A sweep through illustrator Heath Tullier’s house will not unearth a trove of dog-eared comic books and graphic novels. This much he promises. No, these days the Bible and the majority of the Stephen King canon are his only inspiration for the graphic novels released through his Icon Studios. He and Icon co-founder Patrick Rills barely thumb through comics at all for fear of letting someone else subconsciously influence their work. “I see it at conventions,” Tullier says. “Everyone trying to copy someone famous. No one wants to be their own artist anymore. And I know. I used to try it.”
Influences are fine, Rills says, just as long as they come from outside the comic world, if not from left field. The romantic comedies of Cameron Crowe and the wistful, pop-culture novels of Nick Hornby informed Icon’s latest work, Like That. The release is a sort of anti-graphic novel. Its LSU setting is cozy, familiar; its Facebook characters completely relatable; its Allen Gladfelter illustrations based on photographs carefully storyboarded by Rills.
The 25-year-old collaborators grew up in Brusly and became fast friends in high school, designing Star Wars comic strips and modifying the shoot ‘em up game, Doom.
