rucka fan, as well as Grant Morrison and John Ney Reiber. And, as with everyone else in the world, I miss Bendis on Daredevil. And I've been loving Jonathan Lethem's Omega Man. So it's mostly about the writer and if they are given the ability to work on a whole storyline. The only time I don't follow these writers is on the team books, not because I don't like team books, but because the team books have all been in crossover-city lately, which just makes me dizzy.

HI: What's next for Johnny Hiro--in issue 3 and beyond? Any other projects you're working on in comics?

FC: Issue 3 is in stores now, and I'm about 10-pages into issue 4. If I can keep doing Johnny Hiro throughout my life, I would love to; the question is whether I can afford to. As of now, I'm setting my sites on completing the first storyline, which is about the hole left in their apartment in the first issue. They go to court to battle the landlord in the fifth issue.

Most of the other projects I've got going on aren't comics related at this point. I'm finishing up a couple paintings for a small gallery show in April, which everyone is invited to. It's going to be at the Charmingwall gallery in New York's West Village. I'm gonna update the opening on robotchao.wordpress.com for anyone who wants to drop by.

I'd love to do more children's-oriented projects at some point. My day job is in children's publishing, and I'm really loving it. I would love to be more involved. We'll see if that ever comes into fruition.

Otherwise, I try to update news and art at www.fredchao.com. Though websites are still a bit hard for me to figure out.