After graduating from Arcadia with a B.F.A. in Painting, Andrew Taylor ’11 knew he wanted to continue following his passion for drawing and illustration in his professional career. “I’ve drawn comics and cartoons all my life,” notes Taylor, who continues to work on Doctorcops M.D., a weekly web comic he began as his senior thesis.

His latest venture, Potential, a 10-part comic mini-series, focuses on a tragic hero and his obsession with his developing psychic powers. While the project is close to his heart, Taylor realizes that he must take the project public in order to ensure its success. “Making a comic book is like any creative work,” Taylor says. “It takes time, money and a lot of patience. I’m doing what I can creatively, but in the end I can only do so much by myself.” In order to support his vision, Taylor has teamed up with Ryan Bross ’11, a fellow alum who studied Scientific Illustration while attending Arcadia.

The team recently met up to promote the series at Wizard World Philadelphia. “Preparing for this event was eating up pretty much all of my time for the past two weeks,” says Taylor. With the event generating interest in the project, as well bringing in potential collaborators, Taylor is beginning to focus on the second issue in the series.

While manning their booth, Bross and Taylor ran into Jamar Nicholas, Gallery Assistant at Arcadia University and an award-winning comic book artist. “I helped Andrew with his senior thesis project, which focused on his web comic, Doctorcops M.D., and was very proud that he has achieved what he set out to do and maintain it, which is the hardest part of the process,” notes Nicholas.

While Nicholas knows first-hand how difficult it can be to be successful in the comic world, he has good feelings about the success of Taylor’s series.  “It’s probably easier to go to work and stick your head in a lion’s mouth every day, but I’m confident that Andrew and Ryan won’t get their heads bitten off drawing comics,” Nicholas says.

Update: Shortly after this story was published, Potential reached its initial Kickstarter goal.