5 Questions for... Mike Wieringo

[Local Hero]

Posted 06/08/2004
Source Newsarama

Mike Wieringo -- One of the few new superhero artists to catch my eye in the 1990s was Mike Wieringo. His take on The Flash with writer Mark Waid was one of the highlights of the decade, and remains a prime example of how to do superhero funnybooks, with wit, energy and a surprise around every corner.

Waid and Wieringo have been back for some time now, reteamed on Marvel's Fantastic Four (despite the best efforts of Bill Jemas, who finally seemed to have done himself in trying to oust them from the book) and creating the most exciting and enjoyable run on the book since John Byrne's stellar 1980s effort. What both Byrne and Waid and Ringo's runs have in common is an obvious love and respect for the Lee and Kirby template without a slavish devotion to imitation.

I just re-read Waid and Wieringo's initial FF issues in the recently released Fantastic Four Vol. 1 hardcover, and man, that book is packed with fun superhero comics. If you're looking for an action-packed Marvel title with intelligence and gorgeous artwork, it's well worth your thirty bucks or so to pick it up. In the back you'll also find a bunch of Ringo sketches, and you can find tons more of those (and Ringo's blog, to boot!) at Mike's website. But before you head over there, check out his answers to the Five Questions. Thanks, Mike, for playing along! And thanks as always to Matt Brady for letting me and the 5Q call Newsarama home.

Alan David Doane: Your style seems so natural, and it looks like you have a genuine love of drawing; there's a joy that comes through that I see in few other superhero artists. Tell me how you became a comics artist.

Mike Wieringo: I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. I was the proverbial kid who was always drawing in the margins of his notebook at every opportunity. Often at in-opportune times, as I was always being caught drawing when I should have been taking notes or practicing my handwriting or whatever it is that gradeschool kids are supposed to do in class. So when I was exposed to comics for the first time, it opened a whole new world for me and I immediately wanted to draw my own comics. Like most young kids I made up my own adventures about my favorite characters and also made up my own "knock off versions" of those characters. That grew into a serious desire to make a try at becoming a comic book artist.

I got a degree in illustration and started working on samples to take to shows after I graduated from college. I spent the summer of '91 working on those samples and went to the San Diego Comicon in 1991 and 1992. Fortunately after getting in various editors faces at that show and following up with more samples in the mail after I had established a connection with those editors, I got a call from Ruben Diaz, who was at the time Brian Augustyn's assistant editor at DC. They offered me some Justice League short stories that led into me being offered The Flash as an ongoing assignment. I did a Doc Savage miniseries for a small company before all that, but I don't want to bore people with a dry, detailed account of my various dips into comics art before getting regular work.

ADD: How did you get the initial Flash gig and what did you learn in your time on that book?

MW: As I said, I took my portfolio full of samples out to the Comicon in San Diego in '91 and '92 and stood in long (looooonnnnng) lines to show my wares to as many editorial folks as I could. It was pretty arduous, because it was -- I think -- at the height of the "boom" in comics sales, and I'd be willing to bet that for every 10 people there, 8 of them were there to show portfolios and try to get work in comics. One of the editors I met at San Diego was Neal Pozner, who was in charge of looking for new talent for DC at the time. He was a really stern and honest person -- but also very nurturing and encouraging (which, I suppose, were the qualities that made him right for his job). He was honest about what I needed to improve on, but over the course of a couple of years, he kept urging me to work up new samples and send them in. He would always respond quickly with handwritten notes -- and even got to the point of calling me occasionally to tell me that he was trying to get my work under the noses of the folks who could hand out the jobs. Ironically, just as I had gotten to the point where I was so discouraged because nothing substantial had come my way in a couple of years that I was about ready to give up my "quest," is when Ruben Diaz called after Neal had shoved my samples in his face.

My gig on The Flash was a crash course on what it's really like to work in the comics biz. The couple of Justice League Quarterly short stories I'd done before Flash had a rather open deadline -- but when I was thrown into the deep end of the pool with a monthly assignment, it was sink or swim. And there were many times when I thought I would end up sinking. It taught me that to work on a monthly assignment, I would have to virtually dedicate my life to sitting at the drawing table. The days of 40-hours-per-week at a "day job" were over -- it was 12-16 hour days 7 days per week to get the job done. It certainly was an eye opener. It also taught me that no matter how many different types of things that my imagination could think of to draw for myself or for samples, that a writer could always throw something in that was completely unexpected -- something I'd never had to draw or even thought about drawing. And I can still count on Mark Waid for that even to this day -- some 12 years later...!

ADD: You've drawn the straight-up superheroics of the Flash, the science-fiction-based Fantastic Four, and the fantasy of Tellos, among others. What do you think are your greatest strengths as an artist?

MW: I think that the greatest strength that I bring to the table is that I feel my work is open and accessible to people. I have, I suppose, a "friendly" style of drawing that people can connect with -- and could be described as an "all ages" kind of look. I've always wanted to be an actor, but I don't have the looks for it -- so I try to infuse my work with as much of the appropriate drama or comedy or tragedy that's called for without going over the top. And I concentrate on trying to depict natural body language with whatever's happening in the scene I'm drawing. I guess what it comes down to is that I'm very interested in characters over drawing action, locations or props. I think when it comes to science fiction, the techno-props are my weak point (which is ironic for someone who's working on a science based comic book) -- so I try to concentrate on the characters themselves to make up for my weaknesses.

ADD: When you and Mark Waid left Fantastic Four during the Jemas era, it seemed like yet another case of a corporate comics company screwing its creators; but Marvel reversed its decision and the pair of you somehow remained on the book. In my opinion it got even better after that incident. How do you look back on that time, and what lessons do you think the industry and your fellow creators should take from it?

MW: I got pretty angry over the whole situation at first when Bill Jemas decided to go in a completely different direction with Fantastic Four last year. But after thinking about it for a while, I realized that the characters belong to Marvel -- and at the time, Bill Jemas was Marvel, essentially -- and so whatever he wanted was what was going to happen. And I don't think that the internet furor that happened in the wake of Mark's removal had much effect on our return. I think it was more that with the success that Marvel has been having in Hollywood and all the money and added attention/scrutiny that it's bringing to the company, Bill Jemas's "risk taking" style of helming the company made the higher ups uncomfortable and they removed Jemas from his position of power and started guiding the company back in a more conservative direction. The kinds of stories that Mark and I were doing fall into the "mainstream superhero" mode, and so I think it made sense to continue in that vein-- so they brought us back.

I look back at that time as simply an odd one for me. It was kind of fun having a 4 month "vacation" from the grind of drawing comics ever day all day long -- but on the other hand, it was an unpaid "vacation." I don't think that there's much the industry can learn from the situation -- but I think that creators should learn and plan their careers keeping in mind that the neither Marvel nor DC have our best interests in mind. They're in the business of making money, and they will do whatever they feel is necessary to do that without regard to any individual creator. So it behooves everyone in the creative community to make themselves as independent from the whims of the majors as they can. It's not something that I can say that I've done myself, unfortunately. But after working full time as a comic book artist for around 12 years, I've seen too many creators getting tossed to the side at the drop of a hat. It could be anything -- an editor's whim, a change in editorial teams - who usually bring in their own favorites to a book they're taking over, an artist's style simply falling out of favor -- no longer "hot," a creator having fewer and fewer editorial connections to the point that they're "frozen out" of the business...it's any number of reasons. So ALL creators should do what they can to build their own financial legacy to carry them into the future. It's the only way to feel safe in such a volatile situation as we find ourselves in - especially in the present market.

Now if I'll just take my own advice....!

ADD: Your work at Marvel and DC has been for the most part strongly grounded in the traditions of those two comics companies. Are you content working in that mode? If you were to branch off into other areas, say more creator-owned stuff, what would you see yourself attempting in the future?

MW: I would love to explore as many avenues and types of stories that my creative energies and abilities would allow me to. I'd love to work in any number of genres and story concepts. I'm very interested in doing western, romance, comedy, historical fiction and many others. Comic books are in incredible medium that are open to so much -- there's just so many possibilities in comics. I think that the creative burst of projects that happened in the 1980s with the emergence of publishers like Eclipse, First, Comico, and many others that fell by the wayside is a glimpse of the kind of things that were possible in comics -- a hint of the possibilities that for the most part have gone sadly unfulfilled. There are some exciting small publishers that are carrying on the torch, like Fantagraphics, Drawn and Quarterly, Oni, Top Shelf and others -- but unfortunately the present market isn't all that friendly to the material they offer. It's virtually a superhero monopoly in what sells these days. It would be wonderful if a wider variety of material excited the remaining comics fans these days like the X-Men, Spider-Man and the Ultimate.

Alan David Doane is a broadcast journalist of nearly two decades and has written about comics online since 1999. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Comic Book Galaxy, and he has also written for The Comics Journal. His Five Questions feature appears monthly at Newsarama.com