It’s hard enough to be a success in one field, but acclaimed comics artist and colorist Jeremy Cox is making a major shift in his career strategy, going from paint brush and easel to trying his hand at standup comedy. Appearing at Winston’s on April 1 as part of the 11th annual Ocean Beach Comedy’s Funniest Person Contest, Cox, a San Diego native, has worked on many notable comic book titles, starting with his own, “Zombie Love,” in 1992, kicking off a career that has seen him work on such top titles as Spider-Man and the Batman-themed, Detective Comics as well as his latest title, “Vampyrates.”
While he has dealt with the public at comic book conventions and the like, he quickly realized this was considerably harder. “Live performance on a stage is easily the most difficult thing I’ve ever under taken.,” he said. “I’ve always had a knack for art and storytelling, but stage work, acting, controlling a crowd… not so much,” he joked.
The original intent for Cox moving into comedy was work related. “Besides enjoying live standup and improv comedy, I’ve read so much about writing, and a number of my favorite writers have ties to standup comedy,” he said. “So as a writer, I wanted to give it a try to see how it would effect my writing. It had the expected affect of making my writing more concise. I now try even harder to get a point across with fewer words, and I’ve learned how much physical action or facial expressions can do the work of hours of writing.”
He plans to channel some of his comedy into a new project. “I’ve been drawing cartoons of all my jokes and I’ve done well over 200,” he said. “I post some of the safer jokes on Twitter and I printed up an ash can that collected some of these to sell at this year’s Comic Fest to see if people would be interested. I sold out of all my copies, so the plan is to Kickstart a collection of my first year in stand up.”
He notes there is a more direct connection as well. “Part of comic books is reading scripts all day and developing pacing and timing, even with what I do, the actual coloring of the comics. Telling a story in comics, animation, video games or now standup comedy, all share things,” he continued.
While he has done a few one-off attempts at stand up, he has only been at it full time for a year, with nearly 100 performances under his belt to date. “I went up at the Comedy Palace in Kearny Mesa,” he recalled. “I read on Facebook, that a friend from Atlanta was in town and had gone on. I was mad and jealous and then realized, you’re thinking about this too much. I told my friend and he insisted that we go up the following week.” Unfortunately an unlikely coincidence almost marred the evening. “Funny thing about that is that this other comedian and I share a mutual friend who colors comic books like I do and so his three minutes, which I hadn’t seen, was about our friend coloring comics. I had prepared my set to be about some of my experiences coloring comics. Slight panic sets in. I couldn’t follow him with similar jokes, so I basically wiped what I had intended and did three minutes on serial killers and Miley Cyrus,” he laughed. Would Cox consider comedy as a full time gig? “No. I have family that have been world famous actors and performers and I can step back and look at myself and realize I don’t have “it,” he said good naturedly. “I don’t think doing comedy full time is one of my goals. I’m just learning so much from it and having so much fun, that I don’t really need to focus on doing it full time. If anything, I would want to turn it inwards towards improving my writing. Then again, if people were paying me to do this, I’d jump aboard at in a heart beat, because it is so exhilarating. ” For now he’s happy to hit open mic’s and shows as long as there isn’t conflict with his artwork? ” I’m sane enough to realize that my day job takes complete precedence and I’ve had to cancel nights I was set to perform to get whatever comic book I’ve been working on done,” Cox said. . “The drawback of being dedicated to my comic book art/career is that I can only really get up once or twice a week. There are some amazing comedians in San Diego that are getting up 2 and 3 times every night all week and the improvement in their performance markedly superior to where I’m at,” he continued. “But I’m not competing, I’m just having a hell of a lot of fun. Jeromy Cox / 11th Annual Ocean Beach Comedy’s Funniest Person Contest: Friday, April 1 at Winston’s, 1921 Bacon Street. 6 p.m. $5. 21 and up. www.winstonsob.com