“So it was YOU!?”

Sorry I’m late with this week’s column.  As you probably know already, this has been one crazy week in the comic book industry.  News of Marvel/ Disney rocked the world for a while, and now news of Warner Brothers/ DC has hit just as hard.  I am not going to comment on any of that in this column though.   Not because I can’t, but because anything I say will be completely biased, as you can obviously tell that I am a company man.  Maybe somewhere down the road I will share my opinions on the subject, but I’ll leave that up to the media and fans.  My focus is always on my job!  I try to do the best I can to make the best comics we can.  As long as I can help produce some of the best looking, mistake free comics, I will remain happy.

With that said, going back to where I left off with my last column, I wanted to tell you a great story.  Last week, I talked about one of the best part of our job as a Pre-Press Artist here at DC Comics; that being the art corrections that we are called upon to make on a daily basis.  When doing art corrects, we, as artists ourselves, get to contribute directly to the artwork in a book, working over the penciller and inker.  We match the styles of the artist so as to make a flawless correction as if the original artist himself drew it.  One of things you may be asking yourself is, doesn’t the artist get mad that we changed his artwork?  This is a question that has come up various times throughout my career.    The first thing to realize when answering this question, is that once a freelance artist is hired as a work-for-hire, the work done for that client is owned by that client and can make any changes to said artwork.  When DC hires a freelance artist to pencil and/or ink a comic book, that artwork becomes property of DC for the purposes of publishing that artwork.  That means that DC can change or edit any story or drawing as much as they’d like.  Now that doesn’t mean that the artist has no rights here.  Far from it.  DC has been great in dealing with all their artists to keep the talent as happy as possible, and to give them as much creative freedom as possible.  They are only really edited for certain content, and most changes are at the behest of the writer himself, the editor, or sometimes, even the artist himself.  Also, this includes the returning of all original artwork to the artist.  All artwork that was sent in to DC was returned after the comic it was used for was printed.  This made it possible for artists to get back their work, and make it available for resale if they felt so inclined.  In other words, the artist still owns all his own artwork, but for the material that gets printed is all owned by DC.

A great example of this process, is a great story I have about the first time I meet the amazing Darwyn Cooke.  Years ago, he was hired to relaunch Catwoman at DC, starting with a new #1 issue.  I got a chance to work over him on Catwoman #2.  As I’ve explained the process of Production ‘back in the day’ in previous columns, I logged the book out of our drawer, and sat down to work on all the corrections that were needed by the editor and the proofreader.  I barely got to page two when I noticed that one of the corrections needed a lot of artwork redrawn and added.  The editor had asked that I draw multiple police cars throughout the entire issue!  This was a tough art correction for me.  I was and am still not very good at drawing cars.  Not only did I now have to draw a lot of cars, I had to do it in the style of the amazing Cooke.  After trying and failing at it for about 2 or 3 hours, I finally got something I was happy with.  Something that looked like a 1930’s police car that he would draw, which was the style he was going for in the book.  I proceeded to draw all these police cars (on correction tape, and photocopies of the original art – we never drew directly on the art), and carefully placed them into the book.  The editor approved the work, and the book was then scanned and colored, and eventually printed in the stores.  Darwyn Cooke drew that entire issue of Catwoman, but you probably didn’t know that it was me who drew in a lot of those police cars.  I was almost in a sense, his “background artist.”  Very cool, right?

Darwyn Cooke

Now we get to the part of the story where I met Darwyn for the first time.  I was introduced to him at a Wizard World Philly Con back in 2002.  He seemed like a great guy, and he shook my hand, and asked me how I was.  We got to talking for a bit, and he finally got around to asking me what it was I did exactly in the industry.  I replied with a “oh, I’m a Production Artist for DC Comics.”  He meet that with an “ok.  What does a Production Artist at DC do?”  I proceeded to explain to him all the things we do and how we make changes to the art and lettering depending on what the editor tells us to do.  I wasn’t sure if he really was following me all that well, because, much like my columns I write, I am not the best at explaining things.  So I told him about the time I actually got to work over his art on Catwoman #2.  I told him that his editor had me redraw, and add in all these tiny little, matchbox-looking 30’s police cars.  He perked up a bit, and still looking through his patented squinted eyes, said “oh, that was YOU who drew those for me in that issue?!”  I got real nervous then.  I prepared for the WORST.  I thought he was gonna ball me out, saying ‘how dare you change my art’, ‘I’ve been looking for the person who did that’, or the dreaded, ‘I can’t believe you made a correction over my work!  Why wasn’t I notified?’.  But none of those replies came.  He simply said, “Wow, I was wondering about those.  I knew I didn’t draw them.  Thank you for doing that.  I’m glad I didn’t have to go back in and draw all those.  Great work.”

I was so happy, excited and thrilled with that reply.  It made me fell like a million bucks.  That what I do for a living was actually helpful and complimented.  Here was one of the TOP artists in the field thanking me for helping correct an issue of his book, and add to his artwork.  We never do get credit in the books for any of the work we do as Pre-Press Artists, but I will always remember Darwyn’s compliments, and always use that as a reason I still love doing what I do for a living.  I get the chance to work over artist’s that I admire, love, and immolate everyday.  What other person can get to say that?  Not many, especially in today’s world.  That was such a wonderful night in my career, and I had a blast hanging out with him and a slew of other artists that night, that all treated me like a peer and someone who is just another piece to the puzzle in making comic books.  I still have that issue of Catwoman on my desk back home, and it will always be a favorite issue of mine for all time.

Next week, I have another story I would love to share about the first book I got to work on on my first day as a Production Artist, Superboy #89!  Let’s just say it did NOT go smoothly.  It also brings up a good topic in discussing, working with editors 101, and how they are your best friends, and your worst enemies.  Editors are basically the bullpen’s slaves and saviors.  I’ll explain more of what it means to work on the production side of comics and how we work so closely with the editors to make the corrections exactly to their specifications!

Until then, hope you enjoyed this weeks column, I’ll write you next week!

Corey