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DERRICK FREELAND
By Karen Mobley
errick Freeland is the founder of Bottlecrow Publications — a writer , illustrator , storyteller , teacher , and graphic artist . He describes himself as , “ primarily a writer / illustrator who makes comics . My stories tend towards the speculative and focus on how ordinary people interact with extraordinary situations and how ordinary life exists in an extraordinary place .”
His newest work , “ End Over End ,” a new comics short story , was released through Bottlecrow Publications this year as a collaboration with artist Savannah Ervin-Villa . It is based on a short story called “ My Old Friend ,” also released through Bottlecrow .
Freeland has been drawing and making things up throughout his life . He said , “ When I was 10 , maybe 11 , my mom picked up a copy of Detective Comics , from the Norm Breyfogle years , and that kind of melted my brain .” The idea that you could create an entire world filled with stories out of ink and paper was life-altering for Freeland , and he ’ s been pursuing the art of visual and textual storytelling since .
As an active collaborator , Freeland publishes and plots with others to create . “ This year has been a pretty exciting one for collaboration ,” Freeland said . “ I turned Bottlecrow Publications into an artist / writer cooperative , so there ’ s a group of us now all working on comics and tabletop gaming projects .”
18 ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE