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¦ Features ¦ Charlie
Adlard interview part 2
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Codeflesh
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EB: So what
kind of tools do you use?
CA: Very basic
tools, funnily enough. Again, I hear from a lot of artists about all these tools
that they use; things that I just can’t get where I live. I haven’t
got access to a decent art shop, I’ve never had anyone advise me on what
to use, so I’ve had to kind of discover it for myself.
I inked with Rotring
pens for a long time and then I discovered a really nice fountain pen, an art
fountain pen which you draw with, so I do tend to ink with pens rather than brushes,
though I’ve got back into brushes with things like Savage and a bit on The
Walking Dead and Codeflesh, a thing I did with Joe Casey – that was primarily
brushes. But everything I use is kind of cheap and nasty! Probably goes against
everything other comic artists say I should be using.
I had quite a long
conversation with John M. Burns about equipment and he was singing the praises
of all these dip pens, but of course you have to go to London to get them. I find
I’m so busy at the moment that I just never get the chance to sit down and
play with stuff. So I’ll just stick to what I’m used to at the moment.
It might not be the best stuff out there, and I’m sure that there’s
stuff out there that I’d probably enjoy using more…
EB: But I suppose
it’s a case of ‘if it ain’t broke…’
CA: ‘…don’t
fix it’. It might be crap equipment, but I’m used to my crap equipment.
And I know its faults so I can sort of circumvent them, and carry on as I normally
do.
EB: Okay then.
So you were born in Shrewsbury, weren’t you?
CA: That’s
right, yes.
EB: In 1966?
CA: Yeess!
[Both laugh]
Which makes me
thirty-eight!
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Mildew
Manor for BBC online
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EB: So what was
your background like as a child then?
CA: Oh, my background
was incredibly middle-class and boring. I was an only child; I went to public
school, for my sins! We weren’t a very wealthy family, it’s just that
my dad was just quite a good businessman and he had the spare cash. And being
the only child, you get sort of lavished a bit more. My parents really encouraged
me to do whatever I wanted, which was really good of them,
I’ll always
be grateful to them for that.
My dad was a tobacconist by trade, and he owned property and all this sort of
stuff, but there was never any pressure to go into the ‘family business’
or anything like that. I never smoked, so there was an irony there!
EB: But they
were very supportive of you?
CA: Yes, very supportive.
They could see I had a talent: I think that they could see that it wasn’t
just ‘pissing in the wind’. I was drawing comics from a very early
age, from about five or six.
EB: So you started
very early then?
CA: One of my earliest
memories is of my dad coming back from work one day in 1972 – I remember
the year because that was the year the first issue of The Mighty World of Marvel
came out, the UK version – and he had it. I remember there was (wow!) TV
advertising for it. I remember seeing it on the telly and my dad coming in and
he had it. I remember he had it behind his back, it was like a big surprise, and
I was so excited because I think I’d seen the strips that they used to reprint
in – was it Pow!? Pow!, or some comic of similar name – Zap! or whatever.
I remember getting into those very early.
So from the age
of six I got into the superhero genre from that. And my dad enjoyed reading them
to me, even at that young age, because my dad actually kind of enjoyed the florid
Stan Lee language that they employed. My dad enjoyed reading what the Silver Surfer
said and things like that! So my parents actively encouraged my on that level,
and as soon as they could see that I was drawing comics and I was really into
that side of things, that they could obviously see that I was far in advance of
an average person in drawing. I think that they thought that “if he’s
got talent, you might as well nurture it”, because I certainly wasn’t
particularly talented at anything else!
[Both laugh]
At school I was
probably slightly below average intelligence. There were forms graded from F to
A – I was always in D or C! I was pretty rubbish at sport, my co-ordination
was appalling and it still is, so sport was definitely a no-no. It was the only
avenue out that I had, especially at public school where being good at something
is kind of essential – you weren’t allowed to be average at everything.
Thankfully I had art to excel at.
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Doctor
Doom Pin Up
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EB: So when
did you first realise that you had some talent that you enjoyed, in terms of artistic
ability?
CA: I think even
before I was ten I was probably saying “I want to be a comic book artist.
EB: So it was
always a comic book artist?
CA: Yeah, I was
aware that people do this, and that they obviously must get paid, and it’s
like a job – I must have been. But I just remember always wanting to do
that. I deviated when I became a teenager, but I think that as a typical teenager
you do – you suddenly find that the avenues that you could explore are kind
of endless. You want to put out more feelers and see what else you can do, because
I ended up going to study Film & Video at Maidstone.
Obviously that’s
not comic book – you can’t do comic art anywhere. I think if I’d
been that serious about doing comics then I’d have probably gone on to do
illustration or something at whatever art college.
And then I did
the whole ‘band thing’ [Charlie was the drummer in the band If],
as I was saying to you before, so there was that as well. But I came back to comics
after flirting with these other avenues, and realised that that was what I really
wanted to do. It was my calling!
[Both Laugh]
EB: So what
kind of comics were you reading as a kid? You said you were reading the Marvel
stuff…
CA: It was pretty
much Marvel comics, because those were the ones you could get regularly from your
local newsagent.
EB: Because
that was the start of the British reprints.
CA: I wasn’t
really going into the spinner racks and trying to find the old DC stuff. I was
always a Marvel boy rather than DC because you could get them regularly. So up
until my mid-teens I was just reading their reprints, and then I discovered that
you could mail-order the proper monthlies.
I also remember
really enjoying things like Asterix as well when I was young. I loved Asterix
– I still do. I mean Asterix is a classic of art – probably infinitely
better than most American comics you can get nowadays. What a transcendent comic
that is: appeals to both adults and children on two different levels. But primarily,
as a youth, that was it – just Marvel comics and Asterix.
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Spider-man
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EB: So what were
the early influences there – Kirby, Ditko?
CA: The first artist
I remember focusing on and actually thinking “I must buy more stuff by this
specific person” was Michael Golden.
I remember he did
The Micronauts - I think it was in the back of Star Wars Weekly. Golden was one
of the first people I remember using a lot of black. His stuff looked glorious
in black and white without colour, and black has obviously played a major role
in my artwork as well.
Golden was the
first person I latched onto as a youth, and I still love him, and every time he
appears it’s a joy to behold. He did that Wildstorm thing, The Tales of
Tessla Strong – it was a one-off with loads of really good artists. And
there was about four or five Golden pages and they were just absolutely blinding,
just phenomenal. The drawing was just amazing, and I thought “Why doesn’t
this guy do more stuff”? I mean his covers are really nice, but this guy
should be at the top rather than doing fill-in issues. I think he did Batgirl
or Batman, and he was inked by someone! And I just thought “…Awww”!
But this is still Michael Golden, and he’s still fantastic!
And then I got
into other artists…
EB: But that
was your first kind of ‘artistic love’.
CA: Yeah, he was
the guy who got me into looking out for artists specifically. I remember John
Buscema was another guy that I initially, looking at his Fantastic Four stuff,
thought “Ooh yes, I like this guy”. Kirby was someone who I came to
a bit later – working in the superhero genre, which I do, you’ve got
to site Kirby as an influence, and you can’t dismiss him no matter what.
Kirby is an influence on me – he’s got to be because the man virtually
single-handedly created the look of superhero comics today. So, indirectly, he’s
a big influence – he’s a big influence on all of us.
Will Eisner, god
rest his soul, was another guy that I sort of latched on to quite early as well,
again for his use of blacks.
EB: Was that
The Spirit stuff?
CA: Yeah, The Spirit
stuff. He was another guy I really got off on, and I was lucky enough to meet
him once. Gave him a copy of White Death!
[Both laugh]
And I got a quote
back, which we used on some advertising as well! I met him at San Diego once and
gave him a copy. It was an interesting reaction actually because, as everyone
says, like they say about Archie Goodwin – “what a nice guy”.
And he was, he was a true professional: he’d give you time.
I just tapped him
on the shoulder, and thankfully he wasn’t too busy. But I could see when
I introduced myself and handed him a copy, the look on his face was like “Oh,
here we go, something else”! Of course he’d never say anything like
this, the guy’s too much of a gentleman, but I remember him flicking through
it and his expression sort of changed to an “Oh, actually this ain’t
half-bad” sort of expression. Like a look of relief that “I get a
freebie that actually looks good!”, and he sent me a lovely quote saying
how good it was. I hope he did think it was good, he wasn’t just being polite!
No, of course it
was good! It was a bloody work of genius!
So it was really
nice to meet a hero, and I’d love to meet Michael Golden, but I get the
impression that he’s slightly insane. Well, it might be interesting!
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