A Reason To Smile Books
A Reason To Smile Books
Children's Artist & Author
Javier Cruz Winnik is the artist and the creator of “A Reason to Smile” book series that inspires readers by highlighting the strength found in life’s challenges and the importance of maintaining hope. Javier is also a contributor to the Eisner Winner for Best Anthology, Puerto Rico Strong.
As a child, I drew the cartoons I watched, and when I learned I could make this a career, all I did was draw! When my schools did not teach me what I needed to learn, I went to summer schools and other art programs to learn what I was missing. I graduated with a BA in Studio Art, after earning the Honorable Mention and Best in Show awards at Lynchburg College, and I took a year to study at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I have since been studying everyone and anyone I believed created art in a way that I wanted to as well.
I began showing my art at the Big Apple Con in 2008 and caught the bug to be at whichever comic convention I could get to. In 2012, I started traveling outside of NYC and was able to table at C2E2 in Chicago, Emerald City Comic Con, Baltimore Comic Con, Boston Comic Con, Puerto Rico Comic Con, Heroes Con, NC Comic Con, and the New York Comic Con! I saw artists creating sketch cards for various properties and found my way to doing sketch cards for Upper Deck/Marvel Comics on projects such as Thor: The Dark World, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers 2, and Ant-Man.
I have since gone on to write and illustrate my very own series titled, “A Reason to Smile!” about a little Puerto Rican girl from NYC who is a walking silver lining. I did so by funding my book through Kickstarter, and have since gone on to fund 2 more books, selling over 3,000 copies! From this experience, I was able to create stories for the “Puerto Rico Strong” and “Ricanstruction” anthologies, helping to raise money for Puerto Rico! I am now the cover artist on the independent comic book, “The Adventures of Saladeen, Keeper of the Flame”. I am continuing to write and illustrate stories for the “A Reason to Smile!” series, and practice my craft creating fanart.