Interviews Conducted by Robert J. Beck

Leonard Cushing, Felicia, Gael Cruz, Devin Patterson:

These characters were already designed before or simultaneous to my work so all I did was refine the previous work if needed.

Connie Logan. Penny Logan, Manuel Garcia:
My designs for these are quite a bit different than what appeared. Apparently the ‘Faces’ story was being drawn while I was still working on the characters, so my versions ended on the editing room floor.

Bianca Karina:
Bianca was quite fun. She went through many stages to get her look right. It ended with her having a braid to make her look distinct. (I still think my double braid is far more stylish than the single one she wears now. Alas Bianca…you were so fashionable.) I had a lot of pleasant nights looking up beautiful French women to get her look right. I wanted her face to be delicate but her body a bit toward the voluptuous side—a sort of counterpoint to Sabine, whom I visualized as more athletic. In the end she ended up looking a bit like a busty Natalie Portman, and in other artists renditions she’s varied a lot.

Sabine Hazel:
Sabine had several versions, simply because there’s a lot of ways to represent half oriental-half occidental. There are dozens of ethnic feature combinations—everything from skin color, height and build to noses, eyes and ears. But from the get-go she was tough and athletic and I wanted long straight black hair and a set of good cheekbones.

Julien Dumont:

Julien was Julien right from the beginning. That’s exactly what a Julien Dumont from Brussels would look like to me. There was no ambiguity in him.

How does it feel to see characters you created being drawn by other people?

It’s a little weird at first because in thinking them out I developed some affection for some of them. But I feely admit I’m not the best artist in the world, so I’m excited to see what others do to improve them. And in a real sense, they aren’t my characters—they’re community characters. We all invent them and further them as a group. I just hope all you fans like them.

The Ten Brides of Takezo Kensei was the first novel which you drew by yourself for Heroes, did you enjoy this freedom?

Heck yes. And it was a little scary. But it was a novel right up my alley. It called for many different art styles and representations so it let me showcase my flexibility and my ability to safely draw as poorly as 15th century woodcutters. Honestly the greatest difficulty was figuring out how to stage the shots and Takezo’s hand positions in the coffin. The rest of the stuff was plain fun, trying to get my art to mimic a tin-type or a death-portrait from the turn of the century or a 18th century Italian statue. I like challenges.

Why are some novels coloured while others are Digitally Inked?

You’re talking about two different skills/functions here. Digital inking occurs when there is no physical inking. Traditionally, after a page is drawn in pencil it is inked, so it will reproduce better or for artistic reasons. In the modern era sometimes the inking step can be done in the computer. Pages are scanned in at the pencil stage and the lines are darkened and redrawn in Adobe PhotoShop to clarify them for the colorist and the reader. All the novels are colored in the computer, as are the vast majority of comics these days.

You have worked as a Cover Artist for some pretty big comics, what was this like? Do you feel a lot of pressure as a lot of the the its the cover which sells the comic?

It’s quite a bit of fun. Covers hold a different logic to interior illustrations. One tends to spend more time on them because they do ‘sell’ the book and it becomes like a one-off illustration. There is a bit of pressure, but I’ve been doing this for a long time and you become somewhat accustomed to it. Most of my cover work career is as a colorist in association with a penciler, such as Michael Turner, with whom I did most of my notable work. The real pressure is on them since no matter what the situation is, my job is to back them up and make them look good. Getting recognition is secondary, so I don’t worry about the famous name aspect too much, or the long-term implications, or life of the image. I just do the best job I can, finding the best way to do a piece, and let the rest of the bits sort themselves out.