Submitted photo: Phil Hester is a full-time comic book illustrator and writer and will be presenting his program Saturday at the Wilson Brewer Park in the Mulberry Center church at 1 p.m.

The Mulberry Center Church will feature a different Iowa story this Saturday when Phil Hester blows into town.

His story and artistry will begin at 1 p.m. in the Wilson Brewer Park, located at 220 Ohio St.

There will be a bit of fantasy with him. His career as a comic book artist has him both illustrating and creating comic books.

This isn’t just a little doodling, although he admits at one point he did a bit of that.

“I like to de-mystify what I do,” he said. “It’s a pretty rare occupation. Most young people do not see this as a viable career path. I think it’s important to see that this is possible.”

Hester has built an impressive track record with his illustrations found throughout the comic book world.

“I work for Marvel Comics, and DC Comics. They are sort of the television network of comic books,” explained Hester, “But at some point I worked for almost all of them.”

The “them” are comic book companies, and this is what he does for a living.

“My last day job was at a newspaper, and I walked away when I was 24 years old,” he explained.

At the newspaper he composed ads and pasted up the newspaper. Prior to that he created editorial cartoons for the school paper. While in college he started creating comics.

Hester attended the University of Iowa and has his B.A. in fine arts, with a major in drawing and a minor in sculpture.

On Saturday, he will introduce attendees to the comic book world, and do a bit of a drawing demonstration. He will have some of his books for sale.

“Every time I give one of these, there are some hardcore comic book fans, and people who are interested and wondering what it is like to have a career in art,” he said.

He’s expecting a few questions and wants to encourage anyone who is interested in art.

“I will spend a little bit of time talking about my career and some of the books I’ve done over the past 40 years,” he said.

Hester said he normally speaks at schools or in libraries to young people.

“They need to foster their creativity. The future is full of unknowable factors. If you trust your creativity you can find a path through all that.”

Growing up, he remembers that he was drawing all the time, filling the end papers of books and drawing on paper bags.

“I remember getting praise for a drawing I did in kindergarten. My mom kept it,” Hester said. “It’s not a masterpiece, but there were some telltale signs in the background. I had a depth of field that was not normal for a kindergartener. It sort of kick-started my drawing into high gear.”

“This is all I ever wanted to do. But it’s led me to do film and television and toy designs and many other things I never dreamed of, but because I honed my skill sets in comic books, it equipped me to do a lot of different jobs I hadn’t anticipated doing.”

His skill has brought him more than an acceptable amount of work. His name appears on covers of comic books that are familiar to most comic book fans. He has earned awards and recognition in the industry. One of his works, “Firebreather, became an Emmy winning television feature on the Cartoon Network.

Hester, who was born in Cedar Rapids now lives in North English, Iowa with his wife Christine.

The program is free for attendees, but there will be books for sale, and donations are welcome to help sustain the Mulberry Center Church.

The program will last about an hour.