GUY DAVISM O D E R N M A S T E R S V O L U M E T W E N T Y - F O U R :

By Eric Nolen-Weathington

Table of Contents

Introduction by Stan Sakai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Part One: “It Was Always Art That I Went Back To” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Part Two: Entering a Realm of Possibilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Part Three: A Night Out at the Mystery Theater. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Part Four: Guy Gets More Adventurous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Part Five: Frog, Zombies, and Other Assorted Pests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Part Six: Storytelling and the Creative Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Art Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Modern Masters Volume Twenty-Four:

GUY DAVIS

MODERN MASTERS: You were born in November of1966 in Michigan.

GUY DAVIS: Yes.

MM: What did your parents do for a living?

GD: My dad was a veterinarian, and my mom helpedhim. They had their own business, and it was kind of afamily affair; all the kids worked with him for ourallowances. We would clean dog cages, put labels on pillbottles—things like that.

MM: So you had brothers and sisters?

GD: One broth-er, one sister—both older. I wasthe baby of thefamily.

MM: Being theyoungest, wereyou doted on?

GD: Oh, I’m sureI was. [laughter] Igot into the usualsibling fights, butit was nothingbad at all. But I’msure I was thespoiled brat ofthe family. It’shard to be objec-tive, because I like to think I’m an angel. [laughter]

MM: Your father painted and sculpted as a hobby. Is thathow you became interested in art, through watching him?

GD: Probably, or just through being encouraged. Hedid it as a hobby—oil painting and things like that—sowhen they saw me scribbling they would supply mewith old papers from the clinic and typewriter paper,and I would keep drawing and scribbling. They savedeverything, as parents do. They were always veryencouraging. I remember my father tried to teach mehow to paint, as far as the tools and what colors to laydown, but I could never wrap my head around that.

MM: How young were you when he started instructingyou on the basics?

GD: The youngest I remember was trying to learn it injunior high. I was probably taking an art class atschool—very basic stuff. He was trying to teach me withoils, and I didn’t have the patience for it. “These oilsnever dry.” I was ready to move on to the next step, and Iwasn’t interested in waiting around. I enjoyed drawing,and I played with those Prismacolor pencils as a kid, butthat was the extent of any coloring I wanted to do.

MM: You experimented with other mediums, but youstuck mainly with a pencil and pen.

GD: Yeah, prettymuch. I did otherthings as a kid. Ibuilt lots of mod-els and scratch-built spaceshipsand weird thingsout of householdobjects and hungthem up. For awhile when I wasyounger Ithought, “That’swhat I want to dowhen I get older,”but it was one ofthose things thatdidn’t carry on. Idid Super-8 stop-

animation movies when I was young, too. Again, “That’swhat I want to do.” But it was always art that I wentback to.

MM:Were you using clay models for your stop-animation?

GD: Yeah. I forget what I had seen on TV—I’m sure itwas a Harryhausen film.

MM: The Sinbad movies were shown on TV fairly regu-larly during the ’70s.

GD: Oh, yeah. This was before cable, but in Michiganwe get lots of Canadian channels, which show a lot of

Part 1: “It Was Always ArtThat I Went Back To”

6

British and French stuff. There was a showcalled Vision On which was made for deafchildren, so there was no dialogue. Theywould show this group of people doingthings, like drawing, painting or makingsomething—it was more elaborate thanthat, but all just by showing them doing it.They always had skits and stop-animationwith clay at some point in the show, and Ithink that stuck in my mind. “I’m notgoing to be able to do fighting skeletonslike Harryhausen, but I can mold someclay and move it around one bit at a time.”

That’s when I got the old Super-8 cam-era. There was no plot to these things atall. It would just be a clay monster movingfrom left to right, but when you’re a kid it’slike, “It’s alive! I made this thing move!” Itwas just for fun. I’m sure I learned more asI went along, and I looked into workingwith armature with ball-pean joints, butthat was too advanced, and then I lostinterest in it and went back to sketching.

MM: I imagine with your dad’s interest inart there were probably a lot of art booksaround the house. Did you have any inter-est in those books as a kid?

GD: I always looked at them as a kid,because they were picture books. I wasvery young when I started looking at thoseand National Geographic—which, as a kid,were interesting because they had naked

people in them. So did the art books. But Ialways liked looking at Bruegel and Goyaand some Bosch, mainly because they hadthose scenes of Hell or scenes with tons ofthings going on. I just loved staring themand saying, “Oh, there’s someone in thebackground being torn apart. There’ssomeone over here being eaten by a bird.”It was like a seek-and-find of Hell.

MM: Did you have any like-mindedfriends at school—kids who shared yourinterests?

GD: I was part of the geek group—the sci-fi nerds. We all hung out and talked embar-rassingly about movies and stuff. Some ofthem were artists, and later on in highschool I hung out more with that crowd.But even with the art group, I was wantingto draw monsters and comics, and most ofthem were wanting to either draw flowersand landscapes or do technical design—things like drawing cars for advertisements.

MM: You actually drew a strip for yourtown’s local newspaper.

GD: I’m sure my father had a hand in get-ting it in there and promoting it. He knewthe people at the paper. I had done thisreally awful comic strip called Quonto of theStar Corps, which is this little alien guy—because I could not draw people at all. Iwanted to, but I just couldn’t wrap my

Previous Page: As ateenager, Guy didn’t limithimself to a school news-paper, he went straightto the big time. Guy hadjust recently turned 15when this Quonto of theStar Corps was publishedin his hometown’s localnewspaper. Left: In this earlier strip,our hero gets draftedinto the Star Corps,hence the title of thestrip.

Quonto of the Star Corps ™and ©2010 Guy Davis.

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Part 2: Entering a Realm of Possibilities

MM: How did you first get involved with fanzines? Wasthere a local group?

GD: There would be a comics show at one of the VFWHalls every weekend, and I would go there looking forcomics and old monster magazines. This was around grad-uation or the year after. In my senior year I was readingmore comics—Judge Dredd and things like that. At one ofthe shows I came across the people who put out FantasticFanzine, which later became Arrow Comics. They had atable set up, and I looked through their fanzine. It was allself-done, but it looked fun. I started small-talk-ing with them, and they mentioned that if Ihad any art to go ahead and send them somesamples and they’d see what they thought. Iwent home and mailed some xeroxes offthe next day—or maybe I brought somedrawings to the next show. But they saidthat if I had a story idea, they would run it.

It was kind of like being back at thelocal paper. At first I don’t know thatthey really wanted me so much as,“If you come up with two pages ofstory, that’s two pages we can fill.”But they were always reallyencouraging when I starteddoing the comics with them.

MM: How often did theypublish? Did they keep aregular schedule?

GD: Not really. It wasmaybe quarterly. I wasdoing four to six pagesquarterly for them. Idid some other stuff,too. I did a veryshort story forthis book calledWhispers andShadows. I forgetwho the pub-lisher was. Theydidn’t like it, butthey printed itanyway. [laughter]

They said, “There’s too much Japanese animation goingon in your style,” which was a big influence on my earlywork. It was a story I wrote and drew in the EC style. Itwas pretty awful, so I can’t fault them for not liking it.

MM: What was it about the anime you saw that grabbedyour attention and influenced your art?

GD: The first thing that grabbed me was on a French-Canadian station we picked up, and that was Albator,which was the French translation of Captain Harlock. At firstI though it was a French cartoon, and I was really struckby it, because it was more adult in tone—even though Icouldn’t understand what they were saying—than Kimba orSpeed Racer. Growing up I didn’t realize those wereJapanese either, but I liked them and Gigantor and MarineBoy. But it wasn’t anything where in my head I said,

“Wow, I really enjoy the look of the art.”Captain Harlock was the first of those

that sparked my imagination and drew meinto liking that style. And grow-ing up as an arcade kid,Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace—the Don Bluth videogames—they never reallyworked right, but theywere fun to watch. Iloved his angular style,and that seeped into my

early animation style, too.

MM: How long did youwork in fanzines beforeyou started getting pro-fessional work?

GD: They did six toten issues ofFantastic Fanzine,and with the last

issue they said,“Whatever you’redoing with Quonto,just wrap it up.”They wanted to

branch out and starttheir own comic compa-

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ny. This was just before the big black-&-white boom. They wanted to do a fantasybook, because they were both—RalphGriffith and Stu Kerr—into gaming. Theyhad somebody who had drawn the firstissue of The Realm, but he backed out anddidn’t want to do any more. Since I was atleast producing the work, and they likedmy style well enough, they said, “Let’s seewhat you can do with The Realm,” and theyhad me redraw the entire first issue.Besides the Whispers and Shadows thing, thiswas really my first ongoing professionaljob, and it happened basically becausesomeone else didn’t want to do it.

They weren’t that crazy about my style,but it didn’t kill the book. I had this weirdway of drawing noses at the time, whichlooking back doesn’t make any sense to meat all. Everybody said, “It looks like a bentpaperclip.” I’d be like, “No, you don’tunderstand! It’s Japanese animation!” Evenby Japanese animation standards, it’swrong. I don’t know what I was doing. Itdid look like a bent paperclip, but I wasjust pig-headed. [laughter]

MM: By that point, were you using thecorrect tools and paper?

GD: Yes. Well, I was using too hard a lead,and I wasn’t inking it, because at that pointI was of the mindset that comics weredone with one person doing the pencilingand one person doing the inking—“Nobody does it all themselves.” They hadgotten an inker for my Quonto stuff,because I wasn’t even inking myself for thefanzine, and that just carried over to The

Realm. I was always butting heads with theinker. He was such a pain in the ass,because he wasn’t inking it the way I want-ed it to look. He was like, “This is me

Previous Page andLeft: More model sheetsfor The Realm: the villainof the book, LordDarkoth; and Diggorussthe dwarf. Two guesseswhich one is which.Below: 1988 pin-up artfor The Realm, featuringthe entire main cast.

The Realm and all related characters ™ and ©2010 GaryReed.

expressing my work.” “You’re making mywork look like crap, though.” [laughter] Iwas always fighting with him.

Eventually, half-way through The Realm,I ran into Sandy Schreiber, an artist whowas doing fantasy conventions—I would goto fantasy conventions to show my Realmart, as well as being there as a fan—and Iapproached her because I liked her color-ing work. At first she started coloring cov-ers for The Realm, but after time I said, “Let’ssee how you ink it, too, because I reallywant to get rid of my current inker.” [laugh-ter] I talked Ralph and Stu into letting mehire her to ink it, because it was closer towhat I wanted for the finished look.Looking back it sounds awful and preten-tious. I look at how rough my art was, andat the time I was saying, “No, it has to look

this way!” My art was so flawed and rough,but it was the wrong inking style for it.The first inker was big into Terry Austin,and he was just adding stuff that wasn’tmaking it look like a Japanese cartoon,which is what I wanted it to look like.

MM: You said you were going to fantasyconventions. Were you still going tocomic conventions, as well?

GD: Mostly science fiction/fantasy. I neverwent to comic conventions outside of thoseVFW Hall shows. During The Realm, I wasstill attending those. When I was promot-ing it more during the black-&-white glutwhen sales were going crazy for anythinganybody did—everybody was looking forthe next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—westarted doing Chicago Comic-Con, and Iwould drive with them to shows in NewYork and other places. Before that it wasjust the Creation Conventions for funthough. They used to always come thisway into Michigan, and looking back put-ting names to faces, I used to see BobSchreck at those shows all the time.

MM: Would you try to make contacts withother publishers at the conventions? Didyou have any interest in trying to get inwith Marvel or DC at that point?

GD: At the beginning, probably not,because there was nothing there that I waswanting to do. It’s not like I was wanting todraw Spider-Man. I was happy drawing myown stories with The Realm, where I wasdesigning the characters and drawing themthe way I wanted. And I was making goodmoney. During the glut, sales were at 40,000for this small comic, so everything seemedfine. “It will never end.” [laughter] The fol-lowing year, it was like, “Boy, was I wrong.”

When everything crashed, I tried tobranch out more and do some sort of work-for-hire. I did a short Speed Racer story and acouple of Ghostbusters posters for NowComics. But I couldn’t get regular work. Iwould stand in those long lines at comicshows to show my portfolio. A lot of themsaid, “This Japanese animation stuff,nobody wants to look at that.” Back thenthey didn’t like it. Now it’s all over theplace. They would always ask, “Why areyou drawing like that?” like I had a disease

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Below: You can definitely see the animeinfluence in this pagefrom The Realm.Next Page: Guy took adecidedly more realisticturn in this cover for areprint issue of TheRealm published byCaliber.

The Realm and all related characters ™ and ©2010 GaryReed.

MM: Why did Baker Street end with issue #10?

GD: That was the end of the second storyline. It was setup to be continued, but around that time I was contactedby Matt Wagner, who was a fan of Baker Street. It was veryflattering, because I really loved Mage and Grendel. I thinkthe first thing I did was a pin-up for him for the Grendel:Devil by the Deed collection. He wanted me to do a pictureof Argent and Grendel, and I said, “Oh, sure. I’d love to.”

Then he was contacted by Vertigo, which was just start-ing out. They were revamping a lot of DC’s stock charac-ters. They had just had their hit with Sandman, and I thinktheir thinking was, “Now let’s use these other characters. Weneed to renew the copyrights, so let’s see if we can getsomething new going.” Mattasked me to think of differ-ent characters and make alist of the ones I might likedrawing. I went to Gary’sshop and dragged outthe DC Who’s Whoissues. I wanted some-thing that was likethe Green Hornet—apulp character. I did-n’t want anythingwith muscles, becauseI didn’t really likesuper-heroes. There’snothing wrong withthem, it’s just not agenre I ever liked.

I came across acouple I liked. Onewas Dr. Mid-Nite,and I thought I coulddo something withhim. Then I saw theGolden Age Sandman,and I liked that. Hehad this weird mask, and I could imagine, “We can getrid of the cape and put him in a trenchcoat and a real gasmask.” I put him on the list and a couple of others I can’tremember. I sent the list to Matt and said, “I’d like to dothe Golden Age Sandman with a real gas mask. Weprobably can’t though, because of the Neil GaimanSandman.” But Matt’s smarter than me. [laughter] He saw

that, “We could tie this in to Neil’s Sandman, and thiswould be a retelling of the old Sandman. Then they’dhave two Sandman series.” And that’s what they went for.They saw a way of tying in to the Neil Gaiman Sandman,and they went with Sandman Mystery Theater. We wentthrough a bunch of different names. I was sending themsome logo designs for Sandman Chronicles and differentthings that made it sound like an old radio show. Mattthought up Sandman Mystery Theater, and that was greatbecause it had the sound of an old-time radio show.

Once that was done, Mattput me in contact withKaren Berger, and theywanted my take on theredesign of the charac-ters. I did three giantcharacter sheets. Onewas Wes and Dian,with the Sandman out-fit complete with a realgas mask. One was ofthe Phantom of theFair, because I thoughtthat was going to bethe first storyline sincethe first Sandmancomic I looked at wasthe Roy Thomas’Phantom of the Fairstory in All-StarSquadron. I made thePhantom some obscenebondage/fetish guy.The original Phantomwas just in spandex, butI looked at it and said,“You know, there’s a lot

of that going on aroundthat time period.” In between

working on issues of Baker Street I had been doing fetish illosand sending them off to places looking for work, so I had aton of reference. “Let’s make him a pervert. That’s darkerthan what they would normally do at DC.” [laughter] And Idesigned the gas gun. I sent that all to Matt and Karen, andthey liked it. They bought the designs—I had to sign awork-for-hire form—and started working on the book.

Part 3: A Night Out at theMystery Theater

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It seemed like it took a long time to getthings going, because I was in pretty roughshape at that point trying to make endsmeet. I was like, “When’s it going to start?”The numbers they were telling me I’d begetting for doing the pencils and inks, Iwas like, “How much do I get for doingthis?” I was fine with working work-for-hire, because I understood going into itthat you’re getting paid to do an artist’s jobthe same as if I was designing Pringlespackages—but it was a lot more fun.

MM: You said you did the designs for theseries, but you were originally only meantto be one of two or three rotating artists onthe series. Did you think the money youmade once every two or three monthswould be enough to make it on, or wereyou just grabbing onto anything you could?

GD:My thinking at the time when theywere doing the rotating of artists was that Iwould do my four issues of Sandman Mystery

Theater and then I would jump back on BakerStreet. I was thinking, “Oh, I’ll have time, andthe money I make from Sandman MysteryTheater will help keep me going on BakerStreet.” I came up with a couple of other ideasI wanted to do as a one-shot comic, too. Iwas really feeling inspired then, because Ifelt I was becoming successful. It’s one thingto make a living as an artist, and it’s anotherthing to make a comfortable living as an artist.

I started doing some design work forthe next Baker Street storyline. Baker Streethad a planned ending; it was never sup-posed to be ongoing. It’s all plotted out, soI knew what I had to do for the next part.But they knew early on that I would becoming back to Mystery Theater sooner thanoriginally planned and that I would bedrawing the book more frequently thanthe other rotating artists. One of the rotat-ing artists was Vince Locke, and I endedup doing layouts with him doing the fin-ishes for that storyline. They kept me

Previous Page: Theopening splash page illustration for SandmanMystery Theater #49, theplot of which revolvedaround a pulp magazineand their stories aboutthe Sandman. Guy usedthe original look of theSandman as a nod to thecharacter’s history.Above: There’s justsomething about the gasmask that makes theSandman an interestingcharacter. The gas gundoesn’t hurt, either. Andby putting him in atrenchcoat as opposedto a cape, Guy madeSandman a somewhatplausible hero.

Sandman ™ and ©2010 DCComics.

24

busy, and it became harder and harder to go back toBaker Street. It was hard to turn down the work. It wasnice to not be hungry and worried.

MM: Did they offer you the Phantom Stranger one-shotbefore you finished your first Sandman Mystery Theater arc?

GD: Come to think of it, that might have been whatstopped me from going back to Baker Street the first time.I think they offered me Phantom Stranger right after I fin-ished “The Tarantula.” That was fun. It was flatteringthat they were trying to put me on more work. It madeit feel more like job security in a way. And being quickand making deadlines while giving them the level ofquality they expected was what kept me getting moreand more work from them.

MM: You mentioned how slow you were while doing BakerStreet. Is this when you started working at a faster pace?

GD: Yeah, definitely. Sandman Mystery Theater is theseries that taught me the most about discipline as anartist. When you’re doing your own book, you’re your

own boss. When you’re missing your deadlines, you’rejust hurting yourself—well, yourself and your publisher.I could say, “I’m going to take an extra month on BakerStreet.” But with Sandman Mystery Theater, they would havetossed me and got someone else. So I had to make deci-sions on layouts and finishes, and I had to get themdone for the deadline. It wasn’t like, “Should I ink it thisway? Nah, let me try it this way.” It was, “I’m inking itthis way. If it’s wrong, I’ll do it better next time.” I wasn’thacking it out. I was putting thought behind it, but I washaving to make the decisions right then and there andmove on. I made tons of mistakes. I cringe looking atMystery Theater every time I see the reprints that arecoming out now, but it was a very fast, harsh schedule,especially once I started doing more of them.

DC Vertigo was pretty hands-off. They might say,“Well, you’re making Dian too fat. Can you make herless fat?” They didn’t say anything about how everybodyhad potato heads. [laughter] They were like Mole Peoplethe way that I was drawing them. [laughter] “You’re notthe best at drawing attractive women.” I thought theywere attractive, but I guess I had different tastes.

Secrets story? The story is set in the past,but that was still unusual, even for Vertigo.

GD: I don’t know. It wasn’t a cost issue. Iwas never happy with the colorist I had onMystery Theater, so maybe I was asking todo a black-&-white story. The grays weredone digitally by the colorist, so it musthave been Vertigo was doing it to makethe story different.

MM: You were also doing the dreamsequences for Mystery Theater in black-&-white. You went pretty wild with thosesometimes.

GD: Those were fun. He had twisteddreams. I think I suggested, “Let’s do thatin black-&-white and tone like I did inBaker Street, just to set it off from the regularstory.” It didn’t mean he was insane, it wasjust a way of saying when you turned thepage, “Okay, this a dream sequence. Thisis not part of the story.”

MM: Did you have any problem when thesuper-heroes started creeping into the sto-ries? There was Hour-Man, the CrimsonAvenger, and an origin story for the Mist.

GD: I didn’t have any problem with that. Itwas fine by me, because they were treated likethe old heroes and villains. They were theguys dressed in the goofy capes which seemedto fit in more with the 1940s than now. WhenMike Mignola did Gotham by Gaslight, I lovedthat. That made sense. I could see someonedressed up like that running around inVictorian times more than I could now, wherethey’d just get mugged. Since it was a differentsetting, it seemed fine. You think of peoplebeing more innocent back then, even thoughthey weren’t. And I drew them in my rumplystyle, where everybody looks like they’rewearing cosplay outfits. I’m not showing huge,muscled chests under the Hour-Man costume.It’s kind of ill-fitting. And the CrimsonAvenger was akin to drawing the Shadow,which I’ve always loved, so I didn’t have aproblem with any of the stories or ideas theyhad for Mystery Theater. They were all fun.

I was doing pulp stories rather thanGreen Lantern or something. I have no inter-est in that genre, and I wasn’t really inter-ested in moving past Vertigo and doingthat type of book.

MM: Around this time, 1997, you alsodid a story for Negative Burn with NeilGaiman.

GD: Not really with Neil Gaiman. Theyhad a story from Neil Gaiman, and Iadapted it for two pages over a weekend.

MM: So there was no direct collaboration?

GD: No, no. It probably was approvedthrough Neil Gaiman’s agent, if anything,but it was fun. It was a short job I could fitin beside Mystery Theater. I was doing a lot ofillustrations for White Wolf Games aroundthat time, too. Those were easy to fit in.

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Previous Page andAbove: Twisted dreams,indeed! In this sequencefrom “The Butcher”Wesley seems to befalling to pieces [SMT#27, page 17], and in thefinal dream sequence ofthe series Wesley gets amore direct messagefrom that other Sandman[SMT #50, page 37].

Sandman ™ and ©2010 DCComics.

MM: That was during WhiteWolf’s peak, I think. They didthe Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game and a bunch ofspin-offs from that. Were youjust doing illustrations for theirgame manuals?

GD: Spot illustrations, somecolor work, character designs forthe character sheets—things likethat. I met one of the editors at aconvention while I was doingMystery Theater. It might havebeen the same convention where

I met Gary Gianni. I was with Vince Locke, and Isaid, “We should try doing this stuff on the side.It could be fun.” He said okay, so I got up andwent by their table and introduced myself. Theeditor, Larry Snelly, read comics and knew ofSandman Mystery Theater. He said, “Oh, yeah. Ifyou’re interested in doing some illustration

work for us, that would be great.”When I got back from the con, he

had called and givenme a small projectfor one of theirdarker lines, Ghouls:Fatal Addiction.

I didn’t knowabout this ’til later. I

had still been doingsome fetish illos on theside. He wanted someweird stuff, so I senthim some drawings.He said, “Oh, that’sgreat. Sure, we’ll push

the envelope.” I was like,“It’s not that weird.” But one ofthe illos I did was this womanin fetish gear with a symbiotictwin sticking out of her stom-ach. Her ghoul slave was in

front of her looking likehe was about to godown on her symbiotic

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Right: This fetish illustra-tion became a cover forNegative Burn.Below: Illustration forWhite Wolf’s Ghouls:Fatal Addiction RPG.White Wolf decided to“push the envelope,” andGuy’s work certainly fitthe bill.Next Page: Vampirestake a train. Okay, it’s apretty freaking cool train,but after the freedom hehad doing illustrationsfor Ghouls, it must havebeen difficult to have togo back to drawing themore mundane thingsthey wanted for Vampire:The Masquerade.

Ghouls: Fatal Addiction,Vampire: The Masquerade ™and ©2010 White Wolf, Inc.

39

MM: How did you get in with Dark Horse? Your firstwork for them was Aliens: Havok. Did Matt help you getin contact with them?

GD: Maybe. There were a lot of artists involved withAliens: Havok. That was after Mystery Theater got cancelled,and I wasn’t able to get work anywhere. That was arough time. Right before Mystery Theater got cancelled Idecided I was going to buy a house. You can tell wherethis is going to go. [laughter] I called up my editorand asked, “Things are good, right? I’m going tobuy a house. Sales are good? You still like me?”“Yeah, things are good. The book will be aroundfor a while. You don’t have to worry.” AndVertigo actually helped me with the house pur-chase. If I needed a check a little early, theymade sure I got it in time. I sunk every bit ofsavings I had into getting this house. I lovedthis house; it was perfect for what I wanted. Ifigured, “I’ll put everything I can into the pay-ments, live lean for a couple of months, and Ican make it up with the next run of MysteryTheater.” Two months after we got the house,they called saying, “After this next storyline,we’re cancelling the book. And it’s not goingto be four issues, it’s going to be two. Butwe’re going to keep you busy. Don’t worry.”They gave me nothing. I was scrambling. Icouldn’t really do The Marquis like I hadplanned, because I had nothing else to bufferit with. I was sending out stuff to everybodyagain. I was back in that line, basically.

Somewhere along the way I got theone-pager for Aliens: Havoc, and that wasgreat because every other company I wastrying for was saying, “We don’t have any-thing set in 1930 for you. And you can’tdraw pretty women.” I said, “Give mesomething with monsters in it.” “No, wedon’t have anything with monsters in the1930s.” [laughter] Then all of a sudden Igot something that was just the oppositefrom that. It was monsters, but in thefuture. I drew that one page, and I lovedit because I loved the movies and H.R.Giger and Ron Cobb’s designs. As soonas I did that one-pager, somebody sent

in a pitch for Aliens: Survival, and that’s what started it—that and Terminator.

Somebody bowed out of a Terminator job and theyneeded it done in a week or two. So I did Terminator #0,with the great Geof Darrow cover. It was fun to do,because, again, it was something that nobody else wasasking me to do. Nobody thought I could draw any-thing besides 1930 period pieces, and here Dark Horsewas saying, “Draw Terminator. Just don’t draw any nudity.”

Part 4: Guy Gets MoreAdventurous

41

I went back and forth with them on that. Isaid, “Are they like Barbie dolls? Can Idraw them without any junk?” They said,“No, they’re fully equipped like real peo-ple, just don’t show it.” I had to go throughand take out the butt cracks, becauseTwentieth Century Fox didn’t want themto be seen. So everybody has these weird,flat butts. [laughter]

MM: Did you have to get into a differentmindset when working on Aliens or Terminator?

GD: No, not really. I referenced it heavily. Ihad the laserdisc for Aliens, so when I wasdesigning new interiors for the settlement Iknew what the design sense was for that uni-verse. Looking back, it’s very rough. I wasvery unsure at the time, because I was insanewith worry. You can tell I didn’t have a clearhead for a lot of the stuff. I was getting itdone, but it’s not the best job I’ve done. Iwish I could look back at it the way I dowith Mystery Theater, because I was hittingmy stride there, but Dark Horse seemedhappy with it. As far as drawing it, I enjoyedthe story and getting to draw the monsters.

MM: How did the Batman: Shadow of the Batjob come about?

GD: I think that came about because nobodywanted to draw a Batman story that didn’thave Batman or anything really fantastic init. “You want me to draw Batman: Shadow ofthe Bat?” “Yeah.” “Batman’s in it?” “No, it’s allabout this one old man in this house, and thestory is from his perspective.” It was a neatidea for a story, but I heard later that nobodyelse wanted to draw it. There’s a shot ofJoker at the end and other little things. It wasfunny, though, for the first page I drew thispanoramic shot of Gotham City spread outbehind the old man’s house. I got a call frommy editor saying, “You drew Gotham Cityin the background.” I said, “Yeah. Batman,right? Gotham City?” I’m thinking I screwedup and drew the wrong city or something.He said, “Well, it’s destroyed. There wasan earthquake.” He had just assumed thateverybody in the world knew GothamCity was in ruins. [laughter] “Why don’tpeople tell me these things? I didn’t knowGotham was destroyed.” So I took out thewhite-out pen and took chunks off thebuildings and roughed them up. [laughter]

The other thing I had to change was theJoker’s chin. Loving old movies, I said, “I’mgoing to draw the Joker looking like ConradVeidt from The Man Who Laughs. That’s whohas was based on, anyway.” I drew him withthe big grin, but no chin, which I thinklooks more freaky. “No, he’s got to have achin.” So I went back, drew a chin, and fax itback to them. “No, he’s got a big chin.” So Iwent back and redrew the chin. We wentthrough that four times. At the end I put thishuge, pointy chin on him, and they loved it.

MM: How did you get involved with OniPress?

GD: It was in between work when I waslooking to do other things. I met BobSchreck, who was in charge of Oni, at aconvention. I had just finished dinner andwas leaving the restaurant. I said hi toMatt Wagner on the way out, and heintroduced me to Bob. Matt said to Bob,“He’s got a new book. You should look atit for Oni.” Caliber had been having prob-lems and I was looking to take The Marquissomeplace else that was a more secure fit.Caliber had already solicited the first cou-ple of issue of The Marquis, but there wasno way I could do it through them. Therewere no bad feelings or anything, it justwasn’t working out. So I worked up a pitchto send to Oni, but by the time I sent it in

Previous Page: After aone-page contribution toAliens: Havoc, Guy penciledand inked the three-issueAliens: Survival mini-series.Above: While there wasno Batman and a mostlydestroyed Gotham City,at least Guy was able todraw two pages of theJoker—though not asConrad Veidt as he hadhoped. Panel fromBatman: Shadow of the Bat#86.

Aliens ™ and ©2010 20thCentury Fox Film Corp. Joker™ and ©2010 DC Comics.

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Above: Model sheet fora Nevermen agent.Next Page: Cover artfor Dark Horse Presents#148, which featured thefirst appearance of theNevermen.

The Nevermen ™ and ©2010Dark Horse Presents.

Tracy. He sort of saw it as a cross betweenL.A. Confidential, which I hadn’t seen, andDark City, which I hadn’t seen, either. I said,“That’s cool, but let’s make it really bizarrelooking, too.” I didn’t want it to be likeMystery Theater, where people would think,“Oh, he’s going back to drawing people inhats.” “Let’s treat this like Dick Tracy. Let’sreally get bizarre with these villains, and notgive any reason why they look that way.” Iwanted it to be eye candy. The editors atDark Horse were asking, “Why does he looklike this? What’s wrong with him? What’sthe story behind this?” I said, “No, no. Don’teven think about it. The thing is that no onebats an eye that these guys look like freaks,whether they have a fish head or whatever.What the people are scared about is thatthey are organized crime. They’re scaredthat they’re thugs and they might shootthem. Treat it like Dick Tracy. They justhappen to have those looks, and that makes

it interesting.” They went with that, and wenever really had a backstory. It is its ownreality, and the Nevermen are crime-fightersagainst these bizarre monsters.

Phil gave me pretty much free rein to gonuts. All of his descriptions were too deriv-ative at first. There was Manboulian, who hadthe top part of his head as just a skull. Philoriginally wanted him to be like Two-Face,where part of his face is disfigured and theother part is normal. I said, “You can’t do that.It’s been done. People will think it’s a rip-off.”I had a lot of works on old anatomy exhibits,and sometimes they would show a slice ofsomeone’s skull in formaldehyde. That looksreally freaky. It’s one thing to see a skull. Yousee so many skulls throughout your life thatthey kind of lose their spookiness. But half-skull, half-meat, where you don’t have toworry about how it stays fresh.... I woulddo things like that, where I would take hisbasic description and turn it around.

I started collecting horse skulls once I got one. You know, once you’ve got one, you’vegot to get two more. [laughter] There’s something about horse skulls. They aren’t like humanskulls, but there’s an identity and a face to them. But it doesn’t really make you think of a

horse. I just find them kind of creepy looking, and they have charac-ter to them. I was thinking, too, that when they escapedHell, the horses represented freedom. All of those thingsjust sort of came together.

I was sketching out different ideas for the main Devil, andI didn’t want it to look like a devil because it was basicallyrepresenting Hell. It wasn’t really an entity, all of Hell was

him. I needed something to be his figurehead, andsomething clicked that it shouldlook like this thing they tauntedVol with in the first issue, whichwas this horse’s skull sticking outof a living horse’s rear and wearingthe Marquis’ mask. He changesfrom that, but that’s his basic form.My Hell was not going to be shy.It wasn’t designed for the censors,where everybody has loincloths. Iwanted it to be rude, because that’sthe fun part of being sinful.

I sent it to Oni, and they said,“Well, that’s different.” I askedthem if they had a problem withthe Devil being a very anatomi-cally correct horse, and theywere fine with it, no problem atall. When the issue came out, Iwas waiting to hear what peoplehad to say—if I had gone too farwith it and if that bit of graphic-ness of the design was distractingfrom it overall—but people likedthe design. A lot of the responseswere along the lines of, “It’s dif-ferent. A little disturbing.” Andthat’s just what I wanted it to be:

Right: The Devil makeshis grand entrance.Below: Cover art for TheMarquis: Hell’s Courtesan#1, the first issue of atwo-part series—one ofthe “side stories” of TheMarquis. Next Page: The Marquistracks down a devil inpages 6 and 7 of Hell’sCourtesan #1.

The Marquis and all relatedcharacters ™ and ©2010 GuyDavis.

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being much of a super-hero fan, did youknow much about Len’s background?

GD: No, which makes me sound like a jerk.I didn’t really know who Len Wein was.Once they told me who my writer was, Ilooked up his credentials, which soundsawful, now knowing what he’s done. Noone should have to look him up, but thatwas a genre I didn’t really read growing up.The story was good, and it was bizarre todraw Edgar Allan Poe fighting crime.

I think Jamie Rich might have plantedthe word in Bob Schreck’s ear that I waslooking for work, because I was having arough time making ends meet. Bob calledme up and asked if I wanted to do this, andI said, “Yes! Drawing a Victorian Batmanand Edgar Allan Poe sounds like fun.” Bobwas great to work with on it, and he mademe realized how I was drawing Poe wrong.He said, “You’ve got to draw him like hishead is a light bulb. Exaggerate it.” [laugh-ter] He had this huge forehead, but every

time I drew him he looked like Basil Fawltyfrom Fawlty Towers. I only found two pho-tos for reference, and they both looked thesame, but once I started exaggerating theforehead it worked.

It was a fun book to draw. I had todraw Batman to where they would thinkhe was a raven, Batman fought a giantorangutan, and there was violence andgore throughout it, so it was different. Iwas trying my best to get the look ofGotham by Gaslight and failing miserably.Mike still did it the best.

MM: Did you work closely with Len orwere you just working from the script?

GD: I worked with him a little bit when Isent in my first layouts. After that every-thing was through Bob Schreck.

MM: The next year, 2002, you did yourfirst work for Marvel: the Deadline mini-series. How did you get involved with thatproject?

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Above: The final page ofBatman: Nevermoreunderwent some changesbetween the pencilingand inking stages.Next Page: Here comesthe Judge, here comes theJudge! Guy hasn’t donemuch work for Marvel,but he had a hand in creating a character forthem: The Judge! Deadline#1, page 20.

Batman ™ and ©2010 DCComics. Deadline, The Judge ™and ©2010 Marvel Characters,Inc.

MM: Did you try to get more work from Marvel afterUnstable Molecules or did you go straight onto B.P.R.D.?

GD: I probably said, “If anything comes up, keep me inmind,” which I say to any editor I work for. I had metMike Mignola years earli-er, and I would talk withhim now and then andcatch up. I was lovingwhat he was doing withHellboy. I had told him Iwas going to be workingon Fantastic Four, and hesaid, “Oh, my God! You’redrawing Fantastic Four?You get to draw theThing!” “No, I don’t get todraw Thing. I’m drawingthem as real people at agrocery store in the ’50s.”He was like, “What?You’re drawing TheMarquis with all theseweird monsters, and thenyou have to draw theFantastic Four as real peo-ple?” They weren’t givingme anything that I reallywanted to do. I was show-ing people what I wantedto do in The Marquis, but Iwasn’t getting those typesof jobs. I wasn’t againstdoing Fantastic Four. Ienjoyed working on thebook with James Sturm,but I was still feelingpigeon-holed. I wasbitching to Mike about it,and Mike said, “Well, youknow, I was thinking ofspinning off B.P.R.D. into an ongoing series. You shoulddraw it.” I said, “I would love to draw it!”

They were doing a series of single issues, and theygave one to me to make sure it would work and that itwas something I really wanted to do. I almost screwed itup, because it was kind of weak. I definitely got more

comfortable with B.P.R.D. the longer I worked on it. Ithink a lot of it with Dark Waters was that I really did notwant to screw up and lose the job and have to go backto drawing other stuff. It was stiff. My Abe was reallyrough looking. Mike was walking me through a lot of

the things I was doingwrong, which was great—things like, “Don’t giveAbe two lips. Just showhis upper lip.” He sent mea bust of Abe for refer-ence on the markings. Igot lots of free stuff fordrawing it wrong. [laugh-ter] “I drew it wrongagain, Mike. Maybe youshould send me someoriginal art.” [laughter]

But I did it, and I guesspeople didn’t hate it. Mikeliked it, or at least saw thatI could get better at it,because right after that wedid Plague of Frogs. Again,that was rough, but nearthe end I was feeling a lit-tle more secure with it.And Mike never tied myhands. He never said,“Okay, this is how I drawAbe, so this is how youhave to draw Abe.” Hesaid things like, “Don’tgive Abe two lips, becauseit looks too much like acartoon fish,” but he want-ed me to do it in my style.He didn’t want me to tryto be him, which was nice.

We worked back andforth designing stuff

together, which was great fun. He has an amazing imagi-nation, so I was loving that. I was having a ball. Myfiancée, who’s been with me through the fall of MysteryTheater and everything leading up to B.P.R.D., said,“You’re actually having fun. You’re not bitching anymore

Part 5: Frogs, Zombies, andOther Assorted Pests

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Previous Page: Arecent illustration of AbeSapien.Above: This cover image was done forHumanoïdes for foreigneditions of The ZombiesThat Ate the World.

Abe Sapien ™ and ©2010 MikeMignola. The Zombies That Atethe World and all related characters are ™ and ©2010Humanoids.

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about not getting to draw what you want.”I was happy for the first time, I think, sinceMystery Theater. I felt like I was being appre-ciated for what I was doing. I don’t want itto sound like I was whining, because peo-ple were appreciating the work I did—Batman: Nevermore and Unstable Molecules andso on—but there is a kinship in what I liketo draw and what Mike likes to draw.

MM: But with Dark Waters, you didn’t getto draw any monsters.

GD: That’s because it was a differentwriter, Brian Augustyn. I got to draw Abeand Roger—they’re monsters. Even if itwas just them shopping at a supermarket,it would have been fun. Abe at the super-market... I’d draw that. [laughter]

MM: Did you have conversations withBrian or did you just get the script andstart drawing?

GD: Basically, yeah. I think I e-mailed himonce about something, but I never heardback from him for whatever reason, sothere was no dialogue. It was all throughMike and Scott Allie.

MM: Since this was your first time playing inMike’s sandbox, did you have to submit lay-outs and pencils as you were drawing themto make sure you were staying on target withwhat they were expecting from you?

GD: No. I mean, I sent them the layoutsand they approved those before I penciledthe whole book, but I didn’t have to sendthem a page or two every couple days forapproval. Just the big steps: all the layouts,then all the pencils, and then I made anychanges they wanted before I went to inks.I think the cover was the one thing I hadto make a lot of changes on, and that wasjust because it was the first image I drew.They needed it for solicitation, and I wastrying to nail Abe down.

MM: Around the time you were starting towork on B.P.R.D., you also did a serial forMétal Hurlant: “The Zombies That Ate theWorld.” How did you get involved withthem?

GD: That came about from Dave Stewart.He was coloring me on B.P.R.D. and was

doing some stuff for Métal Hurlant. Theywanted to do this zombie short story, andDave said to them, “Why don’t you useGuy Davis?” I was contacted by their editoron the American side of Humanoids, and Iloved so many of the European books, so Iwas like, “Wow! Les Humanoïdes Associés!”They sent me the script and I started doingdesigns and layouts. And the script wasgreat; Jerry Frissen has a hilarious and sickimagination. Great character pacing, too.

I got a little more cartoony with it,especially as it went along. At first theywanted me to treat it very realistically. Ididn’t think it worked that way, because itwas a dark comedy. If you played it toostraight, people wouldn’t get that it was

though there is a narrative of Abe movingthroughout his Victorian past.

I got to design the submarine and theVictorian diving suit—although, the diving suitwas based on a real Victorian diving suit. Itlooked bizarre and great, so I had to throw it in.

MM: The next series, The Dead, introduced anew cast member: Benjamin Daimio. Did youdesign him?

GD: Yes. I mean, I did the design with every-body’s input. There was a huge back and forthwith the design—probably more than thereshould have been. Because he was a major castmember, they wanted to make sure it wasright. My worry was that it would end uplooking too much like Jonah Hex. I wanted tomake sure it was different, and I sketched outdifferent ideas that were pretty gross. Whenyou’re missing half your mouth, you’re goingto be drooling, and if you smile wide, it’sgoing to look really grotesque when thatmouth splits open. I was over-thinking it,and we finally got it down to a nice, simpli-fied scar that makes him recognizable. Younever see it working like it probably shouldactually work. One of the things we did tomake sure it didn’t look like Jonah Hex wasto get rid of any connecting skin so that itwas just a huge gash.

MM: When John Arcudi came on as co-writer, did that change the process ofhow you worked? Were there any extrasteps for you?

GD: He and Mike would work out all ofthat stuff before I saw anything. I’d known John fora few years, and we got along great. He had beentrying to find something we could work ontogether at Marvel or DC. If he had a projectcome up that he thought I’d work out on, he’d putmy name in with the editor, but it never pannedout to a job. So it was great that Mike broughthim in, because we finally got to work together.

Instead of Mike’s handwritten scripts, I gottighter scripts from John with dialogue.Beforehand, they would talk over what theywere going to do and what would be comingup. Then I’d get a call from Mike or John orboth, and they’d say, “You’re going to need todesign this thing that’s coming up, and this isthe story.” Then the script would come, and I

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as addition to the detail. When I ink Panya,I ink her normally, but I put in some harshlines. A lot of the finer lines around hermouth are brush. I can do that. If they said,“Why don’t you ink Liz’s face with abrush?” I’d be like, “No, no, no.” I couldn’tdo that. I don’t have the hand for it. But Ilove the way brush looks when other artistsdo it right. [laughter] It’s something I onlyuse for certain things, like rocks and treesand mummies’ faces. [laughter]

MM: It seemed like you had a lot of fundrawing Johann in Edward’s body.

GD: Oh, yeah, that was great.

MM: Were you drawing on your experi-ence drawing “Zombies” as far as his facialexpressions and acting was concerned?

GD: A little bit. It was a little more exag-gerated. When they told me Johann wasgoing to get this new body, I thought,“Great! I’m going to keep Johann acting theway he always acts, but in this new body.” Iwanted him to keep Johann’s mannerisms sohe’d still be doing those weird, upturnedgestures with his hands and tilting his head.It was drawing the body language asLightbulb Johann, but in a human body,which gave him a lot of character overEdward, who was more stoic and aggressive.

MM: Do you get involved in the plottingat all? Do you know what’s coming up andwhere the series is heading?

GD: Yeah, I know what’s coming up. Idon’t get involved as far as saying, “Wellthis is what I think you should do.”Everything they have planned is great asfar as I’m concerned. There’s nothing forme to interject; it all sounds wonderful andfun. They usually tell me things two orthree series ahead of what I’m working on.I knew Roger was going to die early on.They had that planned out by the begin-ning of The Dead.

MM: When you actually sit down to pen-cil, will the drawings sometimes make youthink of different ideas for the series?

GD: Not so much when I’m penciling.When I’m starting to lay things out I mightthink of something. Like in Black Goddess

we had this scene where the frogs’ tonguesbloated out and became dragons thatfought for Memnan Saa. Originally, thatwas just smoke that was coming out oftheir mouths. The frogs were supposed tocough out smoke and the smoke wouldbecome the magical dragons. I wanted todo something more horrific and biological.I said, “Let’s make the frogs’ tongues,which are these long things anyway, bloatout of their mouths and turn into the drag-ons, turning the frogs inside-out.” My con-tributions are more concerned with theimagery than with story direction.

MM: With War on Frogs #1 you inked HerbTrimpe. Were you familiar with his work?

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Previous Page: Guypulled out the brush a bitmore than usual for thispage from B.P.R.D.: Gardenof Souls #5, as the hulkingEdward searches for Abe. Above: Johann enjoyshis new body. Noticehow he still makes broadgestures with his hands.B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground #1,page 13.

B.P.R.D. and all related characters™ and ©2010 Mike Mignola.

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I just did a two-part SolomonKane story that’s on Dark Horse Presentsnow.

MM: I assume you’re a fan of RobertE. Howard?

GD: Yeah. I mean, I haven’t readeverything he’s done. I’ve probablyread more Burroughs than Howard,but I like the character of SolomonKane. It was fun to actually drawSolomon Kane himself, because Ihad done some monster designsfor the regular series, that MarioGuevara got to draw.

MM: With The Warning there was aGodzilla/kaiju/mass destruction feel to thestory. That had to be fun to draw.

GD:Oh, yeah. It was great having thosegiant robots come out and tear up the place.

MM: You had to draw a lot of rubble, too.

GD: It’s a lot easier to draw rubble whendeadlines hit. [laughter] And I get to playwith the brush more, because it doesn’thave to be straight. I love KatsuhiroOtomo’s Akira. He draws the bestdestroyed buildings in the world. I don’thave the patience for that. Going into itI was thinking, “Oh, boy! I get to doAkira-type destruction!” Then when itcomes down to it, it’s like, “No, it’sbrushwork destruction, I’m afraid.” Idon’t have the patience to draw everylevel of a building that’s been destroyed.

MM: Well, he probably had a lot ofassistants helping him.

GD: That’s a good excuse. [laughter]

This Page: Pencils andinks for page 2 of“Solomon Kane: All theDamned Souls at Sea”for MySpace Dark HorsePresents #27.Next Page: Godzilla’sgot nothing on this guy.Luckily for our heroes,Johann is in control ofthis behemoth.

B.P.R.D. and all related characters™ and ©2010 Mike Mignola.Solomon Kane ™ and ©2010Solomon Kane LLC.

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Part 6: Storytelling andthe Creative Process

MM: How do you generally start your day? I knowyou’re a night owl.

GD: People always say, “What time do you get up? Youfreaking bum!” I get up around noon or 1:00 p.m.,depending on how late I went to bed the night before—which is usually somewhere between 4:00 and 6:00 inthe morning. That was a habit I got in back when I wasliving in an apartment, because it was always quieter inthe middle of the night. Then when we bought the

house I just kept those hours. It works out, because thepeople I deal with at Dark Horse are three hours behindme, so when I get up at noon, they’re just getting to theoffice at 9:00 in the morning.

MM: How does that work out with your fiancée? Doyou get to see each other?

GD: Oh, yeah, my fiancée, Rosemary Van Deuren, isaspiring to be a writer—she wrote her first book last

year in fact—so she works out ofthe house, too. We keep the samehours.

Once I’m up and I’ve had mycoffee, I’ll check the e-mails tomake sure there aren’t any emer-gencies. Then I’ll take care of thewebsite and Facebook andTwitter—promotional stuff for TheMarquis or whatever else I’m work-ing on. I’m trying to get more of apresence out there. In the old days,if you didn’t have a book on thestands people forgot about you.Nowadays, it seems if they don’tread something about you online...out of sight out of mind. I started ablog to promote The Marquis, so I’lltry to add something to that andrespond to any comments. Then I’lltake care of the day-to-day thingsaround the house until around 5:00.That’s when I usually get settled into draw for the rest of the night. I’llstop to eat or look at books orcheck things online, but mostly I’mworking from then until I stop forthe night. I do that seven days aweek until the deadlines are metunless something comes up.

MM: Given that you’re workingduring prime-time viewing hours, Iassume you don’t watch much TV.

GD: No. I don’t have cable, andnow I don’t have broadcast TV. I

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don’t have a TV in the studio. I never likedthat. I listen to old-time radio shows ormusic while I work, which I enjoy moreanyway. We have a DVD player, and whenwe eat dinner we’ll put something on, but Iwatch maybe two hours of TV a day atmost—usually less. Obviously, if there’ssomething I want to see or I need to take abreak, I’ll watch a movie or something, butI could never have a TV in the studio. Itwas too much of a distraction. I learnedthat early on when I was working on BakerStreet. At times I would listen to it in thebackground, but then I would start lookingup over the table. That’s why radio showsare so great. You don’t have to stop andlook up. You can keep working and notmiss anything.

MM: Do you have a favorite show?

GD: I like various shows for various rea-sons. Obviously, I love The Shadow and TheGreen Hornet. I love Jack Benny and PhilHarris. I listen to Gunsmoke, Dimension X, XMinus One, Suspense, and Escape. Back beforeMP3s I was going broke buying these col-lections of shows. [laughter] And they sawyou coming, too. They would milk you fortapes or CDs. Now it’s all on MP3, andyou can get an entire run for five bucks.

MM: Once you sit down to start working,will you do warm-up sketches or are youable to just jump right into the work?

GD: I can pretty much get right into thework. As far as how productive I am, itprobably takes an hour or so before I’mgoing full tilt. I don’t do warm-up sketches,but I’ll do a little bit here and a little bitthere. I’ll usually start with somethingthat’s easy... maybe Johann pages. [laughter]When it gets to be around 11:00 and I’vegot a few pages under my belt, I can tacklethe harder ones.

MM: Earlier you mentioned doing layouts.Do you do full-sized layouts or justthumbnails?

Previous Page andAbove: Thumbnails, pencils, and inks forB.P.R.D.: The Black Goddess#5, page 4. As you cansee, Guy does fourthumbnail pages on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet ofpaper. His pencils arefairly loose, as he doesmost of the drawing inthe inking stage.

B.P.R.D. and all related characters™ and ©2010 Mike Mignola.

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GD: I lay out the script on notebookpaper as thumbnails. I have four pages oneach sheet, and it’s roughly breaking downthe action.

MM: Do you work out the thumbnailswhile you read the script, or do you preferto read the script all the way throughbefore thinking about that?

GD: I’m working on thumbnails as wespeak. I get the script for John and print itout. I’ll read it through once just for enjoy-ment and to get all the images in my head.I’ll draw very tiny thumbnails on the edgeof the script pages as I go. Then I’ll goback through and lay out the more fin-ished thumbnails on notebook paper for

them to approve. That usually takes a dayto do—an easy day. And they are reallyrough looking, too; I have to put notes allover the place so that it’s somewhat clear.The scribble with an A above his head isAbe—that type of thing.

MM: Do you blow up your layouts andlightbox them when you pencil, or arethey just a guide you refer to?

GD: They’re just a reference. I have themnext to me as I pencil. Once they’reapproved I rule out the panels and gutterson the backs of the boards. Then I’ll makea note of roughly where and how big theword balloons will be. I do that for all 22pages before I pencil anything. That sortof production line way of doing it is some-thing I got into the habit of doing when Iwas on Mystery Theater. I found it easier toget things done that way. Instead of strug-gling with a page that I just couldn’t getpast, I was moving all the way around.That way if time was running out, it wasn’tlooking rushed at the end. That happenedto me when I was doing The Realm. I wouldstart out with all this detail, and near theend it was, “Oh! I’ve got to get this thingdone!” and it got kind of loose. I started tomix it up, so if a page is rushed or looksloose, it’s stuck in the middle. Like I justhad a bad day that day or fell off the stoolor something.

Once that’s done, if I’m warming up I’lldraw Johann doing his thing. If there’ssomething I really want to draw, I’ll goahead and do that—but just the figures. I’lldraw all the figures throughout the book,then I’ll go back in and rough in all thebackgrounds.

MM: Do you go back and forth betweenpenciling and inking or do you prefer toget all the penciling done before you startinking?

GD: Once the layouts are approved I’llpencil the entire book—and maybe two orthree books, depending on the schedule—before I do any inking. I don’t usually mixit up unless I’m working on two things atonce. Now that I’m doing the new Marquisseries, sometimes at night if I get donewith the pencils I’ll start inking The Marquisor do some work on a digital file. But as

Below and Next Page:Pencils for pages 2 and 3of The Marquis and theMidwife.

The Marquis and all relatedcharacters ™ and ©2010 GuyDavis.

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Art Gallery

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Left: Rom gets his Spaceknight on.Right: Calling Dick Tracy. Come in,Tracy. Guy’s homage to the greatest ofnewspaper strip detectives.Below: Metaluna Mary was drawn fora Fist-a-Cuffs online art competition,but Guy scrapped it for another design.Below Right: Pin-up art for MarkAndrew Smith and Paul Maybury’sgraphic novel, Aqua Leung.Page 98: Hellboy commission piece.Page 99: Art for the Hellboy II: TheGolden Army DVD comic.

Rom ™ and ©2010 Parker Brothers. Dick Tracy™ and ©2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.Metaluna Mary ™ and ©2010 Guy Davis. AquaLeung ™ and ©2010 Mark Andrew Smith and PaulMaybury. Hellboy ™ and ©2010 Mike Mignola.

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Modern Masters:Guy Davis

Guy Davis is a master of the macabre,the mysterious... the just plain creepy.But underlying the eerie quality of hisartwork is a remarkable sense of story-telling. Emotion drips off his brush, fill-ing his work with life and energy. Fromhis breakthrough hit, Baker Street, tothe pulp noir Sandman Mystery The-ater, to his current work on the Hellboyspin-off series, B.P.R.D., Davis hasshown time and again that he is one ofthe best in the business. Join us as welift the veil on the career of anotherModern Master—Guy Davis! This bookfeatures a career-spanning interviewwith the artist, a discussion of his cre-ative process, and reams of rare and unseen art, including a large gallery of commis-sioned pieces, and 8 pages of full color work.

(120-page trade paperback with COLOR) $15.95(Digital Edition) $5.95

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