ZapTown

Stuart Sayger and I are part of a small fraternity of kids who all worked at Comic Carnival in Broad Ripple.  I was among the first lucky squirts who had an opportunity to spend a few days a week sorting books in the greatest comic book store in the state, and by my estimation, Stuart would have been part of the second generation of hired help.  What sets Stuart apart from the rest of us is that Stuart actually managed to break into the comic book industry and earn a living at it in the process.  Not only has Stuart contributed to an impressive body of comic book work, he’s also a noteworthy artist whose work has appeared in multiple gallery shows.  Stuart’s been a fixture in the local comic book scene for most of his life, and the following interview sheds some light on his life in comics.

Links: http://www.stuartsayger.com/

Talk a bit about what first drew you into comic books.  How old were you when you got your first comic, and what was it?  Who was responsible for getting you into comic books?

I’m one of the guys that fell in love with comics very early on and that love never let go. By the time I was 5, I was hooked. I received the 1979 price guide as a Christmas gift when I was 7 years old. I had received two earlier editions used, and I just devoured them as reference, looking at the Don Newton covered price guide and seeing the JSA for the first time. My mind swam wondering who all those characters were. Yes, I knew Hawkman, but the GA Sandman just looked freaky to me!

A 25-cent Amazing Spider-Man #156 May 1976 was my first comic book. I pretty much wanted comics because my sister was getting some of them, and I was jealous. I was nearing 4 years old when that happened. I wasn’t really a Spider Man fan…he never did much for me. Most all of my childhood was spent rejecting the entire Marvel line of characters. I fell for Batman hard. I watched re-runs of the 1966 TV show and thought that it was all straight and serious. Honestly I wanted then and still very much do these days, my heroes to talk like Adam West did.

I got Batman comics new off the racks but the book that really did me in was Detective Comics #477 May-June 1978. Man.. I love that book. It reprints the story “the House that Haunted Batman”.. written by Marv Wolfman and Len Wein, Art by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. This story was everything that I ever wanted a Batman comic to be. I think that there is honestly no over-estimating the impact that Detective #477 had had on my interest in comics and drawing. Here’s the funny thing about that comic, before it was published I had some older Batman comics: a copy of Batman #200 and Detective Comics #403. Right away I responded to the Neal Adams covers. I was well aware that there were images of Batman that looked different than the rest. I was responding to Neal Adams’ work before it really occurred to me that actual people sat at a table and drew these things. When Detective #477 came out, it was the first time that I was exposed to a full Adams story. I was hooked and never looked back!

My father used to sell antique lighting and as a result I went to a lot of flea markets, antique malls, estate sales, etc. There were quite often comic books. I remember seeing the Dragon’s Lair ( comic dealers from ohio ) selling comics at the state fairgrounds when I was very young, at the time new comics were 40 cents. I could very often buy used comics for 10-cent or even a nickel back then. Everyone, and I mean everyone was reading Marvel. X-men were really roaring with John Byrne. Avengers were big too, but I didn’t care about those comics. I had Adams, Kaluta, and Wrightson. I recieved a rather large stack of beaten 12-cent House Of Mystery and House Of Secret comics when I was pretty young.  Those covers were so much better to me than anything marvel was putting out … DC, too!

Comics to me at this age were this giant awesome world that seemed to have no end. I remember one time my father found copies of the Steranko History Of Comics. My parents completely supported my interest in comics. They knew that they were the best way to get me interested in reading, and it worked! The deal then was that if we went to the store I could have a comic book, but I had to agree to read that comic to my mother (parents always have an angle.). So here I am, this li’l kid deep into comics – old comics. I had three price guilds.. My father took me to the then famous Indianapolis Convention Center Comic Convention. I think that I was 7 years old. Man.. I got so excited about that show that I threw up the day before we went, and I threw up again after the show. I would feel a little embarrassed about this, except that I’ve talked to a number of other fans who can recall these strong early comic memories.

What inspired you to start drawing comics and how old were you when you started?  Assuming that, like me, you started drawing at a young age, what were your earliest efforts like?
I started drawing comics right away. Well, I was at least drawing superheroes, a lot of Batman. Strangely I also really liked old Bob Kane Batman comics. My mother took me to the Comic Carnival. The shop used to have the Marvel and DC back issues separated. I went in to the shop and asked for Batman comics. They showed me the new issues on the rack. I said no i want ones that look different and held my thumbs and forefingers up to my chin to make the “squared off” look. My mom said they would know what I was looking for by doing that, and she was right! So I bought the most beaten rags of early 12-cent Batman comics and then very much drew Batman with that face. Now here is the funny thing, my Batman drawings had characters that looked like the Bob Kane comics, but otherwise all took place in the Neal Adams world. There was lots of smoke, full moons, but the bad guys all wore pin-stripped suits! I’ve got some of these still, they are crazy looking. I recall that I had a small spiral bound memo book about the size of a postcard. I filled the book with Batman drawings in 1st grade. I’ts gone now.. but I wish that I still had the drawing of the 1950′s Batmobile jumping a bridge. During this time, I was sleeping over at a friend’s house and attempted to make a full Star Wars comic. He kept wanting to add dinosaurs to the story which I knew weren’t in Star Wars, and that made me very mad. At least there weren’t any Tyrannosaurus.

What impact did working at a comic shop most of your life have on you as a person and as an artist?  How long did you work for Comic Carnival and at what ages?

I worked at Comic Carnival starting in February 1986. I was 13 years old. You know the beginning of the movie Good Fellas when the young Henry Hill wants to work at the cab stand? That’s what it felt like, well, except that instead of blowing up people’s cars I would bag comics and file all day. I typed up a li’l resume and walked in and pretty much asked for a job. The owner later told me that they really weren’t looking to hire anyone, but he thought that anyone who would show that kind of initiative should be given a shot, I worked there throughout Jr. high, high school, and during college breaks. I still help out now and again if someone is sick.. I grew up there. That store is very much a second family. Puberty was a long ways away, and I wanted in there with those comics. I remember unpacking the Dark Knight Returns fresh from the case, Crisis #12 sitting left over on the rack, I put Watchmen #1 on the rack and Elektra Assassin too. Anyone who has ever unpacked a case of Electra Assassin #1 remembers the smell of that book. It was really different than anything else.

I was very lucky to start working there just as the old way of comics was going away. DC had yet to start Superman over with a new #1. Capitol City was distributing comics along with Friendly Franks and others too. Diamond was established but was still kinda an upstart so it seemed. By working in that shop i received a full-time education in comics. Comic Carnival really specialized in old comics back then. I remember one time I did a restock, just checking the boxes in the back room versus the comics that were on the floor and putting out what ever was needed. I remember filing three copies of X-Men # 1 for — are you ready? — $30, $60, and $75 because asking $100 for an X-Men #1 was pretty hard to do as the book would have to be in fine condition. By working there I got to handle comics from all eras.

Yes I saw all the Adams that I wanted, but by being around that much of it all the time I was able to not only see, but learn to tell the difference between Adams inked by Adams on the Spectre versus Adams inked by Giordano in Detective Comics versus Adams inked by Tom Palmer. Life then was just such an education of the history of comics and the history of comic artists (and writers too, but I couldn’t pick up on as much as I was actually working and reading comics was grounds for being fired). For those of you who didn’t get to make it in to Comic Carnival in the 70′s-80′s-90′s, you really missed something. I wore dress pants, leather shoes, and a neck tie every day to work, as did all employees. Back then there was such an effort to make a comic shop look like a “real business” There is a reason why the “comic book guy” on the Simpsons TV show is so popular.

Probably the number one thing I learned at that shop was how to sell comics, how to talk to collectors and understand what they liked and what they didn’t. We really were salesmen then. Everything mattered .. Back then all the customers bought back issues on just about every visit they made to the shop. Grading mattered to collectors that had nothing to do with “investing.” It could be said that I’ve been working in the comics industry since 1986.

Much later, when graduation for college was approaching and I was interested in getting in to comics as an artist, all the things that I had learned about the industry working in that shop would be of value especially when it came to self publishing. Making a comic from scratch is one thing, but how many talented creators also have any idea how to sell the comic they make? I’d been selling comics for 15 years! I like to think that this is why Diamond came to me and expressed interest in selling Shiver In The Dark.

At what point did you start thinking that this was something you really wanted to do professionally (drawing comics, not working at CC)?

I never thought about making comics professionally. One time I said to my good friend and then co-worker, Matt Fisher, that I had a feeling I would be making at least part of my living from comics for the rest of my life. I was 18, he was 14 and God bless him and his wisdom, he said, “God, I hope not!”

You see, I never went to art school. I really wasn’t interested in it. I was more interested in illustration and I didn’t even know that you could go to school for that. In high school, “art class” was really pretty silly and most of the people who I had encountered who were “art students” were creating things that I really wasn’t interested in.

I studied journalism in college at Indiana University. Indiana has a strong journalism school and one reason for this is that they put out a substantial daily paper. I remember walking in to the paper offices and having the editors sigh and say to me “Okay freshman, what do you want to write…news, sports..etc.”… I replied that I didn’t want to write anything, but if they needed any illustrations, I’d like to be the guy. As luck would have it there was an editor in ear shot who butt in and said, “Can you make something right now?”  You see digital photography was not around yet, and they had lost some photos creating a big problem on page two. He said, “I need it in 45 minutes.” So I quickly drew a piece to his specifications. He looked at it and said, “Yeah..yeah — looks good. Can you do more for tomorrow?” So I became the go-to guy for the paper for four years. I wasn’t in art classes with week long deadlines for projects. I was taking other classes and I would come home, on top of my homework I would make spot illustrations that were due the next day. I had to learn to draw fast. I had to learn to draw things i didn’t know how to draw and wasn’t interested in drawing. I had to draw for an editor, not for myself. I had to draw for reproduction — clean-lined, black-and-white, camera-ready art. This is the path to become a comic book artist.

Once I was asked to create a color piece for a magazine cover. It printed very poorly as I made it out of pastels and it didn’t photograph well. The staff was very apologetic. One of them said if you want color over your colors, you should use photoshop. They had a copy of the file, but no one really knew how to do much with it other than resize photos. So I had to dive in and teach myself. One of the pieces that I made was entered in a national journalism contest and came in 2nd. I started thinking that maybe i could do this on a more professional capacity.”

I seem to recall your first professionally published work was for Big Bang Comics.  Is that correct?  How did that come about?  With Big Bang being more of an homage to comics of day’s past (Batman specifically), was this your big opportunity to channel the Neal Adams Batman into your work on a more overt level?

I think that my first nationally published work was indeed in Big Bang Comics. I had put together a group of Batman sample pages and brought them to the Chicago Comicon looking to get reviews or work if possible. I was familiar with the Big Bang line of comics from my time in the Comic Carnival. In the Big Bang universe there is a character named “The Knight Watchman” who seemed to be very much an homage to the Batman comics of the 1940′s. The first Knight Watchman comic was credited as being drawn by Tom King ( a nod to Batman’s creator, Bob Kane).

In this story the Knight Watchman battles a villain who is obsessed with time. The villain is about to get away when the Knight Watchman hurls a pocket watch like a morning star striking the villain in the back of the head. The Knight Watchman quips, “Time wounds all heels.” That was so silly and great. I loved that. Anyway that comic rang in my head when I stumbled upon the Big Bang booth in Chicago. Big Bang’s publisher Gary Carlson was there as were many other Big Bang contributors. I loudly opened the conversation by saying, “Hey!!!.. Where’s Tom King!??!?” Gary got a chuckle and we began to chat about their comics. I approached the conversation merely as a fan, not thinking that this could be a professional opportunity. You see this day was the very first time that I had tried to approach the comic industry for work. I really was only targeting DC comics and didn’t have Big Bang on my mind. But Gary being an opportunist spotted the portfolio under my arm and asked if I was an artist, and if so, if he could see my work. I showed him my pages and narrated the corresponding story to him as he turned the pages. It was so funny, it never occurred to me that he might be interested in my work.

Right out of the blue Gary says that he likes what he sees and that he had been wanting to do a 1970′s type Knight Watchmen story. The samples that I brought were in pencils, and Gary said that if I would ink the pages as the Knight Watchmen, and be willing to  tweak a few things to fit his Knight Watchman character, that he’d like to run the story in his comic. WOW! I was floored! I think that I had been at the convention for about an hour with most of that time being spent standing in line getting my badge and then bumbling around the convention floor trying to find my way, and already I had a bite! Gary was absolutely the first person who had seen my work at the show and he asked me to climb aboard. The funny thing was that I had driven up to the show from college with two of my friends who were trying to break in as writers. When I finally walked away from the Big Bang table I ran in to one of them and said, “I think I just got a gig…!!!” I’ll tell you this, and I mean every word, working in comics has been a blast, an absolute blast but nothing has given me quite the high and buzz as those early days of trying to get in to comics. Making sample pages and walking up to editors looking to get reviews is just electric. Going to a convention and meeting so many editors, one right after another, hoping to get a gig is like asking out 10 girls in 2 hours.  It seems that at some point it enters your head to try to break in to comics. Then you start drawing to really show off what you can do. You get a hotel for the show, rent a car to go to the show, and just really put so much of yourself in to something that you just know nothing about, just trying to make something happen. I’ve never felt so alive…EVER! There are photos of me and my two friends in the hotel room the night before the show putting stamps on self addressed stamped envelopes that we stuffed in to our sample packets. Those times mean so much to me.

Anyway.. I’m off topic. Big Bang and Gary was great for me. I inked copies of the pages so I have versions of my story as both Batman and as the Knight Watchmen. One of the things that made this time so exciting was the sheer fact that my growth curve was off the charts. The pages that I penciled weren’t nearly as strong as the finished inked pages. The more that I worked on them the more that I decided to change. This was a big deal for me. Things that I thought were good months earlier suddenly weren’t up to par. I really felt that I was getting better as an artist. Looking back and comparing the pencils to the inks I can see that I was right. It was about this time that my personal style was changing about halfway through the Knight Watchman inks I started to do a lot more expressive things with my inks. About this time I was really excited by Esteban Maroto’s art. In his work for Warren comics he’s done so many interesting things with negative space. His layouts just knocked down the panel boarders. Nothing could hold is lush page designs.

In comics I came from a background of Adams and Aparo and here was Esteban just running all over them in my head. The surface of how I draw has changed a lot since these days, but the Adams and Aparo influence is still there in the layouts. No way around it!  Once the Knight Watchman story was done Gary asked me if I wanted to do another. I of course agreed, but feeling that my interests were changing and that I had already done a 70′s DC looking book I wanted to do something else. I suggested something more like a Warren comic and he said that he personally liked the work, but didn’t think that it fit with his stable of characters and the other books they were putting out. Gary left the door open, and I’ll tell you, I would love to draw the Knight Watchmen again sometime. I’ll always have fond thoughts of him, but at the time my appatite to try new art techniques was knew no bounds. I knew that I would want to stay focused on my old style.

Your next move was to begin self-publishing Shiver in the Dark.  Did you try to get into the mainstream companies first, or was self-publishing your plan all along?

I pretty much had my sights set on DC comics. I had to go back to college, back to waiting tables and finishing up the work for Big Bang, but I wanted to “reload” for the next year’s con with new samples in evolving style. After the Knight Watchmen I produced more sample pages most aimed at DC comics. There were about 6 I did for the Shadow, 5 of the Creeper, 3 or 4 of ( get this ) The Witching Hour!!! ( I”m crazy) and 5 or so of Daredevil. I went back to Chicago the next year looking to get a review from the editors at DC. I wasn’t able to talk to ANYONE at DC the year before when I got the Knight Watchmen gig. I wanted to, but I was too late. I didn’t know how things worked at conventions. I didn’t think that there would be so many would-be artists in line for a review.  So the second year I went to Chicago to show off my goods I made sure to arrived early. Let me tell you one thing that just about crippled me that year. There were so many people who wanted to get a review from DC that an announcement was made that there would be a raffle, just to have the opportunity to be reviewed. I think that it was stated that about half of the people who came would get a review. Now here I was. I had devoted so much time for this one opportunity that might not even happen!!! But I was lucky, my number was drawn. I was going to get a review, but it was so obvious just how many people who worked very hard, who drove across the country just to have their portfolio glanced at, were going to go home with zero that day. This is why whenever someone asks me if I’ll look at their portfolio I always say yes, even if I’m busy.
So my number had been picked and I get in line for my review. I wait , I wait. And finally I’m going to be the next guy to get a review, and just then the editor gets up and leaves!!!! I’m standing there and the DC people say that another editor is coming. Finally Bob Schreck ( who had just been hired ) sits down. I’m his first guy to review of the day. Nervously I sit and unzip my GIANT portfolio. Now this is a funny thing that I want to point out. Comics are drawn on 11×17 pages in most cases. 11×17 is not a very big portfolio and if you want to work in any other industry at all you buy a bigger portfolio to house paintings, or blueprints, etc. I didn’t know these things and I show up with a full sized portfolio that won’t even fit on the table. Now let me tell you, Bob is a cool guy he said to everyone else,  “See? Size DOES MATTER!” He looked at my book and liked my work. In fact he even asked for samples and my contact info!  “I have no idea who this guy at DC is. And I don’t care. He’s a DC editor and he likes my stuff.” That was really all that I wanted that day. I remember Bob saying, “I like your work, but I don’t  h ave any jobs to offer right now, but I’d like to keep in touch. Send me your next batch of work. Maybe something will come along.” I went over to Marvel and Dark Horse and talked to editors and everyone seemed to like what they saw, but at the same time they all said the same thing, “good work, but I have no jobs to offer right now.”  I was very happy and I foolishly thought that I had made a big impression and that all I had to do was go home and wait for the phone to ring. Of course it never did. I was just young and didn’t’ know how things worked. One review is never going to be enough. Not ever. Still I got tired of people saying, ”good drawings, but no work”.

So all at once it hit me; why was I trying so hard to get in with these other companies? I really don’t need their approval to make comics. I could do it on my own! Besides, my Knight Watchmen experience told me that editors wants your assigned work to match the style of the samples, don’t do anything too creative. He  doesn’t want a lot of reinventing the wheel. This is when I decided to make Shiver in the Dark. Without naming names I also want to states that there was one editor at that convention who looked my may creeper samples which were finished inked pages. I didn’t have photocopies of the pencils used to make the finished inked pages. The editor quickly slapped my portfolio shut and pushed it back to me saying, “You are a new untried artist, and no editor is going to let you both pencil and ink your first job, since I can’t see what your work looks like as one stage separate from the other, these pages are worthless to me!”  No lie!  I walked away from that with a really bad taste in my mouth. That experience said to me that many editors were not looking at artist’s thinking, “How can I get the most out of this guy’s strengths?”, but rather, “How can I bottle neck this guy in to working the same way as everyone else” While still at the show, I decided that I wasn’t coming back with sample pages.. I was coming back with a finished comic that was mine. All mine, the way that I wanted a comic to be.

About two months before the Chicago convention I had broken up with my girl friend of about 31/2 years. I was just out of school and I said to my self, “OK, this is probably the last time that you can really do something crazy free and irresponsible. It’s my life to do what I want to do, to make comics.”

I called my parents and told them that I wanted to move back home rather than pay rent, that I wanted to publish a comic. God bless them they never asked for more explanation than that. I sat in my childhood bedroom with one revolving chair in the middle of the floor, on one side was my drafting table, the other was my computer. I made the first issue of Shiver in the Dark in an area about 6 feet wide. When I went back to Chicago the next year it wasn’t as a fan trying to break in. It was as a publisher with a table and a book. At this time I was a lot more realistic. I thought I’d sell the comics to fans, but also have a really nice presentation piece to give to the publishers. There was a decent number of people who had taken this route in to the industry by this time, but nowhere near as many as we have today. There was NO such thing as “print on demand.”  All the Shiver in the Dark comics were offset printed. To my surprise Shiver in the Dark sold really well. Fans e-mailed me asking for future issues and commissions of my own character!  I received 3 requests for commissions in the first 10 minutes of setting up at my first convention! This was all new to me, but immediately it felt right. I’ll never forget, I decided to make a free 30 second head sketch on the cover of the first issue for anyone who bought a copy. I didn’t advertise this, it was just an on the spot surprise to the fan when I handed them their copy. Saturday during the show I was quickly signing one of my books and looked up to see that there were FOUR people waiting in line to pay me for my book. I was blown away by the warm fan reaction. All the “Thanks, but no thanks” that I’d gotten from editors the year before was GONE! Recall that I had made Witching Hour sample pages the year before. When Shiver in the Dark first came out there were ZERO horror comics being published. Shiver was at least a year before the 30 Days of Night comic. People had responded to my writing, and my art, but also my taste in themes. I was lucky to be a little ahead of the curve, but it was by sheer luck, I was only producing a comic book that I wanted to make. That’s it.

From working in a comic shop I had gotten the idea that working at a major company was the only way to work in this biz. But making Shiver in the Dark was like falling in love for the first time! I really cut loose on that book, I tried so many new visual techniques on that book. I had no idea if any of it would work. I changed my art style from panel to panel, page to page. Whatever the mood of the scene called for is how I drew. It’s really easy to fall in to the trap of drawing what you think other people want, but when you work only for yourself you really get the best results. Shortly after Shiver #1 had come out I looked back at the Knight Watchman and didn’t even recognize my thought process. These were times of change.

What have you learned from the Shiver project in terms of self-publishing, but also as a comic creator?  As an artist, do you find the writing aspects of the comic more of a chore?  How far out do you have the Shiver storyline plotted?  Do you intend to keep that going as a series (honestly), and have you considered collaborating with other writers/artists for future projects?

I really really want to keep shiver going. The honest truth is that I’ve got the next 2 issues plotted out, but the book takes me so much longer to draw than anything else. I think that is because it is my baby. Nothing in my life has been as rewarding as making Shiver in the Dark. I mean that. I remember talking to Erik Larson who was looking the book over at the first Wizard LA convention. I remember him asking me if I had considered getting someone to letter the book. He pointed out some things that I could be doing better with my lettering. I told him that I had considered it, but was not very seriously. I told him that I could probably find someone who could ink the book better. And someone who could probably dialog the book better, and I was sure that someone could make better layouts. Ultimately I could get the best people in the world to work on Shiver in the Dark to the point where there wasn’t anything for me to do at all on the book. I said that Shiver in the Dark may not be the best comic in the world, but it’s the best comic in the world that I can make. I stand by this philosophy and Erik accepted it. Let me just say this…making Shiver in the Dark has taught me so much. I love writing the book, but I never set out to be a writer. That has changed a bit thanks to Shiver. I think about drawing comics differently now that I’ve done some writing. There isn’t an aspect of creating a comic that I don’t’ enjoy. Many creators say things like, “ I don’t to publish. I just want to draw,” or, “I hate having to do promotion,” I LOVE those aspects of making comics…publishing is a blast!!! I miss doing more of it. And let me tell you, it feels so great handing someone a comic you’ve made SINGLE HANDEDLY and saying, I made this from scratch. It’s mine.

I would like to collaborate a bit. Someone once asked me which writer I think I would like to work with most and I couldn’t come up with a name. And then it just hit me — Kevin O’Neil. I like Kevin’s work, but most of all I get the feeling that I could really cut loose and get expressive with my art, that I wouldn’t just be  a stiff illustrating fight sequences. I’m better illustrating if I think the text has something to say. I think that a good writer should have some sort of ax to grind in his writing. Every once in a while he really turns on his audience and attacks them. I like that.

How did the Bionicle work come about?  How did it feel to be working on the most widely distributed comic book in the US?  How was it working for a publisher who arguably knows little about the comics world?

I was asked to try out for the Bionicle job from an editor at DC who had seen my Shiver in the Dark comics… Lego was interested in rebooting the Bionicle comic and wanted something different.. Initially when I was approached about trying out for the book I thought that they were crazy to even think of me… #1..  I don’t draw in a clean style ( which is often how machines and robots are depicted) ..also.. There were no real good example of how I might draw a robot period…  I pretty much thought that trying out for the book would be a waste of time, ONLY because I was sure that my style was so different that I would never be taken seriously… When I sat down to make a bionicle sample I pretty much made a deal with myself… I thought that the only way that Bionicle could be any good is if I believe that it is good. I’ve got to produce art in a style that I like, and I agree with. So I had to figure out a way to make the characters interesting to me…  Years ago when I worked at the Comic Carnival I had a discussion with the then manager regarding who we thought was the best “war artist” in comics… he said Russ Heath ( which is a fine choice!.. I love Russ’s work).. But I countered saying that Joe Kubert was the best… The manager argued that Russ was better in that Russ was very accurate in how he drew the machines in the battle scenes. Russ would draw the correct tanks to be fighting in a certain part of the world, during a certain point of the war…. Kubert would simply draw a generic tank and put either a swastika or an american flag on it so the reader could tell who was whom..  Well, there might indeed be some truth in that argument, but I wasn’t going for it.. I quickly countered by saying that I believe that Kubert drew better looking people and better emotions, and that war was not about machines, but about people and since his people were better, he was better over all… I honestly believe that either Russ or Joe are acceptable answers, but my personal interests lie with Joe’s work. Getting the humanity was more important that the correct number of rivets on a robot became the driving force of how I drew bionicle. .. I decided that I would not draw using a ruler.. That the lines would have variety of weight, that the robots would get dirty, and dented, and that they would live in a world with a lot of dust and smoke. As much “life” as I could force in them was my goal.  When I drew the Bionicles I bent the body parts in ways that more closely matched the movements of the human body… my drawings did things that the toys just couldn’t do.  Lego liked my work, but thought that it might be a bit out there.. So they had a few test groups of kids go over my work.. I tested very high and was offered the job… Alex Bleyaert- the colorist- came along a bit later.. I colored the covers to issue #0 and #1 as well as the poster in issue #0… go back and look at those first 3 images and you’ll see my approach was very different than the rest of the series.

I’d like to hear about your life as a freelance artist.  How did you break into the trading card scene?

I landed the gig to do the DC/ Upperdeck VS cards from meeting an editor at the San Diego comic con. There was a fan who was looking at my work. He seemed to like a lot of it, but bought nothing. He was very nice and asked a lot of questions, I had no idea he was an art director at DC. He finally revealed himself and asked if I wanted to draw some cards for a Green Lantern set!  This all happened before Bionicle came along. I was there promoting Shiver in the Dark and that was it. Shiver in the Dark had been doing pretty well by this time, I was paying all of my bills as a fully time ,self employed comic book artist/ publisher of one title ( which I guess is an accomplishment itself ). But still it seemed that my career had sort of plateaued, and though I was happy with my success. It didn’t feel that good that none of the big companies had shown any interest in offering me any work, that feeling stuck with me for about 3 weeks and I really started to think more and more about what to do about it. Then the phone rang and the VS job was formally offered to me with deadlines, etc. Amazingly the VERY next day I was also approached by Wizard Magazine to draw a big piece for them.

The first VS job was really exciting. I was assigned 4 cards and I had to send them in electronically to my editor. I had made what I thought were pretty good looking images, but I wasn’t the editor, I had no idea what protocol was. For all I knew he was going to hate them all. The worst part was that all I could do was simply upload them to DC comics and wait. I uploaded them and then about 20 minutes later I received an e-mail from another DC editor stating that he had just seen the Green Lantern cards that I had tuned in and that he was working on a Batman related set, and that he wanted me to work on them too!! 20 minutes after I turned in my first DC job I was given my second! Before the first editor even approved the work that I had done!

Lately, it seems like your freelance work dominates your schedule more than anything else.  Do you find that the freelance work stands between you and an ongoing series?  Do you have any plans to return to an ongoing series, or are you content producing the stand alone art pieces?

“Lately” has been a hard concept for me. I drew Bionicle for 2 years and then, Boom, it was over. There was no slowing down. In fact there is really isn’t any “slowing down” in comics at all. You are drawing a book, then you finish it. There really is no way to cut back from 22 pages, it’s zero-to-22 in a second, and then back again. Just about the time that Bionicle was ending I was approached by the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis to do a lot of work for their year-long comic book exhibit. So now I’m taking care of a lot of little things that have been neglected before I take on the next big gig. Right now I’m producing the poster and program art for an original comic art exhibit for the university of Oregon called “Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Super Hero!” It’s a 3 foot poster of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman… very cool, fun stuff! But I am looking forward to having another project that’s bigger to sink my teeth into, something that I can really develop as I work on it. It’s great to be knee deep into a project really getting to know the characters and seeing the characters grow as you work on them.

For someone with only a few published comic books under his belt, you have amassed somewhat of a following both on-line, and on the convention circuit.  With somewhat of a built-in audience for your work, how is it that you aren’t doing regular series work for a publisher?
Geez! Way to put me on the spot!! I’m talking with a few editors right now, something might be happening at Wildstorm. The Children’s Museum gig really pulled me away from the “main stream” end of comics for a while. You’re right. I need to get on that!. San Diego is coming up soon, I’ll likely line something up there. Ask me again in July!

Who would win in a fight between Galactus and Batman?

See you did the wrong thing. You asked me about Batman. I love Batman, but I do not see him as he is portrayed in the movies, or really many of the comics today. For me batman is very smart, and compassionate. He has wealth and he understands that it is his wits and financial status allow him to make a difference for the good of all in ways that other people can’t. He becomes Batman because he wants to HELP, not punish. He is NOT driven by vengeance as he knows that no good comes from vengeance. I’ve always put the spin on Batman that he had something terrible happen to him ( his parents die) but that in spite of that he’s been surrounded by only good people who’ve only shown him kindness ( Leslie Tompkins ). Bruce Wayne is grateful for all that he has and wants to help those who have less. He wants to fight the crime because it NOT ruined his life, but merely taken the one thing that has kept his life from being perfect! He dresses like a bat because “criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot.”

I like to think that Batman would first marvel at the sight of Galactus, curious and excited!  Then quickly Batman would come to the conclusion that Galactus is not evil, but merely hungry. I’d like to think that Batman would work to think of a way to quench Galactus’ hunger. to save earth and help the galactic traveler all in one! Thus your answer is. There would be no fight at all. Not what you expected from a guy that draws Batman grinding his teeth all day!