His comics are designed to make you “laugh till you pooped in your pants”. But 15-year-old Jake Tinsley's comic capers are also done with more than just that purpose. This student of Keller High School in Keller, Texas, started when he was about 12 and has already done six comic books, many strips and served as a panellist in a comic book convention.
Yet for young people the world over, it's his sixth and latest work, titled “Amber Hagerman Deserves Justice: A Night Owl Story' that is most significant. Jake was only one when nine-year-old Amber from Arlington, Texas, was kidnapped and murdered. Her memory lives on in the Amber Alerts, designed to find missing children. Her murderer was never caught.
Jake's signature superhero, the 12-year-old Night Owl (aka Zack Finley of Fort Worth, Texas) is a super-powered youngster with glowing green eyes and red freckles.
Jake takes creative inspiration from his grandfather Jack Tinsley, a famous Texas journalist. Jake based Night Owl's grandfather “Poppa Finley” after his own grandfather. He even went as far as to have Night Owl inherit his super powers from Poppa Finley when Poppa was murdered by a super villain.
Inspiration
The fondness for comics comes from his Dad with whom he created the company “Wham Bang Comics” which produced the Night Owl Series before Diamond Comic Distributors Inc., the world's largest distributor of English language comics.
He enjoys school and history is a favourite. “I love history because a lot of it will play into my comic book writing. I struggle with math, but I know it's very necessary to understand. My favourite subjects are anything involving words and computers,” he says.
Animal Farm
The entire process of creating the Amber comic book, sold online at www.comiXpress.com, has also taught Jake some important lessons. “Now I know there are some real evil people out there,” he says.
