An Interview with Fannibal Artist Ryan Incandenza

I had the chance to meet an awesome local artist by the name of Ryan Incandenza at Rose City Comic Con back in September. He was joined by his wife, Zaf, and both of them humored me and gave me an interview. I found out about Ryan through Hannibal because he ended up doing a lot of amazing work for Tattle Crime which got picked up by DeLaurentiis Co.

He created some fantastic episode-centric art for season two and came up with something new every week. His style brought to life the prevailing themes of various Hannibal episodes and served as beautiful representations of the story. He was kind enough to sit down with me so that I could pick his brain about his work with Hannibal and the other projects he’s working on.

Katie Cardwell: So how is Rose City Comic Con going for you?

Ryan Incandenza: Good. Met a lot of great artists which is always fun.

KC: Was there anyone in particular you were here to see?

RI: I always like seeing Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction.

KC: So I know you from the Hannibal fandom, so the question is: Have you been a Hannibal fan since the beginning or did you come into it halfway? I guess what I’m asking is, how did you become a Fannibal?

RI: That’s a weird question. You see, my wife Zaf is a big fan from The Silence of the Lambs days. So when I heard the first few episodes of the show were coming out and she said she wanted to check it out so we did. A couple episodes in I said, “this is very important,” and immediately read all of the books and we had a big movie marathon. Now everything is murder and everything hurts.

KC: How did you both (Zaf and Ryan) get involved with Tattle Crime and what is it like working for the infamous Freddie Lounds?

RI: Well Freddie contacted me to do a piece of birthday art for Bryan Fuller during the first season. I was happy to work with her since I like to work with people and collaborate. I had a really great time working with her on that, she was nice and professional and a fun person to work with, so after that she went into hiatus during the He-Ate-Us and got back into contact with me later about doing more fanart for her and her site and getting that going, coordinating with the episodes. So I was really happy to be involved and it just sort of turned into a big thing. She’s fantastic to work with and she is hilarious.

Zaf Incandenza: I got involved because Ryan got involved. I get into fandoms but I don’t really participate much because I’m not really friendly. I’m a graphic designer for a company called Sock Dreams and I do a lot of the fun graphics and advertisements and she needed people to build a website or go into Illustrator to make the stickers. I also did some of the Wanted posters going into the next series and one of them was actually the one that ended up in DeLaurentiis Co contest. It was great seeing the thing I did everywhere.

KC: I did that! It was really well put together and I actually did a post about it because I had so much fun. That was such a fun way to get people through the He-Ate-Us because we won’t get the new season until late spring. Which leads me into my next question, how have you guys been surviving the He-Ate-Us?

RI: Nightvale, and I’ve been reading a lot. I’ve also been doing some illustration work for a novel, but I don’t know how much he wants me to talk about it right now. I’m doing chapter illustrations and then also working on my original work to keep busy.

KC: While my editors and one of the bloggers were down in San Diego for San Diego Comic Con they ended up staying down the hall from the Hannibal crew and didn’t get a chance to say hi! I couldn’t believe it.

RI: Oh man, that’s crazy. Everybody we’ve had a chance to talk to in the Hannibal machine has been nothing but wonderful. Rick, the one who runs the DeLaurentiis twitter, has been so great working with Tattle Crime. Every level of that show is just awesome all the way down.

KC: Now, where can people buy your stuff? You’re an artist producing great things, so where can people buy your prints for Hannibal, where can people commission you, things like that?

RI: So, my main hub for my stuff is RyanIncandenza on tumblr and you can get to my portfolio from there and get my email there. My fandom presence is under TARDIScrash. I have a RedBubble and you can pick up all the Hannibal prints. I’ve got my comic which you can find out about on my site. It is pay what you want, seven pages, maybe some extra content, and it is just a very fancy ‘coming of age’ violent hunter insects.

KC: Any other recent creations you’d like to mention?

RI: I’m illustrating a Jill Trent comic for Super Dames.

KC: What’s the deal with that?

RI: It’s a revival of an old 40s super heroine, Jill Trent: Science Sleuth, that recently fell into the public domain. Five writer/artist teams are coming together to make an anthology celebrating the character and women in comics and science. You can find more on it at Superdames.

KC: Finally, what’s your favorite thing about Portland? Why do you live here?

RI: I like bridges, I think they’re pretty. Powells is good and there’s always stuff to do even if you don’t have lots of money.