Initially when all this change started
with the shutdown nothing in my life was
changed. I was working exactly the same
way, the only thing I chose to do
differently is when I would shoot photo
reference to build my illustrations upon
I was now printing them in the house.
I had projects that were coming to a
close, I was finishing covers for a
couple different series that were
wrapping themselves up in the same time
period and then I was being told "hey,
these are a couple of things you have as
projects that are being put on hold," so I
had my workload go from what felt like
way too much every month to now
literally one week's worth of work each
month. And so I've taken my privilege to
be able to really focus then on things
I've wanted to do for a long time. I
tinkered around with sculpture for the
first time in a really long time, and
I've been creating multiple works of
art—finished paintings for stuff that
are just projects that would really
never come to life today, except a
print or maybe in a sketchbook. But
they're not going to be more than just
personally satisfying, and it's a nice
place to re-enter. I needed a sort of
slow down and an intellectual break.
To me as a kid growing up the bands that
had the biggest impact would be the ones
that I had on 8-track cassette and I was
old enough to be part of the 8-track
generation. So my family only had so many
albums that were in the house and
there's only so many things that would
reach pop culture-wise all the way down
to a young child growing up in that
period of the early 70s. Things that
I was aware of—bands— would have been
the Beatles and the Monkees. The Monkees of
course were on television but the
Beatles were ubiquitous and we had the
eight tracks of them. I had
eight tracks of I think two of the
Monkees albums, and Headquarters in
particular which I grew up adoring, so I
knew I want to get a chance to do
artwork of them someday.
I had snuck them into prior projects.
Anybody who knows my work has seen them
in Kingdom Come and Marvels, snuck
into the backgrounds. So I was able to
directly pitch them a couple of prints
and they approved both. The surviving
members were able to all say yes to what
I turned in. These early costumes
when they were all dressed as a set, you
know either with the blue shirts that
had the big lapels and or with their red
shirts. And in particular the pieces
started off with a certain
connection to it, anybody that's a big fan of
the band would know what I was doing
here. I wanted to make kind of a strong
piece focusing on what kind of a
frontman I felt that Davy Jones came off
as, that he was cast to be that sort of
he was the British face of the group.
Something to the energy of it I wanted
to capture.
It was always my intention to do a lineup of the X-Men this way, kind of making it the point about it being—
okay there was the original seven which
was the Justice League—here's the the
most important six members I thought of
the X-Men.
So it has Phoenix in her pre-Dark
Phoenix stage and it's a beautiful Dave
Cockrum design for her costume and then
Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler,
and Storm. They kind of are the
characters that have remained throughout
all iterations the most important.
I did this revised version of a painting I had done earlier when I was 20 I did it again when I was 30. It's
one of the most well seen pieces I've
ever done, and it's been repeatedly seen
and interpreted into even the Justice
League film where they imitated it in
their photography. I was making the
specific line up for a reason. Calling it
the Original Seven is pointing out how
when in 1960 they created the concept of
the Justice League of America these are
the first members. Those seven characters—
and it was primarily focused around
adventures with five of them not with
Superman and Batman being there all the
time—it was trying to showcase "hey we
have all these other characters Superman
and Batman are successfully in their own
books monthly". But here's Wonder Woman
with Aquaman who was definitely a
supporting character he never he was on
covers of comics until his first 1960 issue
and he had been around since 1941. I
believe he's one of the oldest
characters in comics that had always
stuck it through every age of publishing,
but was now getting bumped up to the big
leagues.
As well as the new concept designs
there are versions of Flash, Green Lantern, and the
new character of Martian Manhunter from
the 50s.
I did a couple different sketches of things to pitch David Bowie's estate spotlighting of all the
various iterations of his personal
presentation throughout the years. I
thought a great thing to link up to was
the painted rendition of him from
Diamond Dogs, the famous album that's on
the tail end of his look for having that
appearance of Ziggy Stardust, even though
he had broken up the spiders from Mars
band at that point. He still was sporting
the same shocked red hair and continuing in that kind of alien aesthetic. With the
thought the bizarreness of that whole
upper body of the human being
combined with the lower part of the dog legs,
it was a disturbing unique kind of thing.
When you talk about revisiting stuff
there's always that question of, like,
well do you have in your mind what would
happen to that person later? And I would
remind any fan of Kingdom Come that I've
actually shown you what I thought would
happen later. I wound up incorporating
into the JSA series in the early 2000s I
worked on, doing a series of covers
and then eventually the storyline
shifted into a Kingdom Come
overlapping thing, where we brought the
Kingdom Come Superman into the group. It's Superman from Kingdom Come taken at
the moment where the bomb goes off at
the end of the series and presumably all
these people are dead, and in his mind
he's blasted into another reality. Thinking
like my whole world blew up—twice,
he's lost two planets!— and when
it ends he actually gets zapped back to
where he came from. And then he lives out
the rest of the storyline of Kingdom
Come exactly the way it happened, and I
drew new pages to fulfill this storyline
and that was my closure for it. To say that
the Kingdom Come storyline and the
survivors of it did have lives, but they
weren't dramatic lives that meant that
oh they go off and have other adventures
together, and Superman gets back in his
costume. No. He's retired, he becomes a
parent, and then he becomes an old man,
and it doesn't stop because his lifespans
a whole lot different than ours. He
keeps absorbing all that Sun energy that
keeps him alive and and so I don't even
give you his passing because he just
gets to be a really old dude, but he's
still around.
One really weird way of my own evolution was coming to painting trained one way and then shifting off to
a completely different set of tools that
I learned for one commercial application,
and then having to find yet again
another set of tools for what would be
my final application of comics. I
was initially able to work in
advertising where you use markers or at
least at that point, these days you would
do it all in computer, and you know it
would all be a color tablet kind of
thing. But back then it was actual
markers, and still when I do color roughs
these days I use the markers leftover or
that I've continued to buy since then,
just because I work on paper that's my
world
I wound up experimenting in my first
comics works a number of ways. My first
comic series I did mostly color pencil
on colored paper which was a real cheat
to try and get a sort of faux painted
look my own application of this stuff to
comics. I was dissatisfied until I did
enough time just investing myself in
painting on the art boards which would
be a cold press board where you've got
the ability to absorb the water color
or gouache paint. It was a long evolution
for me to find the thing I was most
comfortable with. Loads of artists are
very comfortable with acrylics and if
you got anything else that appeals to
you it's all good, at the end of the day
everybody's just getting a digital file
that they're printing from, and so if you
create it all with digital tools all
that's workable because they still want
the final thing to be this digital
delivery. I used to send in all my
artwork physically into the publishers
and then they would do this scanning
there and then return the artwork.
Nowadays I just pay my own resource of
scanning the work for me, but for the
most part it's just color correcting—
making sure that the files are going to
be the most saturated for the
appropriate way—that what goes to print
will look as much like the original as
physically possible.
A painting for say a cover? A couple of
days, and it's always dependent upon the
complexity. I do have some images that
you can you can usually tell by looking
at it how long something might have
taken me. If it's got a ton of figures in
it then that's almost like not an extra
day per figure but it's a whole lot of
extra time in the rendering and the
thought process. The more I had to
coordinate between foreground background
elements if it's a whole scene with a
city and whatnot all that's a lot more
time in planning and execution. But in
general the majority of paintings I do
get done within a fairly speedy 48 hour
period sometimes even including the
reference shoot of taking some quick
pictures myself doing whatever stupid
pose or throwing on a leotard and
showing off my wonderful muscles for
amplification.
Doing pages is more challenging because you're having more compositions within a single block image.
So I'm working at a size that's equal
with a given page to what I would draw
in a cover painting but because it's all
these individual shots that have
multiple things possibly going on in
each panel, that's more time. But I break
up the process where it's never just
working on one page at a time it's
working on often whatever I think I'm
gonna get done within the given month.
I'll work on the pencils for all that
within say a one week period or so,
however long it might take me. Given, say,
it's ten pages I might be able to pencil
that in like a week to week and a half
depending upon how hard some of the
stuff is in there, and then the painting
could take at least that same amount of
time if not
a little bit longer. Sometimes as soon as
the pencil is done I feel liberated and
the paint is sort of like non-stop it's
kind of like you know I can be fairly
fast with the stuff when I feel
confident that the drawing anchors
everything. You basically might be the
worst judge of when you should be done
that maybe you could use somebody around
you telling you like you should
embellish this part a little bit more
you know, and I don't have anybody doing
that to me. But I like to think I've
elaborated so much in the work I've done
that when I leave little aspects that
are kind of rough that it will suit the
material enough that it doesn't look
like I just fell down on the job.
But it's difficult I can look back at
pieces and say, man, I really needed to go
in there and smooth out those areas.That
rough sort of area that looks like brush
strokes is not benefiting the piece at
all it's making it look crudely done by
hand not well done by hand. So I never
have one mind about it like I'm never
100% happy with my work forever. I
could be happy when I did it look back
in later and go, oh didn't see that then,
because your perception is getting
corrupted by the amount of time you
might be staring at something you do. If
you could really always put aside
something for a while return to it when
you've almost forgotten what it looked
like and then have a fresh perspective
of it that's fantastic.
It's the same reason that if you in
drawing a face that's completely dead-on
looking towards the viewer, if you've
looked at it through a mirror to see
whether or not the eyes are balanced if
the sides of the face look like they
properly are synced up that's an
extremely helpful tool and I almost
always remember to do that. But you know
there's certain things that your
consciousness is gonna lapse on and you
want to use as many things you can to
sort of snap yourself back in.
I've spent a lot of time always thinking
of projects in my own that I'd like to
get off the ground and what's kept me
from doing them is often being fulfilled
with the work I've got to do on things
that I've had a lifelong connection to.
So when I've imagined doing a project
with original concept and characters but
yet I keep having this work come in
regularly that features the properties I
I know how to draw or I would like to
engage with it almost writes itself
because you've got a certain amount of
it built inside you, because you've been
absorbing it reading it all this time,
and to completely commit to original
material can be somewhat more
challenging. But then I have tested that
out over the years by working on
projects like Astro City where all the
content is original even when it's
reflecting the influence of popular
properties. You know you've got archetypes
you could recognize that match certain
well-known superheroes or genre concepts,
and we get a chance to really exploit
and invest in new ways of seeing that
stuff and putting our own stamp on it, if
not completely creating genuinely new
material. So I've always gotten a chance
to dip my toe in I just haven't invested
years of my life into a completely
original property which may be where my
life will ultimately be taking me. And
I'm not sure if I want to put that ahead
of other things that remain in my
current workload, or if I just need to
have the decks cleared completely.
There's extremes I know where people get
caught up that I can't necessarily
account for in terms of the ways in
which you get your energy sapped.
Especially when you don't necessarily
have a feeling that the world supporting
you in the physical effort you're making
because this stuff is draining. Making
any kind of comics art or any art at all
is draining, and to keep yourself going I
don't know. Other than the simple bare
facts of like well who else is gonna pay
you if you don't get that damn thing
done. So if that's not enough of a reason
for you to get the work done I don't
have much more for you, because to me
it's all about survival.
Now I can do stuff too, now that's just
for me to have fun with, but if the
reasons are I do this work and I get
paid for it...
that kind of needs to be enough, and if
it ain't enough for you there's somebody
else to take your job right behind you.
The simplest thing of getting that career
is you have to do the work and part of
that work is you have to almost treat it
like it's your job before you can get
that job. Meaning that the samples you
produce are addressing all the
challenges that would be laid out to you
if you're trying to get that gig. Now a
lot of times they're not looking for a
bunch of talented cover artists.
They've got jobs that need to be done,
the people that can pay money for this
work, they've got jobs that involve
storytelling. If you don't have samples
of that but you've got a portfolio full
of pinups it's worthless, they don't want
to see that. They're not looking for guys
to take my job they figure we still
got him. Getting into the trenches in
drawing the stories is knowing how to
draw interplay action between people.
What was an enormous thing for me to
learn more of that, or to get comfortable
with more of that, was the work I did in
advertising where I'm drawing stuff in
kitchens and I'm drawing storyboard
panels of things that I could not care
less about, drawing vehicles doing car
ads or L'Oreal ads and I did a lot of
Miller Lite stuff back in the day.
That tested my patience in a way to draw
the things that were tasked of me,
because that's going to be asked of you
in this art form. You're gonna be stuck
drawing things you don't like and so if
you can rise to the challenge of drawing
those things drawing them ably and and
impressively there might be work for you.
If your work doesn't have stuff that
would be regarded as unique to it,
you'll get that kind of reaction of
"we're not looking to develop talent we
need somebody to be fully formed who's
got something ready to go to get in here".
And that's the cruelty of this art form.
You can certainly self-publisher, there are loads
of people looking to develop independent
properties that you could partner up
with but when you're trying to get that
paid work they're looking for you to
already be a fully cooked individual
who's got most of this stuff down.
For artists that want to follow a
realistic style I don't know that you
necessarily have to overthink about an
influence like me or any other painter
who does realism. You can certainly get a
lot from the pieces we've done, maybe
even imitate some of those compositions
but I think you'll find your own way
once you just study in reality which is
what I would do. I mean if I'm going to
look at people, things, photographs it's
beneficial to start shooting your own. If
you get into that, and these days since
everybody's got a camera that's not so
much of an issue anymore, being able to
study life as the basis for something is
the best. I had the longest problem of
thinking I needed to have everybody in
every element be perfect before I could
use it as a reference source and so it
took me a long time to realize how
flexible the basis of the human form is.
I've posed for myself on loads of paintings,
it's a process of getting your mind
comfortable with what you're building
off of. And at a certain point I would
say accept that you're gonna feel like
you're not seeing it until you've seen
it you know, that maybe you do need to
have a thing look like a thing exactly
before you're painting from it.
What I like about gouache is that the
the tinted water will stain the paper
and look like a watercolor painting. I
mean if I was driven towards getting
that real watercolor look I think I
could execute that kind of render
everything out where it looks as much
like what's in your mind's eye as
possible where you're not necessarily
overthinking what the material was that
made it.
But then artists I've admired like James
Bama and Norman Rockwell worked with
oils and I liked that my stuff on
Strathmore paper worked somewhat
semi-opaque can kind of have a look
similar to the grit that I always saw in
the oil paintings by those guys. And I've
never ever really fully imitated or
followed in the exact way they've done
their work and I hold those guys up to a
certain high esteem like if I could have
my stuff look like anything it'd be the
Rockwell/Bama group but I also like the
fact that I can execute this stuff that
feels satisfactory enough to me that
it's in enough keeping with that and I'm
doing something they themselves didn't
do, which is this amount of content or
this amount of subject matter. You know
Rockwell did one piece that I've only
recently seen that looked like as close
to him doing a superhero as possible it
was a painting of Samson and it's
stunning just to see. Like what if
Samson put a Superman
costume on it's like now you know what
his version of Superman would be and it
is incredible, you know it is seriously a
cool-looking figure. He had the size and
proportions in fact I think I even know
which of the guys he used as a regular
model might have modelled for him for
this character, it's awesome. I almost
want to go and imitate the specific
piece he did of Samson just drawing a
Superman costume on and going like see—
Rockwell Superman.
Working on the Hulk turned out to be
exactly the kind of gig I wanted, as
far as doing the version the character I
always wanted to do which wouldn't
necessarily have lined up with the
creative visions of the artist and the
writer working on the book, and magically
in this case it turned out to be one of
the most exceptional takes on the
character that's been done in several
years. Because it got really back to the
basics the very first version of the
character the way that Jack Kirby had
illustrated him as well as the tone of
the character, that it was sort of like
the Hulk was meant to be scary when he
was first introduced. He was not meant to
be a sort of Of Mice and Men type
character of Lenny you know, he was not
supposed to be the gentle giant he was
supposed to be a scary Frankenstein's
monster kind of character and I got to
put that in the art I was making without
it being just the sort of separate
commodity than the content. It was
actually in sync with the concept of the
writer and then the artist was doing an
exact match for the same tonal approach
that I was doing in fact he would go on
to do possibly the greatest work of his
career showing just enormous range of
what he was capable of, so it was a
really awesome collaboration to be part
of. Collaboration with people I've never
actually met so it's a weird thing in
some of these gigs most of my work
history has been to craft projects with
writers and interior artists in some
cases if I'm not the artist
inside where I I work with them hand in
hand I have personal conversations. We go
over the material, we craft a story
together and the Hulk is more of that more
traditional commercial gig. But yet
matching everything that I personally
wanted to get out of
intellectually and emotionally you know,
because when you approach a gig you you
have a certain feel for it. You wanted
this job hopefully in my case it usually
falls into the category of either I say
yes to something because of my personal
interest and fandom for it or I'm
building something that I'm making out
of whole cloth and in this case it's a
lifelong connection of the Hulk.
Obviously I could say you know when I
first encountered the character as a kid
but what made the biggest impression on
me that really stuck with me is it has
this enormous part of the history of
painted comics, because the magazine that
was created in the late 70s at the same time as
the TV show I was getting semi-regularly.
I have a bunch of those from in fact I
have now a bunch of the painted covers
the original art for all four that was
on my wall paintings by Bob Larkin that
I really loved and it was hugely
inspirational as an artist, but it was
also this thing of taking a comics
character and successfully adapting them
into something that felt a bit more real
and Hulk was a perfect fit for that
because he didn't have a costume. His
skin was kind of the costume effectively
and so he wound up being this thing that
blended in the world of magazine
illustration with Conan the Barbarian
and all the stuff that was popular at
that time.
And
there was this long run of painted
covers by different talented people,
Bob Larkin, Earl Norum, so many people
who cut their teeth on this character
and it made the superhero mythology seem
that much more on deck for being taken
seriously. That heritage in the way it
affected me and inspired my desire to
come in towards being not just a comic
artist but specifically a painted comics
artist that's something that it's nice
to have the job on the Hulk book to kind
of combine these influences together so
I'm paying tribute to the thing that
kind of built me when I was like eight
years old, you know what really got in my
head.
The industry for comics is kind of
localized to whatever is going on with
your outlet for getting comics, getting
your store books, and that's always been
the thing that's you know the the
cornerstone of how any of this works. Do
you have a healthy marketplace? And
obviously the shutdown has impacted
everybody harshly but I'm gratified to
know the two different stores that I
frequent in Chicagoland—one in the suburbs
of Chicago at Schaumburg Keith's comics, and
Chicago Comics in the city. They're doing
okay and they're open again and I've
been to both but I'm thrilled to know
that their business is back. I don't know
what it will maintain long run, I hope
it's everything they intended to be, we
all have to hope for that. Because we
need this art form to survive.
