Weekly Comic Book Review.com

Hi Robert! So I’m going to ask a few obligatory questions here, only because it’s always fascinating to hear what people have to say. How did you get into comics?

Well first off, I love talking about what I do, so don’t be surprised if I get long winded on some of these answers.

I went the route of going to school to learn the trade. I had an undergrad in Fine Arts at Illinois State University, then went on to get a Masters of Fine Arts degree at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Sequential art. I won’t ever forget, on the first day of class there, one of the professors sat us all down and said, “Look, I know you all want to draw comics here, but seriously before you get your hopes up just know that there are more basketball players playing in the NBA than there are comic book artists.” Heh, so I realized pretty quickly that I needed to buckle down and focus on what I was doing if I had a prayer.

At S.C.A.D. I learned about storytelling and using the tools of the trade to pencil, ink and color comics. I was also learning about storyboarding for movies and animation, character design for the entertainment industry and so on. While in school I did work for a small press book called the Rift by GI Studios. Then a few months before I graduated I started working with Randy Green doing backgrounds and art assists on the New X-Men: Academy X re-launch for Marvel. After graduating, I moved to North Carolina and joined Tsunami-Studios. There, I continued to do assist for other artists in the studio and really getting hands on training from other artists.

In 2005 I did my first solo book for Devils Due Publishing on GI JOE Snake-Eyes: Declassified. Since then I’ve worked on various titles for Devils Due penciling, inking and coloring. Within the last year I’ve also started penciling work for Marvel, DC, and NBC on the Heroes TV show.

Wow, Heroes, that’s great to hear! Now tell me more about Tsunami Studios. How did you join them? Is it a physical studio that you guys work out of, or is it more like a guild? What’s a typical day like there?

I had already worked with Randy Green (X-Men, JLA, Cable, Withcblade) and met with the other studio members there in Greensboro while I helped with New X-Men. I met Rick Ketcham (Runaways, New Excaliber, New X-men, E.V.E Protomecha), Steve Bird (Hard Times, Robin, Blue Beetle) and John (Waki) Wycough (BloodRayne, Star Wars, Lone) while I was up there. These guys were all professionals, and me just coming out of school, I was pretty star struck to be honest. I would come up on the weekends, driving from Savannah, GA up to Greensboro, NC, 5 hours one way, to help with deadlines. We had some weekends where we cranked out 8-10 in a few days. I quickly grew to love the atmosphere of having comic professionals around and seeing the opportunity to learn as much as I could from them.

There is a physical office space/studio in downtown Greensboro, NC (side note, home of Orson Scott Card and Ender Wiggens, heh), where the studio mates all pitch in for the rent of the office space. The first few times I went up to the studio, I was like a kid walking into Toys R’ Us for the first time! Comics, statues, toys, life size movie stand-ups of Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, comic and movie posters all lining the walls. All this great stuff was surrounding 4 individual artist stations/ work areas. It was a two-room office space. Randy and Rick worked on one side while Waki, and at the time, Eric Layton worked on in the other area. It just blew me away that people went to work in places like this.

After I graduated I moved with my wife to North Carolina, found a house and was able to officially join the studio. Randy had moved out of the physical studio to work at home and after some musical chairs I had my own corner of the studio space. I would typically go into the studio early and get right to work. Rick was there every day as well. We become quick friends, and I really enjoyed those years working up there with him. He really is a consummate professional, and became a mentor in a lot of ways. He’s been working as a comic inker for over 10 years and had a lot of advice from experience. I soaked it up and thoroughly enjoyed his company. Other artists were in and out a few times a week when they had time or weren’t working from home.

Tsunami Studios has been around for quite awhile, I believe even before 2000 there in Greensboro. Now there are 14 members around the country. Some live in NC other in Georgia, and I’m currently living in Illinois. We all keep in contact and have a mutual website. www.Tsunami-Studios.com.

The idea of an artist studio is both professional and social. As artists when we get work from editors, if asked if we know a penciler, inker or colorist who can step in and do a project, we look out for each other and suggest studio mates first. I’ve certainly gotten work through recommendations of other studio members and have used inkers in the studio on past and even current projects. Clayton Brown is a Tsunami-Studios member, and he is currently inking me on Forgotten Realms. I just finished an Iron Man story for Marvel that Rick Ketcham is inking now. So it gives a professional network to help provide work for each other.

Also, as a studio member, it’s just nice to have friends and colleagues in the industry that we can talk to and socialize with. For us not in the physical studio, I could call up any number of the studio members and chat and it helps not feel like a hermit locked away in my home studio without any art friends. You basically surround yourself with people who understand what it’s like to work in this industry; the joys and exciting moments that come with working in comics, along with the stress and frustration of the deadline work.

Now who were/are your major influences?

My artistic influences are constantly changing, as I discover new artists or come across things I like. Constant on that list are some obvious comic artists like: Adam Hughes, Carlos Pacheco, Jim Cheung, Neal Adams, Alan Davis. Then there are the more rotating artists that do things particularly well that I appreciate like: Yanick Paquette, Ed Benes, Brandon Peterson, Randy Green and etc… I could go on for hours. It’s interesting coming into the business at this time too because I see other artists breaking in within the last few years that I’ve met at cons or went to school with, and I see them succeeding. I appreciate their skills and always find I have something to learn from them as well. Artists like Ryan Ottley on Invincible, Khoi Pham on the upcoming Mighty Avengers, Sean Murphy doing covers for Marvel, Chris Lie’s a school buddy doing Drafted for Devil’s Due and so on.

What was your favorite comic growing up?

I’ve always been partial to Marvel comics. I was introduced to comics through X-Men, but I really started collecting comic during the beginnings of the Image boom. I grew up with the superhero books, and like most readers I branch out into more indie titles and enjoy both ends of the spectrum now.

When did it hit you that drawing was something you wanted to do as a career?

I would say, in High School I knew I wanted to draw for a living. It seemed the most prominent thing I liked to do and was excelling in. It wasn’t until my Sophomore year in college that I knew I could make a living in comics.

And what was your first published work?

I count Snake-Eyes Declassified as my first work considering it had a print run large enough that anyone could find it and see I worked on it. There were a lot of smaller projects or art assists before that, but definitely GI JOE work was the beginning.

Maybe this is a little too early to ask in your career, but what work are you most proud of so far?

Yeah, I really don’t feel like I’ve hit a stride yet. I think most artists are their harshest critics. Pretty much I’ll finish a page and am happy with it, and by the time I scanned it in I’m seeing things I could’ve done better.

I am excited about all the work I’m doing now, it’s all the most recent, so by default it’s probably the best work you’ll see from me to date. The pencils on Forgotten Realms has been a lot of fun, especially considering the change in genre.

Let’s talk about that for a second, explain how you got the Legacy project from Devil’s Due?

Well, there’s this guy named Mike O’Sullivan. He’s a great friend and astounding editor. I had been doing work with DDP since 2005, mostly fill-in issues and various covers. Last fall he called me up, and just asked if I’d be interested to come on as the regular artist on Forgotten Realms. I flipped. I had actually worked on Sojourn, Exiles, and Hafling’s Gem as an inker over Tim Seeley, so to get to pencil the book was exciting and familiar all at the same time.

I’d read the novels years ago, and reading through the scripts by Andrew Dabb really brought it back. He does a great job of condensing the material and doing the impossible job of pacing out a novel into 3 comics. I don’t know how he does it.

Have you met R.A Salvatore or gotten any feed back from him?

No, I’d read that when DDP first started the book with Tim Seeley, Salvatore was apprehensive, but once he saw the art and read through the adaptation was very pleasantly surprised. He thoroughly endorsed the book and has ever since as far as I know. I sincerely doubt he knows who I am though. Most people don’t, really.

Doing a book like Legacy is a lot of work with the heavy page count. How long did it take you to do the first issue?

I started the pages in late Nov. early Dec. 2007. So I came on with little to no lead-time. Luckily, there is a great art team on board that helps get the issue out on time with the coordination of Mike as the editor. Clayton Brown was right on my heels inking the pages as I turned them in. Wes really kept up as well and we were all able to turn it around. And both of them were able to keep a quality that really helped tell the story beautifully, even under pressure.

I was really feeling that page count around page 22 or 23. I was like, “man, shouldn’t I be done by now?”…but it just kept coming. I print out the script and do my thumbnails on it directly as I read through it. So as I finish drawing the comic page, I throw that page of script away. It helps me feel closer to being done as that enormous script starts dwindling down.

If you could work on any book, what would it be?

Captain America, Daredevil, or Nightwing. I like the characters that seem more human that super. They really interact with the people they protect, and you can focus on why they do what they do. I have always enjoyed drawing cityscapes and buildings in the background, so those characters really lend themselves to the rooftops.

What attracts you to books like Captain America and Daredevil? Is it the recent writer runs of Brubaker and Bendis, or something more?

While I’ve really enjoyed both of those writers, it’s more the essence of what the characters stand for. I think Brubaker is defiantly handling Cap in an amazing way, but Steve Rogers represented a genuine goodness, and I think that element is lost in the book now. I think these characters can be inspiring, that even when their life sucks, and even though they aren’t perfect people, they can go out and try to make the world better. There aren’t a lot of those types of role models in entertainment these days.

I also enjoy that they can’t fly or shoot energy blasts. They get tired, their muscles ache, they have to physically hop around buildings to get from one place to the next. Of course it would be impossible to do any of the things that even Daredevil or Captain America does, but still in comparison they are incredibly human, and still able to fight the good fight.

Well since we’re on the subject of great comic book writers, what comic writer would you really love to work with?

At this point in my career any writer who can tell a thought-provoking story using the characters I can enjoy. I’ve always loved superheroes, and what they represent. I like the visual aspect of placing fantastic characters in a representation of the real world. I would really like the opportunity to work with a writer and do a 6 issue story-arc that is a solid self-contained story that incorporates the things I’ve talked about.

What other projects do you have coming up?

Well, as I’ve been drawing Forgotten Realms I did a 16 page back-up story of Iron Man for Marvel. I’ve also started working with NBC as a rotating artist on the Heroes TV show’s online comic, and next month I’m doing an issue of Legion of Superheroes of the 31st Century for DC.

While working on all of this, I do my best to keep working on a co-created series called Elders of the RuneStone with my friend and writer Quinn Johnson (Tales of the TMNT). We went to school together at S.C.A.D. and we started up the RuneStone project. There is a preview on the website, and we are currently working on the first issue. We’ve got some movie interest in the works as well, which is incredibly exciting!

Come back tomorrow as we continue with Part 2 of our interview with Robert Atkins! See you then and be sure to catch Robert’s work on NBC’s “Heroes” comic book series, which debuts online today!