Comic Book Discussion Thread

JH Williams III (Detective Comics artist) interview:

http://blogs.lasvegascitylife.com/ci...h-williams-iii

Emotion versus intellect: A chat with comics artist J.H. Williams III posted by Jarret Keene
Thursday, Jul. 9, 2009 at 12:34 PM
It’s a big weekend for Vegas comics fans as the new Detective Comics team, writer Greg Rucka and artist J.H. Williams III, arrives for signings july 11 at both Alternate Reality and Comic Oasis. CityLife contributor and superhero junkie Jarret Keene recently talked with Williams about the latest issue of Detective, which re-launches Batwoman (a.k.a. Katherine Kane, a young and uncommitted lesbian). Employing his distinctive “neo-art noveau” style,
http://blogs.lasvegascitylife.com/wp...o1-198x300.jpg J.H. Williams III's new black-and-scarlet look for Batwoman

Williams infuses the costumed vigilante genre with equal parts Alphonse Mucha and Frank Miller, and the result is stunning. Here, Keene presses Williams to discuss his creative process, the F word (”feminist”), and Williams’ competition in Detective’s secondary feature, a fearsome superheroine called The Question (written by Rucka and drawn by up-and-comer Cully Hamner). CityLife: How differently do you approach crime comics like Detective, than, say, fantasy (Promethea), western (Jonah Hex) and sci-fi (Desolation Jones)?
J.H. Williams III: First off, I should start by clarifying that Batwoman in Detective Comics isn’t necessarily “crime comics.” There’s certainly that in it, but it’s going to be much broader scope than a single genre. There’s going to be a good measure of other things going on. That said, my storytelling approach has always relied on what the story or scene itself is speaking to me, bringing to the page what’s needed. You have to know when to be loud or when to be understated, and that all comes from the feeling I get when reading the scripts, getting to the heart of what the story is really trying to say. However, I don’t hinder myself in technique choices based on genre either. I keep myself open minded to all possibilities when trying to achieve a certain emotional effect from a scene regardless of genre types. I would find it too limiting if I were to worry about what genre I’m working in.

CL: You’ve done all kinds of comics, but Batwoman brings you back into what some might call the “feminist” arena, insofar as Promethea and Batwoman, directly or indirectly, deal with issues of gender. Would you ever accept the label?
http://blogs.lasvegascitylife.com/wp...o2-300x214.jpg Williams' other strong female protagonist, Promethea

JHW: No, not really. I would consider myself a “human interest” artist, as the term feminist is too pointed. Certainly Promethea and Batwoman have similar themes being dealt with to some degree, but it really has little to do with them being women. The issues being discussed in these concepts are real-life issues that affect men as well as women, so it’s really a human issue. Some might read into Batwoman or Promethea and think they’re about female empowerment, but I find them to be more about human empowerment told through female characters. So I guess you can label me, if it’s necessary, as the “human empowerment comics illustrator,” and I say it with a wink and a nudge. CL: Every page of Detective isn’t so much drawn as painstakingly designed, it seems.
JHW: Comics are a medium where design can play a major role in how to affect the reader and impact the story in ways that can’t be done in prose or film. I’m very much into toying with what’s possible there. However, I don’t fret over it as much as some might think. I really don’t do thumbnails, and I do my designing right on the art boards as I work. I keep everything up in my head. Very rarely do I feel I need to throw something away and start over-maybe once every couple years. So when you see the printed page in a comic from me, you’re seeing my first crack at designing that page, scene, or entire issue. I do this by my gut, on what feels right based on what I want to bring out in the attitudes of the story. I also try to take design into consideration on how an entire issue moves and flows. So when I’m thinking about designing the page, I pay close attention to what that design means for the pages leading up to and after it. Sometimes I plan stop points where I suddenly want the reader to react in certain ways or to augment something that isn’t being said in the upfront narrative.
CL: OK, but what you’ve just described actually sounds quite cerebral rather than emotional. You just said you keep everything in your head, for instance. Perhaps this explains why your work strikes me as being more refined than visceral.
JHW: It’s interesting that you see it as being intellectual, because everything I do is based on emotion. This brings me back to design, and the idea of composition being in tune with
http://blogs.lasvegascitylife.com/wp...o3-195x300.jpg Williams' Mucha influence is evident in this Detective Comics cover

design-how these elements, in tandem, can be emotionally powerful even though they make one think about what one is seeing. As for “elegant versus visceral,” I honestly feel that there’s a type of elegance to things that are visually gruesome. It partly accounts for the human fascination with such imagery. As an example, a brutally vicious bloody sword fight, with all of the slashing, moving swords and bone-crunching, horrifying violence, can be quite beautiful to look at in terms of the grace and physicality of the actions, regardless of the sad conclusions. These types of images can be just as elegant as a trapeze artist flying through the air with her arms outstretched, waiting for her partner to catch her. It’s all in how the movement affects the eye, the gripping details that can mesmerize. So to answer your question, I find gratification in depicting all things and try to bring elegance to them no matter how gruesome the subject may be. CL: Kate has some funny rock-band posters in her Bat-loft, like Darkseid’s Witch. [Interviewer's note: Darkseid is the main villain in legendary comics creator Jack Kirby's Fourth World universe for DC Comics.] Your in-joke or [Greg] Rucka’s?
JHW: Well, since Greg and I decided early on that Kate would be into music a lot, he thought the band posters might reflect the DC universe. He came up with Darkseid’s Witch, but originally it had said “Darkseid’s Bitch,” but editorial took issue with the word bitch.
CL: What do you think of Cully Hamner’s take on The Question, the backup feature in Detective and also written by Rucka?

http://blogs.lasvegascitylife.com/wp...o4-199x300.jpg Williams created a special print for his Vegas signings

JHW: I’ve been a long-standing fan of The Question for a very long time. [Interviewer's note: The Question is widely regarded as the basis for Alan Moore's Watchmen character, Rorschach.] The Denny O’Neil and Denys Cowan run on this character is one of my all-time favorite comics. I’ve also been a grand admirer of Cully’s work ever since I first laid eyes on it. I feel he’s tremendous, and seeing him tackle this version of The Question is wonderful. His handling of characterization is fantastic. I’m glad to share space with him under the Detective Comics title.

http://blogs.lasvegascitylife.com/wp.../07/photo2.jpg

^^^One of my favorite series of all time

he inked it didn't he... the prepubecent water colors. im mainly referin to the all white background where she's leaning overr

that middle image in the interview is fuckin gorgeous

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Poetic Wun

he inked it didn't he... the prepubecent water colors. im mainly referin to the all white background where she's leaning overr

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maleev did it all digitally i think

the one with the watercolors isn't from the actual comic, it's just a test image, similar to a sketch where he's just feeling out the look of the character

lol my bad, i followed the image and perused the site and thought he was the inker for the image and watercolored alike but i read the site wrong.

digital art makes me nervous

why?
alot of stuff that you wouldn't expect is being done digitally
it can be done poorly, but it's just another medium imo

because what will happen to the penciler soon enough? the inker?

^^^i get what you're saying
but photoshop didn't kill the painter
keyboards didn't kill the guitar
drum machines didn't kill the drummer, etc.

i wouldn't worry about it. it's just another tool in the arsenal of an artist...look at dustin nguyen, james jean or marko djurdevic...these guys use pencil, oils, acrylics, and photoshop sometimes all in the same piece.

i do hate alot of the garish computer coloring that marvel uses for example...when it's used badly, it's an abomination.

im optimistic, but i cant help feeling nervous is all. btw..wheres that sig pic from? im guessin its bachalo.

skottie young's deviantart

spidey and deadpool are teaming up in an upcoming issue of amazing spider-man...written by joe kelly, the dude behind the awesome issues at the beginning of the original deadpool ongoing...it will be epic.

ya, course i kno Kelly....sounds good, and looks good too.

damn skottie young's only doing the cover...never heard of the dude doing the interiors...damn it marvel!

http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22067
Deadpool and Spider-Man may not have the biggest brains in the Marvel Universe, but they've definitely got the smartest mouths. This November, in “Amazing Spider-Man” #611, the two verbal gunslingers will face off in a duel to see who truly is the world’s biggest smart-ass. Penning this verbal and physical showdown is Joe Kelly, a writer who's proven he knows Spider-Man and whose three-year run on “Deadpool” in the late '90s is thought by many to be the definitive take on the character. CBR News spoke with Kelly about the story.
Coming back to Deadpool was both an unusual and fun experience for Kelly. “I love Deadpool. He's the corner stone of my career. In a lot of ways I got my writing chops from working on the character. He's fun as hell to write,” the writer told CBR News. “As a general rule I don't go back to things. Once I finish a book I move on and don't even tend to read it; not for any reason other than I become focused and want to move forward. I've always felt, though, that Deadpool was one of the characters I missed working on. The comedy is there and for lack of a better term I love the pathos of the character. In my mind, he's a guy who's hardwired to be bad but desperately wants to be good and that's a great character to write. Then you add into that mix his smart mouth and indestructibility and you have a fantastic character to play with.
“So when Steve Wacker, my editor on 'Amazing Spider-Man,” and I were talking one time he asked me, 'What do you think about doing a one-off with Spidey and Deadpool?'” Kelly continued. “Spider-Man is my favorite character as a kid and Deadpool in a lot of ways is my favorite character that I've ever worked on, so I thought it was a great opportunity.”
Joe Kelly admits it’s weird to be back with Deadpool, though. “It's like somebody you were really close to and haven't seen for a long time and you want to get back into a groove. You know it's not going to be the way it was before but you are looking forward to what it is going to be now.”
In a lot of ways, Deadpool is still the same character Kelly penned all those years ago, but subsequent creators have developed new methods to help illuminate Wade Wilson's insane world, like his three dueling inner monologues and “Pool-O-Vision,” whereby readers see the world from Deadpool's unique perspective. “I think all that stuff is funny. I really like it,” Kelly said. “I've been playing a little catch up on where the character is at now and I love the idea that Deadpool breaking the fourth wall gets exploited by different writers and I like how they experiment with it. I haven't quite decided how much of that I'm using and what aspects are going to play out but I think it's all cool.”
For Kelly, another other appeal of writing an “Amazing Spider-Man” issue where Spidey and Deadpool face off was the character dynamics. “When we did 'Deadpool' #11 [in the first volume of the series] we did a 'Forrest Gump' take and had Deadpool go back into the old Spider-Man book,” Kelly recalled. “That was sort of me thinking, 'Let's get these two characters together but not really,' because we knew it would be a big deal and back then we were still living in the land of 'our book will probably be canceled any second.' So we didn't have any real push to do a big Spidey story, but I had always wanted to put those two guys together because of the idea that Deadpool is sort of a dark reflection of Spider-Man; in a lot of ways he's a road that the character could have traveled. Plus both are smart asses, so they're just two good to not put together.
“In this particular case we're doing a one-shot story so we're not going to do something huge with them, but there is talk of a bigger project with both characters. For this quick story though I wanted to see these two guys get into a fight that very quickly degenerates into a 'your mother is' joke contest.”
Joe Kelly sees Deadpool as a character that will make the “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” decidedly less friendly. “I described the dynamic the other day as if you went to a comedy show and there's this comedian who's doing an okay job and he's trying to keep things clean but there's this heckler that's just driving him crazy. That's going to become a very ugly confrontation,” Kelly stated. “That's the dynamic you get here. These guys are both funny and they both can't keep their mouths shut but for different reasons. It's like Spider-Man gets pulled down this dark path because his comedy is a little lighter, bouncier, and sure it's sarcastic, but it's not mean.
“Then you have Deadpool where it's like how mean can you be? He can slice you apart with his words. So these guys together will make for some good comedy and I'm looking forward to seeing how they drive each other nuts. The flip of that is going to be, if Spidey is so smart and Deadpool is so instinctive where does Spidey's wit take him in order to cut down Deadpool?”
The Spidey-Deadpool confrontation in “Amazing” #611 falls under the banner of “The Gauntlet,” an overarching plotline of interconnected stories that pit the Webslinger against his oldest foes. In this issue, though, the only enemy Spidey tangles with is Deadpool. “The Deadpool story is a standalone and certainly works by itself but does tie into the bigger story,” Kelly confirmed. “You'll see a subplot that starts in 'Amazing' #600 and it pops up throughout the various stories after. It plays out a little in the upcoming Black Cat story I'm doing. And in the Deadpool story the gig that Deadpool gets hired for is part of the long game.”
Much of “Amazing Spider-Man” #611 is devoted to Spidey and Deadpool's showdown, but Kelly was able to include several important supporting characters into the story as well. “I just saw a really awesome splash page with some of the hottest chicks in the Marvel Universe, so there's a few cameos there,” the writer said. “The story also brings back at least one character that's part of the extended 'Spider-Family.'”
The confrontation between Spider-Man and Deadpool is bound to be hilarious, but it will also have a certain edge to it. “To me, that's a Deadpool thing. If it's straight up comedy I think it can get a little flat, and quick,” Kelly explained. “I think the fact that this ties into 'The Gauntlet' story and Spidey's mindset at being confronted by somebody like Deadpool, who will blow stuff up for a laugh, adds the kind of gravitas it really needs to put an edge to things.”
Drawing “Amazing Spider-Man” #611 is Eric Canete, an artist Kelly has wanted to collaborate with for some time. “The first time I saw his art I wanted to work with him,” the writer remarked. “Periodically we'd cross paths or he'd do something with Joe Casey but to finally have him for a whole issue is just glorious. I love his stuff and his Deadpool is so gangly, nasty and awesome.”
“Amazing Spider-Man” #611 isn't the only Deadpool story on Kelly's plate, but the writer isn't sure yet if he wants to do something more with the Merc with a Mouth. “I am doing a short story in the big Deadpool special that Marvel has coming out and that was fun,” Kelly said. “After that, I don't know. Like I mentioned earlier, there is a bigger Spidey-Deadpool story that might happen, but doing that would be a combination of timing and schedules. At this moment the amount of bandwidth I have for mainstream projects is heavily occupied by Spider-Man, which is fantastic. Spidey has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid and the other guys working on the book have been fantastic. So if I was to do more Deadpool stories it would be something along that road.”

lol@ the first line