Will you buy the revamped Megazine? I already buy it - and will carry on doing so. It's a bit too pricey, no more Meg for me Yes, I'll start picking it up again I'll try one issue and see if it's improved. Nope, it's still not for me

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Home ¦ Features ¦ D'israeli Interview Part 4

PART 1

1st December 03 Back to part 3

As well as your own art, you also work as an inker and colourist, can you be as creative with another artists work, and is there anybody you have had a particularly good time working with?

Inking and colouring are a whole different ball-game from working on my own stuff. When I'm inking, I try to stay faithful to the intentions of the penciller. I'll usually talk to them about their work, and very often I go out and buy the same pens they use, to help get the same finish as they'd get. I tend to think it involves the same skills of creative imitation as restoration or forgery.
With colouring, there's usually more free rein, though I did talk quite extensively with Gary Erskine about what he wanted for Silencers (commissioned by Epic, 1994, published by Image, 2000).

When I was colouring for 2000AD there was no contact with the artists at all (except for Steve Yeowell, who I happen to know socially). With colouring someone else, I find it harder to stretch my wings and do something wild; I tend to run out of ideas more quickly. After two years of colouring for 2000AD, I was finding it hard to come up with anything new, though I think by now my batteries have recharged :-)

Sandman: The Kindly Ones

One of the great privileges of both inking and colouring is that you get to see other people's work from a new perspective. I learned a huge amount inking Marc Hempel on Sandman, because he'd been a great influence for me, and I'd really studied his work on Breathtaker, but when we came to work together I discovered his thought processes were completely different to what I'd expected. I'm still applying the lessons I learned from that.

Colouring afforded a different opportunity; 2000AD would sent me original art to scan for computer colouring, so I got to see originals by Cam Kennedy and Jesus Redondo! ( though I'm still burned that I missed Mike Mcmahon's last stint on Dredd) I worked on three Dredd stories by Cam Kennedy, and I hardly dared touch the artwork! From the point of view of analysis, being able to handle the originals is wonderful -different inking implements leave marks which reflect the light differently, or have different textures... dearie me, I'm starting to give the impression that I was some kind of art-pervert, locked in my room, stroking the boards and drooling gently... not that it's not true, I just don't want to give that impression :-)

The nicest experience was working on the last story that Jesus Redondo did for 2000AD (Missionary Man). Redondo uses this texture technique which I was never able to figure out as a kid, and to be honest, having seen the originals, I'm not much better off, though it did allow me to exclude some possibilities. (I suspect he forces ink through tissue paper in some way, if anyone's dying to know). The strip was in black & white, and I added grey tones, but was paid as a colourist, so I can make the proud boast that "I was a black & white colourist for Jesus!"

A Dredd Chess-piece (click to enlarge)

Oboy, here we go...

As I said earlier, I started reading comics with TV21 and Countdown, the last comics to use the old photogravure process. That meant I got to see colour work by Ron Embleton, Mike Noble and Frank Bellamy the way it was meant to be reproduced, though what really stood out was a strip called Countdown by John Burns. It was sort of chiaroscuro, but instead of solid blacks he was using slabs of bright acid colours; solarised comics. I remember seeing his "JMB" monogram on one of the pages and realising for the first time that somebody actually produced this stuff; he was the first artist I learned to identify. And now I get to be in the same comic as him! And his work craps all over mine!

When Countdown folded, I moved on to the first Marvel UK comics (Mighty World of Marvel and Spider Man Comics Weekly) so I was exposed to all that classic early stuff by Kirby, Ditko, John Buscema, John Romita, Gene Colan and John Severin, who seems mostly forgotten now, but who I really rate. I never really saw DC comics as a child.

Judge Dredd (click to enlarge)

Right now I'm working on my first Dredd, and that's refreshed my appreciation for the work of Mike McMahon and Carlos Ezquerra. I'd always thought of Kev O'Neill as a more direct influence, but when I really look at what I'm doing now, I realise there's a lot of McMahon in what I do, as there is in many artists of my generation. In many ways I think he was to British comics in the Seventies what Jack Kirby was to US comics in the Sixties. His many variations of Dredd are wonderful, of course, but I think actually his work on the first series of ABC Warriors is better, and the "Sky Boats" Slaine story is one of the truly great moments in British comic art. And the Last American is probably the best thing he ever did. I admire the way he never stopped developing, even though that evolution has made him less popular with fans these days.

Kev O'Neill has been a long-standing influence, from his work on Ro-Busters and ABC Warriors onwards. The Book three of Nemesis and the first book of Marshall Law are probably his finest hour for me, though I still enjoy his work (I love League of Extrordinary Gentlemen.)

Credit has to go to Carlos Ezquerra as the man who really created the 2000AD "look," though I think his all-time best work was on the early painted Strontium Dog stories for Starlord, when he was being given more time to work. The level of invention in those early strips is just amazing.

Judge Dredd sketch (click to enlarge)

And still so many things to recommend... I'd better stick to the more obscure stuff or we'll be here all night! France: Nicolas de Crecy, producer of mad painted colour work (his album Foligatto was reprinted in Heavy Metal in the early Nineties).

Spain: Miguel-Angel Prado, who produces wonderful painted-cartoony work - his detective stories ran in Heavy Metal in the late Eighties. Jose Munoz - I first found out about him through his influence on Ted McKeever. Beautiful deliberately-rough black & white line work. His and McKeever's influence was very strong in my work when I first started.

Italy: Sergio Toppi, whose amazingly rendered work is stronger on design than storytelling, but the swine can scorch your eyes out with his work in both colour and black & white. Ivo Milazzo, who is the second-greatest exponent of chiaroscuro in comics, second only to -
Argentina: The truly wonderful Alberto Brecchia, who didn't hit his stride until his sixties and kept inventing for the next twenty years. It was he who first came up with the style of painted comics popularised in the US by Bill Sienkiewicz, but he also devised a host of other styles and techniques, including painting on glass, monoprints and comics made from torn paper! Utterly brilliant, but since his Les Humanoides Associes edtions went out of print, murderously difficult to get hold of.

Canada: Chester Brown, whose Ed The Happy Clown makes David Lynch seem like Enid Blyton. Seth, whose fifties-style It's a Good Life if you Don't Weaken is as close to real literature as I've seen in comics.

US: Dan Clowes - of Eightball fame, now quite well known since the movie of Ghost World, though I prefer his twisted short humour strips. Dave Cooper - utterly beautiful art, utterly terrifying stories. Try "Dan & Larry" to start with, but be warned, it gets nastier from there!

Japan: Osamu Tezuka, (of the film Metropolis) - deceptively simple cartoony style but emotional depth, and the daddy of them all, Hiyao Miyazaki, whose rich and doom-laden Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is one of the truly great works of 20th Century comics. Miyazaki is also an animator (Princess Mononoke, My Neighbour Totorro) and his films are as world-class as his comics. Buy this man's stuff, then buy another copy to lend to your friends.

And of course I've stiil missed out Mike Mignola and Alex Toth and Enki Bilal and Jacques Tardi and Hugo Pratt and Arno and Dino Battaglia and all the other artists I'm going to kick myself for forgetting as soon as I've sent this off.

Thor

Only a small one - my ambitions tend more to inventing new things. Batman was on the list, and I'd still like another go at him; Judge Dredd I've wanted to do for years, and I'm just working on my first story now. I'm hoping I'll get the chance to do more.
Apart from that... I always joke that Superman would be good to have on my CV, though I can't see my style fitting with even an Elseworlds Superman book. Funnily, though I read lots of Marvel comics when I was little, I can't think of any marvel characters I'm desperate to draw. I've had several people say I'd do a good Dr. Strange, and Iron Man might be fun, if they'd let me do a retro "Golden Avenger" one.

Or writers you want to work with?

I'm assuming this omits writers I've already worked with... I really like what Robbie Morrison's being doing with Nikolai Dante, I'd like to work with him on something sometime. It would be nice to work again with Pat Mills and do a good job this time. Apart from that... Pete Milligan or Grant Morrison, if I'm allowed to fantasize.

How do you think the comic industry should evolve to survive in the coming years? What's the best and worst thing about working in comics.

Judge Karyn (click to enlarge)

The big challenge is to get comics out of the ghetto it's in at the moment, in the English speaking world at least. Here comics have circled the wagons around SF adventure and superheroes (both of which are honourable estates) but where are the comics for people who like reading Louis Lamour westerns, Karl Kessel WWII novels, Mills and Boon romances? There used to be such things, and there still are in the Italian and Japanese markets. The big problem is, how to get to there from here given already-overcrowded newsagents and bookshops. What worries me most is that there's no-one on the publishing side even addressing the problem.

Certainly the movement of comic-related material (much of what used to be the fan press and small press) onto the web shows a possible direction, given that you then cut an awful lot of production costs. But then how do you make money from the web? Creators like me cost an awful lot to maintain.

Best and worst things - best:
Being able to work on my own and have control of my time. If I want to take a three-hour lunch break every day and watch Godzilla films, stretched out on the sofa with the cat asleep on my chest, no-one gives a damn as long as I hit that deadline.

Best and worst things - worst:
Having to stay up till three am to hit that deadline because I took a three-hour lunch break to watch Godzilla films, stretched out on the sofa with the cat asleep on my chest.

A judge Sniper (click to enlarge)

I'm doing a twelve page Dredd for the Megazine: it's called Master Moves, it's by Gordon Rennie, and it's about a chess tournament (!). Dredd's one of the few character's I've always wanted to draw, so it's wonderful and terrifying in equal amounts! I also get to work with my friend Rob Szczerba, who's building me these amazing 3D spherical CGI chess boards to trace... so it looks as if I know how to draw all this really complicated stuff that I've not really got a clue how to draw.

Aside from that, well, I'm really not trying to be mysterious, but Ian and I are brewing up a couple of things, and until they're finalised and sold, I'm afraid I can't really talk about them...