I Read Comic Books discussion

It's time for another IRCB comic creator Q & A! Thank you so much Matt Horak for taking the time to talk with our group.

Matt is a comic book artist currently working on Marvel's The Punisher. You can check out The Punisher, Volume 2: End of the Line for $7.50 on Amazon Kindle. Matt did some of the artwork for it, and it is a decent jumping on point for this run.

If you're comfortable buying single issues though, we recommend that you pick up The Punisher Vol. 3 on ComiXology or at your local comic book shop. This arc is mostly Matt's work and is more self-contained. Unfortunately, the trade wont be out until 2018.

If you listened to our interview with Matt on the podcast, you know he also has a free online comic, Octo Skull, available at EarthQuaker Devices. The issue even includes an original soundtrack!

Matt will be answering your questions on this thread from October 1st-31st, 2017.

Like our BotM discussions, questions and answers here may contain full spoilers.

Hi everyone! I am here now so hit me with those Q's!

Hi Matt, thanks for taking our questions!

As an artist for a famous character like Punisher, which do you value more in your work: taking the art style somewhere original at the expense of possibly changing the character's "feel," or keeping the characters and settings as recognizable as possible at the expense of creative liberties/originality?

Hey Matt,

I was wondering, are there any creators out there that you would love to work with, and who are they? In addition, what creators (past and present) do you consider to be an inspiration or influence to your own work? I realize there might be some overlap there, but I just wanted to cover my bases.

Hi Matt,

Thank you for taking the time for this.
With all the advances in the Digital medium, do you prefer to work on analog or digital? if Digital, what do you use for your work?

Chris wrote: "Hi Matt, thanks for taking our questions!

As an artist for a famous character like Punisher, which do you value more in your work: taking the art style somewhere original at the expense of possibl..."

Overall I try to balance my take and the character's established look. Really that just comes down to what "feels" right to me. Everybody has an idea in mind of what a character should be. Unfortunately I think too many fans react negatively to surface details and don't give new approaches a chance.

Drawing the Punisher was kind of a unique case, since I was following Steve Dillon, one of the definitive Punisher artists, after his untimely passing. Dillon had drawn five pages of issue 7 and I drew the other 15. In this case I tried to lean into Dillon's style a bit for the sake of continuity, both in drawing and storytelling. I also found Steve Dillon's character designs for this run online and was instructed by editorial to draw him a bit leaner. As the run went on I sort of drifted more towards my own style.

Which by the time Frank gets back to New York at the end #12 it basically meant drawing a Romita Jr War Zone style Frank. In my mind it made sense because he was now home and could eat properly and work out etc. Plus I just wanted to draw him that way.

Great first question!

Nick wrote: "Hey Matt,

I was wondering, are there any creators out there that you would love to work with, and who are they? In addition, what creators (past and present) do you consider to be an inspiration ..."

Tons! I'll do quick list of influences from early to now and just say that I would love to work with any of them.

As a little kid my earliest influences were Ed Emberley and Lee Ames drawing books and Tintin, which first got me hyped about comics.

Then I just devoured everything, but my main guys were Art Adams, Michael Golden, and Mike Mignola.

Other loves are Ron Wilson on Marvel Two-in-One and Thing, Otomo, Moebius, and Kirby, Gaijin Studios, Lego, The Coen brothers, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Verhoeven, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, Brian Chippendale, Rob Liefeld, and on and on and on...

Daniel wrote: "Hi Matt,

Thank you for taking the time for this.
With all the advances in the Digital medium, do you prefer to work on analog or digital? if Digital, what do you use for your work?"

I do most of the actual drawing, layouts, pencils, and inks traditionally. I use Photoshop to blow up layouts, rearrange, and print out blueline pages. I also do some corrections, effects, and patches digitally.

I prefer real paper and ink for final work but the schedule makes me want utilize digital tools more in the process to speed things up.

Hi Matt,

First off, the immense and probably unforgiving task of taking over the Punisher title after Dillon's passing was one you handled amazingly well. As a fan of Steve Dillon, I could tell you worked hard to emulate his style and it definitely paid off.
Frank must be a fun (for lack of a better word) character to build a world around. --Are there any characters you would like to tackle or have done in the past that would be a "dream job" to work on?--

Hanson wrote: "Hi Matt,

First off, the immense and probably unforgiving task of taking over the Punisher title after Dillon's passing was one you handled amazingly well. As a fan of Steve Dillon, I could tell y..."

Sorry for the slow response, I must have missed this one.

There are a ton of characters I'd love to work with, and while I don't have a "dream job" per se, I would love to do something in the BPRD or Star Wars universes. I also am primarily a Marvel fan so there are a bunch of characters there I'd like to play with, like Venom, Cable, GotG and all the cosmic stuff, Magik, Colossus, vintage Logan Wolverine, Fantomex, Hulk, Thing, and most importantly, Madcap.

Matt wrote: "Hanson wrote: "Hi Matt,

First off, the immense and probably unforgiving task of taking over the Punisher title after Dillon's passing was one you handled amazingly well. As a fan of Steve Dillon,..."

Vintage Logan Wolverine. I love it.

Hey Matt,

Can you tell us about your creative process? Does it differ when doing work for Marvel, yourself, or commissions (if you do them)? What sort of output do you aim for?

I browsed through the stuff you have on your tumblr. There is some pretty awesome stuff on there. Loved the Prince sketch.

Thanks! My process is generally the same for any project but there are slight changes depending on the job.

I basically always start with sketches on paper, scan and manipulate in Photoshop, and print out non-photo blue lines to ink traditionally. With Marvel or with other writers, I get a script and do my layouts from that. With my own stuff, I usually am working straight to layouts without a "script" but keeping dialogue in mind. When drawing an issue I like to layout the entire issue all at once to get all the storytelling beats laid out in little 1"x2" "pages". I then re-do the layouts at about 4"x5" and refine the drawing, try to fix any mistakes, and overall improve the story. With any sequential story pages I try to draw from page one, panel one to the last page and panel without jumping around.

For a commission at a show I will rough out a pose on a separate sheet of paper before recreating it full size on bristol board. Covers or pin-ups I generally still do a sketch and then scan, blue, and print for inks.

Hi Matt,
It sounds like you're typically pretty methodical about how you approach a project, but are there any happy accidents that stand out to you in your work? Maybe you were working against a deadline so you had to improvise, or something just didn't end up going according to plan but ended up being really great?
Thanks for taking the time with us!
Tia

All the time! In fact that's one of the big reasons I still ink traditionally. There is an unpredictability to ink and paper that is some of the real fun of drawing.

Of course deadlines always force a bit of improvisation, but usually not in a good way. Making comics involves so many different moving parts... storytelling, set dressing, "acting", blocking, "camera" placement and on and on. I've found that the more opportunity there is to think things through and plan the better the comics tend to be, it least when working with an established character and company where the readers are expecting a certain type of story. On creator-owned stuff there is more room for flights of fancy, if just because the deadlines are often not so intense.

I am cleaning my studio and going through some pages right now. I'll keep an eye out for places where I improvised and try to share them here in the next few days.

Hi Matt,

I've always wondered what it's like to create art jointly in the comic book industry with pencilers, inkers, flatters, colorists, etc. It sounds like you do your own inks, but what is it like having someone else color your work? Have there been any times where you felt it really changed your art in a positive or negative way?

Thank you for answering our questions this month!
Kate

And that's our month! Thank you so much, Matt, for taking the time to answer our questions. It's been fascinating getting your behind the scenes insights and views. I will definitely be watching your work in the future.