As a gamer, I like to go up and look at people's faces and see how good of a job they did.
Jim Lee
Superman is the hardest character to draw. There are a couple of things that make him difficult. He's got a very simple costume and doesn't have the long cape like Batman. He's not a character that is necessarily always in shadow, and he doesn't have a mask.
There is the intent of the writer and the interpretation by the artist. What the writer intended and what the artist interprets is not a 1-to-1 translation. It's a crossing of ideas that generates the stories that you see in print.
Outside of my work as a comic book creator and co-publisher, I'm an avid gamer.
It's interesting - a lot of what you accomplish in your lifetime either as an individual or as a company is determined by other people. I mean, you can do interview after interview and defend a point of view, but more often than not, the collective kind of opinion will be the one viewed historically and taken as gospel.
Back in the '30s, '40s and '50s, you had clear-cut heroes, clear-cut supervillains. Today, you have more of a blend, more of a gray area between the two. You have the rise of the sympathetic villain and the rise of the antihero.
The way you challenge Superman is by having things happen very, very quickly in different places and then asking, 'Who does he save first? What powers must he use to save each person or stop each disaster?' That's one of the ways you make him interesting beyond the thematic and moral issues that make Superman.
Even today, a lot of the CGI you see in movies is so clean and crisp that it just looks fake. It's weird: the more advanced they get, the faker it looks.
When you have a Green Lantern mixing with a foil like Batman, you get scenes that are comic-book history. There's the epicness of it all.
Nick Cardy's work helped define some of the things we see in comics today and take for granted. He broke out of the mold in terms of covers and layout and created a truly interactive experience for the reader that directly points back to his time with the Eisner studio.
I tend not to look at my work after I've done it. In fact, the only time I typically get to review it is when the fans bring up comics at shows, and I kind of flip through it and be like, 'Oh, I remember doing this!'
The downside to becoming a doctor, I think, is it's a very long process; four years of medical school, three years of internship, two years of residency, umpteen years of specialization, and then finally you get to be what you have trained almost all your life for.
You can see how he changed on the surface. But at the core of it all, I think Superman has remained the same - a character with incredible powers but almost superhuman humility and restraint.
Bob Harras' personal and creative integrity is respected and renowned throughout the comic book industry. As an editor, he provides invaluable insight into storytelling and character.
Any time you change something classic or iconic, you're going to have some part of the fan base up in arms.
'The Dark Knight,' 'The Rocketeer' and definitely the first 'Superman' movie by Richard Donner are the best. I tend to be softer in my judgment about what's a bad movie - I don't think anyone intends to make a bad movie, and sometimes it just doesn't click for some reason.
'Watchmen' is a cornerstone of both DC Comics' publishing history and its future.
Creating and producing creative work, to me, those are all happy accidents.
The thing that weighs the most on how your final artwork turns out is the amount of time you have and the speed at which you can move.
Not everyone reads comics, although most people know the major superheroes, but the majority of people play video games.
One of the reasons I never had a problem handing over my characters to other creators is that I knew that they would add their own influences and takes on the characters and make them better for it.
Gene Colan was like no other artist of his generation. His ability to create dramatic, multi-valued tonal illustrations using straight India ink and board was unparalleled.
I like having pairs of characters to play off each other. I love drawing Batman, but he's more fun with Robin. Batman charges ahead, Robin jumps off the walls. It's fun showing that contrast.
I always figured Metropolis was north of New York, actually. Between New York and Boston, in my mind.
As a kid, I loved the whimsical Superman and Batman stuff, and as a teenager, Marvel was more angsty, and that appealed to me. Marvel dealt with more stuff I could relate to as a teenager.
One of the key characteristics of the comic book medium is that it is not brought to life by just one voice.
Jerry Robinson illustrated some of the defining images of pop culture's greatest icons. As an artist myself, it's impossible not to feel humbled by his body of work. Everyone who loves comics owes Jerry a debt of gratitude for the rich legacy that he leaves behind.
I like a lot of modern art. I like Chuck Close a lot. It doesn't necessarily directly influence the work I draw on the page.
I don't buy comics anymore, for the most part. I eat my lunch off of them.
Once I started down the path of co-founding Image Comics, and even co-publisher, it just seems a lot more like a career path that isn't that atypical for someone with a college degree. Whereas, someone who draws comic books as a freelancer and lives from job to job is a more unusual story.
There was something special and unique about the love triangle that existed between Clark Kent, Superman and Lois Lane.
I think there's a responsibility of the publisher, of the company, to make sure the staple books that have been around for decades come out in a timely manner.
Al Plastino helped redefine Superman in the 1950s. His work on 'Superman's Girlfriend,' 'Lois Lane,' 'Adventure Comics' and pretty much any title in the Superman family will be fondly remembered for years to come. He will be missed.
Wonder Woman is a lot of fun to draw.
Whether it be in comics, games or film, you can trace the art direction and influences back to some earlier, real-life historic period or artistic movement.
'The Authority,' by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, really pioneered the widescreen, action-packed style of storytelling.
Many in the creative professions were nerds in their pasts because they spent so long reading comics and using their imaginations when they were growing up.
Part of running DC Comics is that it's much larger than Image Comics is, or was. There's a challenge to being one of the industry leaders in that everything you do is scrutinized and watched.
I love the fact that I get something new to do almost every day and have new challenges.
In the '50s, a lot of stories were built around radiation and the proliferation of new technology. In the '70s, there were a lot of stories that dealt with the Vietnam War. So comic books have always been a reflection of the times we live in.
I try to do a lot of asymmetrical, triangular compositions - I find those work really well for comic book covers in that portrait mode, and I don't always see that in other artists.
Most video games, you build up toward the big, bad boss. And it's just a bigger, more powerful version of what you've been fighting all along in the game.
I rarely draw myself, in general, and if I do, I tend to do little cute manga-esque, almost bite-sized drawings of myself.
From 'The Sandman' and 'Black Orchid' to 'Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?,' Neil Gaiman has provided some of the most memorable stories of the comic book industry.
Prior to 'Action' and 'Justice League 1,' there was no label 'superhero' for a superpowered being. It's really the emergence of Superman and the Justice League that gets the public comfortable with the idea of people amongst us who have extraordinary power and that they've agreed to be our champions.
Costumes are all about identifying which force in a conflict you're on. That's where banners and flags came from - so people rushing into battle knew who to follow and who was on their side.
I certainly wouldn't buy a DVD series of a hit show and start at Season 7. I would want to go back and start from the beginning.
As an artist, as I design and lay out a page, the less-important things, things I want you to spend less time looking at, I draw them very small, maybe even silhouette them. The more-important pivotal scenes, I draw them larger, maybe even a double-page spread.
At DC Comics, it has been a top priority that DC forges a meaningful, forward-looking digital strategy.
The great thing about having digital comics is that it is like having a comic-book shop on your digital device. It has turned comics from a destination buy to an impulse buy.
