An example of why I was interviewed.
2012 is off to a great start, as it began with me being interviewed by Playboy – or, more accurately, Playboy’s safe-for-work site, The Smoking Jacket. Reporter Melissa Bull asked me a few questions about illustrating Natalie Zina Walschots’s DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains and what it’s like to draw Galactus with no clothes on. Here’s a small sample:
The Smoking Jacket: Why are the dudes lounging around like this?
Me: Given that all the illustrations of male supervillains, I think it turns the whole male gaze of most comic books on its head (if that’s not too many mixed metaphors in one sentence). You go to comic conventions and there are all these pin-up drawings of female supervillains and female superheroes everywhere, and you just don’t see any male supervillain erotica. It’s wall to wall drawings of Catwoman and Harley Quinn in various states of undress, but nary a naked dude to be seen.
Comic readers are used to having their female characters overtly sexualized. Despite the spandex and bulging muscles, male characters just aren’t treated the same way by illustrators. At conventions, half the people who look at the calendars become really uncomfortable; the other half absolutely love them.
And yes, I do acknowledge that I am simultaneously drawing ‘naughty pictures’ of supervillains and writing kids’ books. It happens. I also acknowledge that most of the illustrations featured won’t appear in the finished book, but DOOM: Love Poems for Supervillains will still be over-the-top incredible.
Read the full interview at The Smoking Jacket.
