AN INTERVIEW WITH TORONTO FILM & COMIC ARTIST BY KRYSTI JOMÉI Toronto-based illustrator, writer, musician, dream warrior Matthew Therrien is a bonafide autodidact. With art coursing through his veins, there’s nothing that can stop his creative flow and tackling whatever project or medium that comes his way. No matter the guidelines or clientele — Marvel/Upper Deck, Lionsgate, Vestron Video, SYFY, HorrorHound, Cauldron Films, to name a very few — his portraits, posters, storyboards and comics are undeniably recognizable, bearing a stamp of clandestine beauty, and entrancing the viewer to long for more. We had the chance to catch up with Matthew after September’s Colorado Festival of Horror to dive deeper into his terrifyingly talented world. BEFORE BECOMING A FULL-TIME ILLUSTRATOR AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR, YOU WERE A PROFESSIONAL PIANIST. TELL US MORE ABOUT THAT CAREER AND HOW IT LED TO YOUR CURRENT ONE. To be honest, my dream has always been to be a filmmaker. Well, to be really honest my dream was to be John Carpenter. However, I grew up in a fairly small Canadian town where movie-making just wasn’t a career path that was accessible, so instead I wound up pursuing music from the time I was about six years old. I graduated university with a degree in classical piano performance, and like you said, music was my entire life. I taught at three different schools, was a music director, choir accompanist and even played in a couple rock bands. Things changed when I was in my mid-20s; I had the opportunity to move to Toronto and started to become friends with a whole bunch of talented people in the film community. It was at that point that I realized I wanted to put music on the back burner and start to actively pursue a role in film. For whatever reason I had the idea that, since I had no film portfolio, I could try and work as a film artist and gradually make connections that No. 130 way with directors, producers, distributors, studios, etc. It’s still very much my goal to be actively working in film as either a writer or director (and it’s something that’s getting a bit closer each day!), but I absolutely have art to thank for where I am today. It’s given me a wonderful chance to meet and work with so many incredible people in the industry. YOU DOVE INTO YOUR ART CAREER HEADFIRST WITH NO PORTFOLIO AS WELL, SPEARHEADING YOUR JOURNEY BY CREATING ART FOR THE CULT FILM BASED COMIC, MANBORG: THE OFFICIAL COMIC BOOK SEQUEL (2013). HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT TEACHING YOURSELF TECHNIQUES, DIFFERENT FORMS, EVERYTHING THAT YOU’RE SO EXPERIENCED WITH NOW? I have a lot of fond memories of working on the Manborg comic. It happened at a time when I had no followers on social media, and because I didn’t have the pressure of anyone watching my work I was totally free to just experiment with the art. It was really a whole process of trial and error — it was before I was working digitally, so each page was penciled and inked by hand. After the comic was done I invested in a Wacom tablet and began to teach myself how to paint with Photoshop (which really took about three years before I had any kind of confidence with it). The internet is invaluable though. Artists like Dave Rapoza make so much of their process and technique available online for younger illustrators to learn from. It was really just through a period of drawing a lot, and also going through the wealth of tutorials on the internet, that I was able to finally hone in on a technique that I’ve used pretty much consistently to this day. GROWING UP IN THE 80S AND 90S, YOU WERE DEEPLY
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