By Maggie Susa
For Herald-Dispatch
Huntington — The Jewel City has a superhero. Her name is “The Jockey Girl” and her steed, Patrick, conveniently transforms into a cat. She fights monsters in the city’s most identifiable locations.
Jockey Girl lives in a painting and comic series drawn by local artist Bill Hill, 47, along with some of them being animated with AI. He has drawn her fighting the Invisible Man in front of The Fredrick. There is also Mothman at Camden Park and Frankenstein’s monster at Heritage Station.
“I did the Jockey Girl and she just kind of took off. The story revolves around the jewels; she has the master jewel of the jewel city, which is the green jewel. There was a museum break-in and all of the jewels got stolen. And when the jewels that they had up there got stolen, well, that unleashed these monsters. It’s not scary. I make it not scary so kids can enjoy it,” Hill said.
“She gets this magical riding crop and a jewel. When she raises up her riding crop, she transforms like He-Man into the Jockey Girl,” he said.
Some of Hill’s paintings are hanging around town. Jockey Girl fighting Wolf-Man in front of Jim’s is hanging over a booth at the restaurant. The Jockey Club also has a painting. Hill also made a coloring book with Jockey Girl illustrations.
“Everybody that watches them says it feels just like I’m watching ‘Scooby-Doo’ except for it’s happening in Huntington,” he said.
For her day job, she works at the “Jewel City Dispatch.”
“I love it because I love Huntington. I think it’s a good place, and the people are good around here and the people are the reason I’m doing it,” he said.
Hill is originally from Alum Creek, West Virginia, but has lived in Chesapeake, Ohio, for about 15 years. He worked as a physical education teacher, started his own business and flipped houses before getting into art.
He’s working on another art series called Daniel Boone Cryptid Hunter. It’s set in West Virginia broadly.
His work will be sold at Jim’s restaurant, the Inner Geek in Huntington, the Jockey Club, the Huntington Children’s Museum, Gallery 610 in Huntington, Beyond Beauty Salon in Chesapeake and Muz collective at the Huntington Mall. He is @williamhill0077 on Instagram, and his website is linktr.ee/williamhill0077.
Read more from HDMedia, here
The post Local artist creates monster-fighting superhero for Huntington appeared first on West Virginia Press Association.