Atlanta comic artist Anderson Carman hits big leagues with San Diego Comic-Con

As a comic book creator, a major part of Anderson Carman’s life is attending comic conventions. But while the Peachtree Corners resident spends many weekends selling his work at “cons” all over the East Coast, he has never attended the most prestigious con in the world: San Diego Comic-Con. The steep entry fee and multi-year waitlist alone have kept him from even applying in the past. 

But this summer, he is an invited guest. The occasion? His next comic book, Cyber League Baseball. 

“It’s about the future of baseball where players now have robotic augmentations, and they’re super cool cyborgs. They can throw faster and hit harder,” Carman explains. “But this one kid, Asher, wants to play ‘all natural’ and gears up for the ultimate game of David and Goliath.”

The book spent years as a passion project shared with friends and self-published online and has now been picked up by a major indie comics publisher.

“Last year, I signed with 247 Comics, and they are doing their distribution through Penguin Random House,” Carman says. “Penguin Random House loved the book, so they’re doing a big ol’ launch at San Diego Comic-Con this year.” 

Created before the tidal wave of AI hit the zeitgeist, Cyber League’s “natural vs. augmented” theme is strikingly prescient.

“I didn’t actually mean for it to be an anti-AI book, because AI wasn’t even in the conversation when I started writing this,” Carman says. Nevertheless, the AI conversation casts a shadow. “That’s not the thesis of the book, but it’s kind of underneath the surface.” 

One major difference between Carman’s fictional world and the AI debate is that there is no debate about robotic augments in the book. 

“A very early setup is that it’s very apparent that the augments aren’t good for you, but people use them anyway,” explains the creator. “I think there is more nuance in real-world conversations, but I think in fictional narratives, for the sake of the reader, it’s helpful to paint things in black and white.”

The publishing house’s launch will capitalize on the myriad of potential Cyber League Baseball fans attending Comic-Con by offering a preview copy available exclusively at the event. In a coup for Carman, this version features a variant cover drawn by modern comics giant Daniel Warren Johnson. 

“What [the comic industry] will do is get stars like Daniel Warren Johnson to do a cover for a book as a collector’s item,” Carman explains. “His cover is going to be a big draw to the book because, honestly, I’m nobody. So [his cover is] one of the things we’re hoping can really drum up excitement about this book and get people invested in it.”

This partnership is full circle for Carman, who has known Johnson professionally ever since they met years ago at a con in the Artists’ Alley — a section dedicated to indie creators. At the time, Carman was beginning his career, and Johnson was on the brink of fame.

“I got a portfolio review from him, and he said, ‘You know what? Your stuff is good. It’s fine; it’s acceptable. But just make it sexy,’” Carman recalls. “He wasn’t meaning in a sensual, erotic way. He was just meaning it needs some reason for me to look at it, more than that it’s good enough.”

A few years and plenty of hard work later, Carman asked Johnson, also a baseball fan, for feedback on an early draft of Cyber League Baseball at New York Comic-Con. The response was memorable.

“It’s the last portfolio review I’ve ever gotten actually, because he looked at it, and he was like, ‘I wish I’d thought of this. This is great! Go make it. And when you do, hit me up; I want to do a cover for it.’” 

Cyber League Baseball hits stores in November – with select copies available later this summer at DragonCon –- and it’s one of many work projects on the busy creative’s plate, from a monthly comic strip in a children’s magazine to three more books. But he still makes time for passion projects, including one daily ritual he’s maintained for the last 12 years. 

“In the morning, I come down [to my studio], and the first thing I do is ‘Today’s Sketchy,’ which is my daily sketch journal,” he explains. He fills a blank note card with small illustrations and light narration representing the previous day’s events. 

“At various times, I’ve shared them publicly,” he says. Maybe one day I’ll put it all together in a collection.” 

And maybe, like Cyber League Baseball, the collection will move from passion project to published.

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A theater nerd with a passion for telling people’s stories, Sally Fuller spent every childhood summer at Roswell Rec’s theater camps. Her writing has appeared in Encore Atlanta, City Lifestyle magazine and the AJC, among others. When not writing, she works at her dream job as a mother alongside the best husband and father in the world.