Ron Wagner grew up on comic book legends Sgt. Rock, Tarzan, Spider-Man and Superman. Now, the Le Grand native spends his 8-to-5 drawing those characters and others for Marvel Comics, D.C. Comics and other distributors that distribute his work worldwide. At 21, he left a job – unloading bags of mail in downtown Des Moines – to move to Dover, N.J., to enroll in The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, an intense, three-year program that, for a while, led to several dead ends and an often-discouraging search for work. After 12 years, Wagner moved to Chicago, then Raleigh, N.C., to study three-dimensional computer animation and later work for a video game production company. He eventually returned to Iowa with his wife, Cynthia, and daughter, Nikki, to be near family. Despite the uncertainties of being self-employed and occasional burnout, he said he’s driven by his addiction and the art of storytelling.

Were art and comics your two big things when you were a kid?

My grandmother lived in Lohrville and we’d go to the old drugstore there, and my grandmother used to say that my brothers always wanted candy and I wanted comics. But I always drew. That was my superpower.

But you ditched art for a while to start a band?

It was just a little cover band. I screamed AC/DC songs all night long in little crappy bars in Iowa. It’s not that awesome when everybody at the bar wants to hear Hank Williams songs. I was always the singer idiot, and then eventually I learned how to play the guitar. I’ve got a band of old guys and we call ourselves the Cocktail Pricks and I make them play my own songs.

What types of songs do you write?

I’m kind of all over the map, but a lot of Elvis Costello kind of stuff, although they’re trying to turn me into a blues guy.

What were your years at art school like?

In my first year-class, there were about 80 people, mostly guys. By the third year, there were 13 of us left. There was a lot of life drawing, storytelling, narrative art, design art, but it was a lot of work. A lot of kids sit in their rooms and say, “I wanna draw comics. This is great.” And then they get there and are like, “This is a lot of work. I don’t really wanna draw comics very bad.”

Why did you choose Joe Kubert’s school in particular?

I read his stuff when I was a kid, so the fact that he had a school was very cool. I didn’t have to take math or English and all I had to do was draw.

How did you get your career off the ground?

In my third year of school, one of my teachers got me a job doing background art. Then I got out of school and had the luck of living next door to Gray Morrow, a comic book artist from the ’50s and ’60s. I learned how to drink scotch and shoot large handguns because that was what Gray enjoyed. He was drawing a Tarzan strip for a few newspapers and I assisted him. He was a great support because I would go into the city every week to show my portfolio and come back and say, “I don’t have any work.” “Ah, don’t worry, kid. Here, have a drink. Let’s go shoot some guns.” He was very cool.

How did you eventually land back in Iowa?

My dad died. When your parents die, you do weird stuff, and this was the weird thing. Mom died while I was in Chicago, and that time as well there was a big tug to move back here. When Dad passed away, I knew I needed to come back. I have brothers here and my wife has family here. But moving back here was probably not the wisest thing, because much of what I do is from somewhere else.

You can get burned out, it’s tough work and there are no benefits. So why stay in the comics business?

Obviously I’m addicted to it. It’s a dysfunction that I know. I ask myself, “Why do I keep doing this?” I like telling stories, it’s hugely challenging and every once in a while I get to draw Batman.

Do you think about exploring other career possibilities?

I want to work for Pixar. I have many days where I just want to go work for somebody, where I show up and this is what I do all day and there’s a check every two weeks and benefits and I get paid time off.

Even though so many people dream of being self-employed?

The grass is always greener. If they have to go out and find money every day, they won’t like it that much.

How has the comic book business changed in recent years?

I think they’re as popular as they used to be because you have all these movies coming out. But I think the actual comic books are less popular because they’re less accessible. There’s so much more stuff to compete for kids’ money now. I’ve got $10 and I’m into Spider-Man. I can order a comic book, wait 30 days and read about a day in the life of Spider-Man. But I can go out and buy or rent the Spider-Man game and be Spider-Man and not have to read and not have to use my imagination in any way. I’m kind of glad that I grew up before all of that because I’m certain I would have gotten sucked right into it. But at some point I really got into reading in high school, not just comics, but books. And that’s really where all this comic book stuff starts is in your head. It’s “theater of the mind” kind of stuff, and that’s always way more exciting.