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In May of 2001, DC announced that they would publish Mark Waid and Barry Kitson's Empire, a series centered around a successful world conqueror and the intrigues that surround him. I talked to Kitson back then about the book and his plans; Now, Empire is finally back, with a reprint of the original issues now on the stands and a brand new issue slated to arrive in July. It seemed like as good a time as any to check back in with Kitson. The following conversation took place via e-mail in late April and early May:
DT: We're coming up on almost two full years since the first announcement that Empire would move to DC. Can you talk a little bit about the process of getting the series going again? Has it taken longer than you expected?
BK: It has taken longer to get the book back in the schedules than we'd hoped -- it was really just a question of logistics. Mark and I never actually stopped talking over ideas and plots for the series, but Andy Helfer had asked if I would help out on Titans and that ended up taking more time from my schedule than we'd expected. DC to their credit were very good about waiting to schedule Empire until we knew we could put all the time into it that we wanted. Empire means a lot to Mark and me so we really wanted it to be right this time!
DT: How much time do you like to devote to Empire? Is it something you feel you can work on simultaneously with another project, or do you have to focus on it exclusively?
BK: I always prefer to work on one thing at a time when I can. If I have more than one project in progress I'll assign specific days to a single task - for example Monday = Cover for project 'a', Tuesday = Empire interiors. Usually with a story I like to work on it unbroken so I can get totally immersed in it. At the moment Empire is taking priority over everything else. If there's a little down time on Empire for any reason then I'll get to working on preparatory stuff for JSA etc.
DT: What's it like coming back to a project like this after so much time away? Is it a challenge to figure out how a concept (and two stories) from 2000 fit into your thinking and style in 2003?
BK: Well as I said we really never felt like we left the project. We've actually been talking about Empire for a long long time. Well before the Gorilla Comics issues -- in fact even before JLA Year One! The concept hasn't undergone any major change since 2000 . . . just continued to evolve the more we discuss it. Fundamentally things are the same -- we had most of the major ideas behind the first story arc pretty well mapped out when we began . . . the biggest difficulty is probably that we've had two years to think of new ideas we want to throw in so it gets harder and harder to fit everything into the structure we originally thought of! We probably have enough ideas to fill about twice as many pages as we actually requested for this first arc.
I guess you might feel world events have thrown the story into a somewhat different light too -- but you'll have to read the story to judge how that might work.
I think there is a slightly 'different' style to the artwork from the original issues-- due to my 'natural progression' over the time that's passed . . . it would have been nice to redraw some of the original pages perhaps but not really practical. (I'd probably redraw everything I've ever done given the chance :-) )
As far as the stories go, each issues was designed to be able to stand alone-- the idea being that you could pick up any issue of Empire and get a whole story from it, but that story would take on extra significance if you had the whole series to refer to. Some things that might seem quite minor in #2 might take on a great significance in the light of #5 say.
The extra good news is that with DC reprinting the original Gorilla issues as #0 - everyone can get immediately up to speed with events if they'd like to!
DT: So if this first arc goes well, it won't be lack of ideas that stops you and Mark from putting out more, I take it. Are you hoping to put out more miniseries somewhere down the road? What has to happen to make that feasible?
BK: If enough people enjoy Empire we'd pretty much like it to be an ongoing project. Basically if the market place is willing to support it we'd like to keep going until the whole saga is told. It's a project that we both really enjoy and would like to keep working on whenever we can. Maybe releasing it in volumes -- just as these first eight issues make up volume one. Joey Cavalieri our editor at DC has been really supportive and indicated that he'd be happy to take the hot seat again if things go well -- so we'll keep our fingers crossed that the readers enjoy it as much as we hope they will!
DT: On your website, you have the pencils for the cover of issue zero, along with an unused design for that cover. What's the thought process that goes into designing a cover? What makes the final version better than the initial proposal? (See both designs.)
BK: With any cover I try to submit a whole bunch of sketches-- all of which I like-- and see how everyone else involved feels about them. Usually I have a personal favorite, but it's always interesting to see how others react to the choices they see. In the case of the #0 cover I knew I wanted to have a lot of the cast on it so that readers would know the book is an 'ensemble' work rather than focused on one character. Because of the multi-layered nature of the book I had been using a montage approach on some of the covers-- notably #1 and #2 and thought perhaps we should carry this over to the #0 issue, but I also really liked the idea of one dramatic image for this first . The image actually symbolically represents a lot of what the first series arc is about-- but rather than explain that in detail, I'd best wait until everyone's had a chance to read all the issues.
Anyway . . . when I submitted the two sketches everyone chose the one we used as being their favorite (it was the one I wanted to do too so that worked out well).
So to come back to your question-- the choice really comes down to which design does every feel works best for the job we want it to do. With the #0 we wanted a design that would catch the eye-- suggest something of the nature of the story and intrigue people enough to pick the book up. I think the rejected design did most of those things, but in a somewhat 'quieter' way than the one we chose-- maybe it would have been better suited to a mid-run issue? Anyway-- please feel free to check them both out and form your own opinions . . . as with most things artistic there's no right or wrong answer ;-)
DT: You just finished a run as artist for DC's now-canceled Titans series. What do you think of your run on the book? What did you get out of the experience that you think will benefit your future projects?
BK: Hmmmm that's a tough one! LOL! To be honest I never felt I got the chance to do with the Titans many of the things I would have liked. I really like the characters and very much wanted to draw them-- I also had some pretty strong ideas of how I felt the book needed changing. Anyway -- to cut a long story short - the book got caught up in the decision making processes at the company and sort of went into a holding pattern while its future was worked out. I guess the experience taught me that you can't do as well as you'd like in those sort of circumstances. It was entirely my choice to stay with the book while it was in that position as I didn't want to 'abandon ship' and leave the editor, writer etc. searching for an artist while it was happening, but it wasn't really the assignment that I'd hoped for when I agreed to do it. Though I did enjoy drawing the characters the run was ultimately a little frustrating as I know we could have done better given the chance. I always want to give 100% creative input to any book I'm working on and I don't feel I really had chance to do that on Titans. I guess the experience has taught me only to work on things in circumstances I am entirely comfortable with in the future! :-)
DT: You have a couple of projects with DC's JSA coming up as well, including a pretty lengthy one down the road. What can you say about that and your other upcoming work?
BK: The first JSA work is the lead story in one of the JSA-All Stars series that's coming out the week of July 2nd -- I think it's in #3. Written by Geoff Johns and David Goyer, it's a story featuring Dr. Fate. It was a real pleasure to draw! (See a page from this story.)
I think my enjoyment of the story must have shown in the artwork as when Peter Tomasi, the editor, saw the pages he decided to offer me a whole series featuring the JSA! I can't reveal too much about it as yet, but it'll be nearly 200 pages in length and a lot of fun to draw! :-)
I've also been offered some work for Marvel which is quite exciting as I've not really had chance to draw many of their characters in the past.
DT: Is the JSA another case like Titans, where you had a previous fondness for the characters?
BK: Absolutely! There's a special place in my heart for the JSA -- I used to love the annual Justice League/Justice Society crossovers of the Silver Age -- and just as with JLA Year One -- with the JSA project I'm getting a chance to draw characters that were part of the excitement I got from reading comics as a kid. I'm doing the stories I always dreamed I'd get to draw when I first decided I wanted to draw comics!
DT: What is it in particular about the Fate story that you think turned out so well?
BK: Well basically I think it was a really well written story - and it was something of a change of pace, something a little different for me to tackle , but you'll have to read it to understand how . . . I enjoyed being able to work on something that seems like it will have real repercussions in the characters' lives. It was a real pleasure to work with Geoff and David -- Geoff and I had been talking about working together for years and when the chance came up I was glad to grab it! I hope we'll get the chance to do it again soon! It's always nice working for Peter Tomasi too so everything about the project just 'clicked,' nicely.
DT: Do you think the experience on Titans would motivate you to try and take on more original projects like Empire down the road? Or do you think you can still feel comfortable in the somewhat tighter confines of company-owned characters?
BK: There are plus and minuses to both situations -- certainly the freedom of owning a property like Empire is fantastic -- it's great to know you can take the story anywhere you like, but for the long-time comic fan in me there's a real magic to being able to draw my version of long-standing characters, which is why the JSA project is such a treat for me! Ideally I'd like to continue to live in both worlds -- making a choice would be very difficult. Doing one 'company project' and one 'original' project a year would be the perfect option I guess...but maybe that's like trying to have the cake and eat it too!
DT: You've made a few comments about reviving your L.E.G.I.O.N. series down the road. How do the prospects look for that?
BK: At the moment they look a bit distant -- we had been planning and had a proposal for a JLA/L.E.G.I.O.N. mini series to re-establish the characters in the DCU, but with the JSA series and Empire keeping me busy for the foreseeable future I can't really see much chance of it coming about for some time. I would definitely like to work on the characters again -- I thoroughly enjoyed all my time on the book and they seem very fondly remembered by an awful lot of fans so it would be nice to see them as an integral part of DC continuity again.
DT: A bit of a more general and technical question -- what materials do you use in the various stages of putting a page together? How do you select those particular tools?
BK: Now that's a question I could probably fill several pages answering. I have at least three different approaches to putting pages together and tend to opt for which ever one I feel like on any given day!
The one constant is to always start with a thumbnail sketch -- very simply drawn and about 2 inches by three inches in size. This is where the basic content of each panel is decided on and the overall design of the page worked out. If you can tell what's happening in these and they look interesting it's a fair bet the page will work okay when you've drawn it up.
After this stage things can go all sorts of different ways. Sometimes I'll then draw the whole page up full size in blue pencil - which doesn't reproduce when scanned -- and has a softer feel than regular pencil leads.
Sometimes I'll draw a version of the page at reproduction size after the thumbnails the drawings at this stage will be mostly just outlines. When I do this I tend to next put the page under tracing paper and using felt tip brush pens fill in all the blacks so that I end up with a version of the page that has NO outlines only positive and negative spaces. It's another way of being able to judge the mood of a page and how the reader's eyes will be guided around the panels.
A third method is to draw roughs of each of the panels individually -- scan them into a computer and put the page together as a composite based on the thumbnail design.
Whichever method I'm using at this point I end up with a scanned rough of the page in the computer. The great thing about getting to this stage is that once the roughs are in the computer you can manipulate the drawings in all sorts of different ways, resizing, flipping etc etc until you are really happy with how things are going to look. Through rather arcane processes in Photoshop I'll then create a faint blueline version of the final page. I print this onto the board I'll be using -- so faint that it's barely visible -- and then go to work with a selection of pencils -- again whatever feels right at the time, usually a combination of 0.3 automatic pencils and good old fashioned wooden ones.
Once the page is drawn, if I'm going to inks I use brushes almost exclusively. . . the only things I use pens for are straight lines and circles generally. I use Kolinsky sable brushes and India ink . . . which I usually boil for a while to get to decent thickness so that it gives a nice dense black. (See the progression of the cover for Empire 0 here.)
There's loads more minutia and variations I could go into -- but I think that roughly explains how I approach things.
