With names like Marvel, DC and Disney on his resumé, make sure you meet Rick Stasi at the upcoming Planet Comicon
Mark your calendar and save the date: Planet Comicon is coming up, March 20-22 at Bartle Hall in Downtown Kansas City. Rick Stasi, who is featured in this week’s “9 Questions With A Maker” article, will be displaying and signing at the event. If you’re not familiar, “Planet Comicon is the region’s largest and longest-running pop culture and comic book convention. It is an awe-inspiring extravaganza spanning nearly eight football fields and featuring more than 200 celebrities, creators and cosplayers. “
Rick Stasi is an artist/writer/creative producer with credits at DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Charlton Comics, NOW Comics (Twilight Zone), Eclipse, Disney, Warner Bros. (Looney Tunes & Tiny Toons for Steven Spielberg) and LucasFilms/STAR WARS. Rick also contributed to Wonder Woman Day, a charity event that supports shelters for abused women and children.
Rick has taught comics, sequential art and storyboarding courses for more that twenty years, as an instructor with the Shawnee Mission School District, The Westport School of Art and The Kansas City Art Institute. He currently gives individual instruction and career counseling.
Rick Stasi’s first non-comics related publishing venture, a book of original poetry and musings titled “Funny You Should Ask!” is in its second printing.He’s also produced a 2-CD audio collection of original poetry, musings and music –”Talking To Myself (To You!)“ and performs one-man shows in live venues for local charities-and radio shows featuring local voice talent. Currently, he is shopping an animated anthology of this work. He is also voice talent. Rick has recently launched his own YouTube channel, Ninth Street Theatre Presents, “Playhouse of the Mind” featuring his songs and spoken word performances, showcasing his graphic design.
1. What inspires you and your work?
A passion for communicating. As a compulsive storyteller, the need to surrender to my muse, either illustrating, often in sequential form, comic books (DC, Marvel, Disney, Warner Bros.) or, if spurred by social issues, allow wandering words to wordsmith themselves into verse, short 1-act plays, or copious commentary. A significant amount of my writing is humorous.
As for who inspires me, Google Steve Allen, author, tv pioneer, poet, pianist, comedian. A personal letter from him and a signed book cover are framed, hanging here in my office.
2. Are makers doers or dreamers?
They are both! Dreaming drives creation. Then, the doing. Without the blend there is nothing.
There are so many dreamers who ponder imponderables without a pragmatic plan for producing. (Sorry—alteration is both a blessing and curse.)
As a former instructor at KCAI the most formidable lesson I believe I taught, more like, preached, was “you can!”
Production specifics can be intimidating, unattractive and tiresome. Budgets. Meetings. What does endgame look like from that first germ of an idea? These, and other tangible project management issues can sap--even drain the creative process. Balance is necessary, or the most phenomenal idea can lie dormant on a mental post-it note–never to leave the mind’s eye until it time-lapse disintegrates.
3. What invention / product do you wish you would have created?
Tough question. Probably the sweater. And I probably would want royalties on ‘em. If not the sweater, then the Keurig.
4. What is the worst invention / product still embraced by modern society?
The cell phone. While the phone itself is a necessity, all the other life-stealing apps have hypnotized us, swallowing our souls, and our ability to to escape touch screen myopia.
5. If you could sit down and have a drink with any person in your industry, who would it be and why?
Unfortunately, most of them are dead. I would however, quite seriously opt for Henry Winkler and Marlo Thomas. Both have shed stereotypes and reinvented themselves, especially as authors, focusing on kids, with positive messages. And positive messaging for kids has never been more needed.
6. What do you love most about the Maker Movement happening in Kansas City right now?
The level playing field. Everybody “can.” Empowerment is just a keystroke, a phone call, a Starbuck’s away. Social media exponentially expedites all aspects of the maker’s movement. And self-published, self-created is no longer a bastard child of the arts. Literary, poetry, theatre communities, and others flourish. I often see the movement in constant renaissance-mode. That makes me happy!
7. Who or what is another maker in Kansas City that you’re impressed and inspired by?
Julie Cortes, creator of the KC Freelance Exchange (Maker City KC wrote about her HERE). One woman. One germ of an idea. While you may have expected a different kind of “maker,” Julie, a copywriter with established chops, has made a community for a significant part of the creatives in KC over the last twenty years. Julie’s made progress in shifting paradigms on how creatives take their right brains-and-left brains and make productive marketing support communities. Julie’s made an indelible maker’s mark* on KC. *Pun unintended.
8. What Kansas City creation / icon best reflects our makers’ community?
The Bartle Hall Pylons—Playful, different designs atop solid, stoic foundations– pillars established for functionality—yet providing creative whimsy on top for all viewers.
And these pieces, upstart as they are, perched next to my favorite traditional KC icon the Power & Light building, unites old/new.
9. If you could ask people to do just ONE thing to support the Maker Movement what would you ask or tell them?
Seek out non-traditional creativity. Focus on a maker’s work—remove a maker’s creative layers until you find their message. Savor. Enjoy! (Oh,..I know that wasn’t ONE thing.)
Keep up with Rick Stasi online here: