Throughout the streets of Athens they wait, they watch and they sketch. To the outside viewer they look like ordinary citizens working hard at their ordinary vision video or restaurant day jobs. No, they aren’t superheroes; they create superheroes. They’re comic artists.

Although Athens is known for its vibrant art culture, comics tend to get lost in the shuffle of concerts at the 40 Watt or exhibits at ATHICA.

But amidst the shelves of Bizarro Wuxtry and sketched on the pages of Flagpole Magazine lie the masterpieces of local comic artists Jeremy Long, Jacob Hunt and Patrick Dean.

Long may be the hardest of the three to locate in a typical issue of Flagpole, but don’t fret. His drawings are there under the name of Flickskinny.

“Me and Clint started drawing the Flickskinny in 1997 and selling it for 25 cents at Vision Video. The Flagpole picked us up in 2000,” Long said. ” We do one movie review a week and release it as a two panel comic.”

With the exception of “Thor,” the friends don’t read very many comics. Movies are their specialty, and comics happened to be a way to expand upon their love for films.

“We started the Flickskinny one day after we paid $6.50 to see ‘Rush Hour.’ That night, while we were working at the video store, we drew a comic review of it and taped it to the counter so that others would read it and not make the same mistake,” he said. “I consider the Flickskinny to be a deeply personal crusade.”

Aside from Flagpole, Flickskinny comics have appeared in ads for Vision Video and Flicker Bar. The friends’ work can also be found on flickskinny.com, and their witty banter, in verbal rather than comic form, appears on their WUGA 91.7 radio show.

Hunt went through a longer and much more involved process before establishing himself as a comic artist.

“I started making stick figure comics in the third grade . The plots usually involved myself and my best friend stumbling into wacky adventures that were very derivative of video games and the Lord of the Rings,” he said.

Hunt has relocated to Atlanta, but still draws for Flagpole, designs graphics for bands and draws portraits.

“I had always wanted to draw superhero comics when I grew up, but I unceremoniously abandoned that idea somewhere in art school,” he said. “By the time I graduated, I really had no intention of pursuing a career in visual arts at all.”

But against all odds, and even against his own will, Hunt couldn’t keep himself away from the creative genre. A year after graduating he published a well-received comic strip, which he created “through the influence of ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ and awkward autobiographical indie comics.”

Since succumbing to his third grade passion, Hunt has been published by WE Design Atlanta, he’s sold comics via freelance methods and his comic “My Doomed Affair” has been a recurring series in Flagpole since 2006.

“Thus far it has been a caricature of my relationship with my ex-girlfriend,” he said of the series.

“Eventually I plan to write in other friends of mine and create longer narratives to broaden the scope.”

As far as advice for budding comic artists goes, whether they are eight-year-olds or college grads, Hunt believes the Internet is the best place to seek an audience.

“Once you’ve secured an audience on your own, a publisher is much more likely to invest in publishing your material since you’ve already done the hard part,” Hunt said.

Artist Patrick Dean affirmed this career advice.

“Internet, Internet, Internet,” he said. “Draw comics and throw ‘em on the Web. If it gets in print one day, congratulations.”

Although Dean realizes the advantages of Web promotion now, he admits to not always being technologically savvy.

“I missed that boat, and I feel like someone looking at this model with wonder and at a loss,” he said. “After years of retooling a long story that may be a comic in the 200 to 300-page range, I finally quit thumbnailing and started drawing the final project.”

Despite his self-proclaimed ineptness at self-marketing, Dean has become very successful in the comic world. His work has been published in Vice Magazine, The Oxford American, and The Comic Eye, among others. Flagpole readers may recognize him from his weekly one-shot comic that ran in the magazine for nine years.

“I’m pretty proud of a comic I did for an upcoming anthology called ‘Snow Stories’ about the 1993 blizzard,” Dean said of his work. “It’s an autobiographical comic that takes place in Rome, Georgia, when I was in high school.”

When asked about his fruitful career thus far Dean said, “I’m still trying to figure out how to pursue a career in comics. There’s drawing them and having them appear here and there, and then there’s paying mortgage. I’ve had a pretty great day job for awhile, but it doesn’t have to do with comics.”