Sci-Fu’s Yehudi Mercado on Hip Hop, Pizza Delivery & Cool Eyepatches
Main Art by Yehudi Mercado
Yehudi Mercado seems to go about a zillion miles an hour. You could get that impression from a single page of his comics, which swell with color, exaggerated facial expressions, background detail and swooshy line. Or you could get it from his frequently updated website. Or from his résumé, rich with not only comics but also animation. His work caught my eye with Pantalones, TX, a few years ago, but then I stopped paying attention. That was my mistake! He’s done plenty in the meantime, and his newest project, Sci-Fu, a fluorescent all-ages hip-hop space opera comic book, is lot of fun. Just out from Oni Press, it smooshes the sometimes insular worlds of rap, comics, martial arts movies and sci-fi into a Venn diagram that shows you just how much overlap they share. Mercado answered my questions over email, including how his early career as a pizza delivery guy helped his comics career.
Sci-Fu Interior Art by Yehudi Mercado
Paste: So you started out as a pizza delivery guy, right? How’d you get from there to being a professional comics artist and writer? Did you go to school for it?
Yehudi Mercado: I delivered pizza during summers in college. It was the inspiration for my first graphic novel, Buffalo Speedway. I always thought the job of delivering pizzas was the perfect metaphor for your 20s. You’re spinning your wheels, driving hundreds of miles, but still going nowhere. I went to the University of Texas at Austin for Fine Arts. I took animation and commercial art classes at Austin Community College where I was scouted by a local videogame company. I had a full-time job doing character designs and animation before I even graduated college. When I was at that company I created an original game that Hasbro wanted to make into a Playstation game. That was my first taste of artistic validation. But the game was eventually canceled, which was my first taste of professional heartbreak.
Paste: Do you feel like you learned anything from delivering pizza that you can apply to your current career?
Mercado: Delivering pizzas provided a lot of alone time in the car. It gave me a lot of time to come up with story ideas. I remember going to a talk with Mike Judge where he said that a manual labor job allowed your mind to drift and think, rather than a boring office job that kind of occupied your mind.
Paste: I’m going to assume that you spent a lot of time drawing as a kid, right? What was your favorite stuff to draw?
Mercado: I was drawing constantly. My father is an architect and a painter so I always had access to art supplies. And my mother helped create the department of technology at the Houston Independent School District, so we always had the latest in computers and even tools to draw on the computer. I always loved drawing cartoon-y superheroes. I think my love of ‘80s action movies and The Tick were my main inspirations.
Sci-Fu Interior Art by Yehudi Mercado
Paste: It also seems like you were really invested in making up your own narratives from an early age. Do you prefer projects where you get to draw and write?
Mercado: I do! I definitely try to make projects that I want to read as a fan, ideas that I feel are missing in the marketplace. It’s completely selfish on my part. I do love getting to write and draw my own worlds. Rocket Salvage is a project I wrote and an artist from Mexico named Bachan drew. That was amazing, to see someone run with my concepts. I would love to have an ongoing series that I only wrote. I would love to take an existing property and give it the old Yehudi twist, like what Ryan North did for The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.