Roamin’ Empire – Part 2
(Parts 2 and 3 of the interview were conducted later in the day than Part 1.)
DT: How are you this evening?
BK: I’m fine – my back is aching a little from bending over the drawing board for a day, but that’s not too great a burden to bear is it! 🙂
DT: In the long run, probably not. 🙂 What’ve you been drawing?
BK: I’ve been inking some of my Legends of the Dark Knight arc . . . my inking posture is worse than my penciling one I think…
DT: Is there a difference in how you approach a project if you’re doing pencils-only vs. pencils-and-inks?
BK: When I know I’m inking it I tend to be a little more open with the pencils as I know I’ll be able to improve on the images at the inking stage . . . I learned a long time ago that you can’t expect an inker to second guess you, so when pencilling for someone else I try to be very tight with what I draw.
DT: So how much more time does it take you to pencil and ink a page vs. pencils only?
BK: Well I always used to think it took about the same time, but I’ve become so precious with my inking that it takes about half or possibly twice as long again. The more inking I’ve done, ironically, the slower I’ve gotten I think – although I enjoy it more all the time. The Legends arc I’ve just finished is something I’m very proud of! (See a page from the upcoming story.)
DT: What can you tell us about it?
BK: Well it’s written by Doug Moench – renewing the partnership we had from Batman: Book of the Dead. The story features some new characters from Batman’s past and ask some pretty fundamental questions about his whole persona. In fact Andy Helfer felt it raised so many questions that a sequel is already in the works.
DT: So the sequel isn’t something that was originally planned?
BK: No the sequel grew out of this first arc – which is self-contained but rather begged a follow up!
DT: You seem to keep coming back to Batman in the last few years . . . any particular reason?
BK: I always wanted to draw Batman – he remains my favorite character – so any chance I get to draw him I take it!
DT: What’s the appeal?
BK: I guess I just love the design of the costume and cape . . . and I’ve always preferred the dark side of characters to the shiny one! That said I did enjoy my run on Superman very much, but never felt I quite had the same affinity for him as Batman – though I would like to work on improving my Superman if the chance ever comes up.
DT: You were also drawing him during the long-hair phase, if I recall correctly.
BK: That’s right – on Superman – I came on board just after he came back from the dead.
DT: What was the difference in working on a book like that, with an established character with an established look — even if the hair length was being tweaked — versus working on LEGION, where you pretty much designed everything from the ground up?
BK: I suppose the real difference was that I felt much more aware that the readers had expectations of the characters before I arrived and I felt those expectations needed to be respected. On LEGION I felt like I had pretty much total freedom to do what I felt was right and that the readers would probably go along with me as they were always incredibly supportive. It’s a very different thing to consider messing with an icon:-)
DT: You didn’t feel like fans of the Legion [of Super-Heroes] were sitting there waiting for you to do something ‘wrong’? [The Legion of Super-Heroes (LSH) operates in the 30th Century of the DC Universe, and has been around since the 1950s. LEGION was a 20th Century ‘precursor’ team that first appeared in 1989.]
BK: I never did actually – I think the LEGION readers were much more forgiving than I’ve heard the LSH ones tend to be – but then I wasn’t messing with any lengthy history or continuity, as I’d been with LEGION since issue #1 and designed most of the characters I felt pretty confident I knew what was going on! 😉 I’ve always made a point of reading every letter sent into each comic I work on if I can so I keep a pretty close finger on the readers’ pulse.
DT: So there was a separation between the LSH and the LEGION, and their respective fan bases?
BK: Well I’ve never really been closely involved with the LSH much though I loved them as a kid, but I’ve heard rumors that the fans can be pretty tough on the writers sometimes. The LEGION readers may well have been LSH readers too, but as I said before I wasn’t mucking about with any continuity that was dear to their hearts with LEGION – I tried very hard to respect their territory and keep our continuity self-contained – though with the fairly frequent nod to LSH stories.
DT: Has the readers’ response to something you’ve written or drawn ever really surprised you?
BK: I’m always surprised when anyone is nice to me. 🙂 Actually, joking aside I have always been very pleasantly surprised by the readers generosity to me. Even the critics have been reasonable people . . . so far. 🙂
DT: Well there’s a lot to be said for that. I know things got a little hairy at the Gorilla message board toward the end.
BK: I have to be honest – I was something of an absentee toward the end due to some health issues in the family that kept me pretty much away from the boards – I’m sorry about that too for anyone reading this – I do think it’s important to keep a dialogue going and for all of us who are concerned for the comics world to pull together – and to discuss things rationally – I can understand readers’ annoyance when things happen as they did with Gorilla and they aren’t fully in the loop as to what is going on, but real life rather kept me away from it. The only thing that did hurt a little was when some people jumped to the wrong conclusions and voiced opinions without finding out what the real story was . . .
DT: But to stick with LEGION for a moment . . . you did the first 17 issues, then took a six issue break. I look at those first 17 issues, and particularly as they go on I can see that they came from you . . . but then when you came back from the break, you had much more of the distinctive style that I associate with you. What changed during those six months?
BK: Well I think the biggest change was that when I came back I was inking myself. I do genuinely try to keep improving my work so I hope that I’m succeeding . . . One day I’ll be happy with my work . . . I hope!
DT: The interesting thing is that the change that came from you inking your work is still evident in your pencil-only work . . . it seemed like some of the characters’ body and facial structure changed slightly, there was more detail in the work; I recall Lobo in particular looked very different during your two runs. Did the inking experience teach you something about your penciling?
BK: I think so – I think I had always been going for the more detailed look to the work, but had been rather ridiculously assuming my poor inker knew that I wanted him to add all the textures etc that I had in mind! I don’t think I was very fair on him at all in that first run 🙂 I had actually always inked myself on Judge Dredd so LEGION was my first prolonged run with anyone else inking me.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.
Saturday, December 13th 2008 at 12:00 am |
[…] Continued from Part 2 […]