[triumphant music] [triumphant music continues] [triumphant music continues] [triumphant music continues] - Hello, and welcome to "Comic Culture".

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guest today is artist Adam Hughes.

Adam, welcome to "Comic Culture".

- Hey, thank you for having me.

- Now, Adam, you are known for your work as one of the top cover artists in comics.

But at the beginning of your career, you did sequential work.

So, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your evolution as a sequential storyteller working for an indie book, like "The Maze Detective Agency", and then getting into something as high-profile as "The Justice League".

- I started out in the 1980s, way back in the late 1900s, and it was very, very easy for anybody to get a job in comics.

It was a boom time.

There were the big two, Marvel and DC, but there were tons of high-end independent companies, like Dark Horse, or First, Eclipse, many that I'm not naming.

And then, there were a lot of little ones.

The dividing line back then was, did you have color in your comic book?

And if you didn't need color, you could, anybody could, anybody with a pencil and a dream could print a comic.

So, it was very, very easy for me to get in.

I didn't think I was ready, but I was 19, and I got my first work.

And it's just been one long series of assignments after assignments after assignments.

"The Maze Agency" was my first color book, which was for Comico, one of the big publishers back in the eighties.

I was working on that for a year and a half, and it was funny, was when Comico folded like a card table, they called everybody up and said, "Pencils down, pencils down, don't work."

And I was like, "Oh, okay."

And they said, "Don't tell," This is pre-internet, by the way, pre-email, pre-texting.

And they were like, "Don't tell anybody that we're going on hiatus."

And I was young and stupid, but I knew hiatus meant it was over.

[laughs] And they said, "Don't tell anybody because we haven't been able to reach some of the biggies, like Matt Wagner, to let them know what's going on."

I said, "Okay."

And I put my pencil down and I sat there for 45 minutes, going, [groans] "What am I gonna do now?"

And then I got a call, literally 45 minutes later, I got a phone call from DC Comics from the editor of "The Justice League", Andy Helfer, saying, "Hey, I hear Comico's on hiatus.

Do you want a job, do you wanna draw 'The Justice League'?"

I was like, "How did you find out?

it's supposed to be a secret."

And that's how I jumped from a fairly popular independent comic to DC's flagship superhero title.

I didn't think I was ready, but that's never stopped me before.

So, I jumped in and became the regular artist on that title, "Justice League America".

- Yeah, I had the chance last night to read your first issue, and I was amazed at how sharp your skills were.

And obviously, there's been a long evolution in your style, but how well-defined you seemed to have an idea of character and acting, and certainly, I guess, leaning into what Kevin Maguire was doing with the facial expressions to tell part of the story.

So, when you are making that move from Comico, where maybe you aren't getting the same sort of editorial guidance, or maybe, from what I understand, Keith Giffen would maybe plot by doing more of a thumbnail, how does it help you develop those skills, putting a story on panels, on pages?

- Well, I mean, yes.

I mean, Keith always, for those not familiar with the title, it was, the idea for the story was come upon by Keith Giffen.

He would do his version of a rough or a script in pencil form.

He would take typing paper and he would actually, being a visual artist, he would do it visually, with little word balloons indicating what the characters might be saying.

The penciller, like Kevin Maguire or Ty Templeton or myself, would go in and draw it from that.

And then, J. M. DeMatteis would actually go and do the final script.

Having Keith do that heavy labor of breaking, the breaking the visual spine of the storytelling up front freed me to sit there and go, "Okay."

I was allowed to modify, to change, to do what I wanted.

And more often than not, I did.

I trusted Keith and I did what Keith, Keith knew how to tell the story.

So, I had time to focus on things like goofy faces and the stuff that Kevin Maguire had established a sort of a trademark of that run of "Justice League" comics needed to be continued.

That's probably why I got the job, was 'cause I could do, [laughs] I used to say that the majority of comic book artists in American superhero comics have two, have three facial expressions, which is happy, angry, and angrier.

And with "The Justice League", you needed to be able to do a lot more.

So, I was very, very fortunate to have Keith as the guy who was figuring out the storytelling.

I mean, there are times you'll get a script that it'll say, "Page one's a splash page of the streets of New York City.

Page two, panel one, Batman sits at a computer, 'Hmm.'"

or whatever, whatever, whatever.

Batman's not New York City, what am I talking about?

[laughs] So, it was good.

It was good, it was a good, I was so nervous.

I didn't wanna do "The Justice League".

I wanted to do "Mister Miracle", lower profile with less characters to draw.

But they really wanted me on "The Justice League".

And I remember the first page of that first issue of "Justice League" that I drew, and it was Batman and the Martian Manhunter.

And I was like, "What am I doing here?

I'm not ready for this!"

But sometimes, getting thrown in the deep end is the way to go.

- What was really interesting about that story was, like I say, your style comes through, and I think a lot of what, and I think the argument could be made, and it's obviously not my place to make that argument, that a lot of what we think about the success of that era of "The Justice League" happens during your two or so years as the primary artist.

The introduction of Fire and Ice as a member of the team, and certainly, their evolution visually.

So, as you were working on those characters, are you given more freedom to just lean into one's personality as it becomes evident to you?

Or is it still kind of, here's Keith's idea of what the story's gonna be, and maybe he's not reflecting on what you're doing?

- I had a lot of freedom.

I had a lot of freedom.

As long as I didn't vastly change what was going on, I had the ability, not the ability, but the freedom to expand.

Nobody told, I don't remember a time where anybody ever told me to dial something back, or, "Oh, you, you missed that.

You missed that story beat."

Or, "You didn't get that character beat correctly."

So, as I recall, it was not too bad.

It was a good working relationship where I was allowed to flourish as much as I wanted to, as long as I got the pages in.

- And I guess my last "Justice League" question is going to be switching between the human moments of a storyline and then switching into the action moments.

As an artist, is it easier for you to just, "Oh, now it's an action page, I can have some fun with a big punch here and an explosion?"

Or are you still maybe thinking, "My strength is these small character moments, that wry look, the eyebrow up, the expression when someone's making a fool of themselves?"

- I do like the quieter moments.

I do like the humor.

And there's, with very few exceptions, like Kevin having Batman knock out Guy Gardner with one punch, there's not a lot of chance for subtlety and humor in a big, giant fight scene.

And I always found myself, in those instances, trying to tap into a well somewhere that I hadn't tapped before, and trying to do some stuff.

Whereas when it would get back to, like, okay, afterwards, the characters are all sitting around, going, "Oof, what a day!"

And it's like, ah, I really enjoyed the "Oof, what a day" page.

It was more my thing, especially coming after "The Maze Agency" where there wasn't a terrific amount of action until you would get to the denouement of the story.

But it was a lot of characters standing around, scratching their chins, and looking through magnifying glasses, going, "Hmm, hmm, a clue!"

And to this day, I still think I enjoy the dull stuff more.

- After "Justice League", I guess you transitioned into being one of the most in-demand cover artists in comics.

So, I was wondering how you made that move?

- I made that move because nobody offered me interiors.

I've had dozens of people say, "Oh, you're this name, you're that.

Why don't you just kick down the door and say, 'Give me Spider-Man', or something like that?"

I don't think I have that clout, and I don't, definitely, I definitely don't have that personality.

I go where the work is.

If I've become a cover artist by some sort of strange osmosis, it had nothing to do with me.

It was just, that's the work that was thrown my way.

I still do a lot of interiors.

I mean, I can't do a monthly book 'cause it would just look like garbage and it would drive me crazy doing it.

Doing a monthly book is a young person's game.

But I still do interiors, and when I do them, I promote them out the wazoo.

And nobody seems to, only a small core group of fans seems to notice.

And I still have to endure people on social media, "Why don't you do more comics?"

And I have to go, "Oh, 'Dr.

Manhattan', 'Betty and Veronica', 'Hellboy'."

I have to rattle off all these things.

They're like, "Oh, I didn't know you worked on those."

And I was like, "Come on, I tried to tell you, tried to tell you."

A critic once accused the great Lawrence of Arabia, the great T.E.

Lawrence, who shunned fame and didn't want it and said that he just kept accidentally backing into the spotlight.

And I always thought that was a wonderful turn of phrase.

And it's like, if I've become a cover artist of any note, it's because I've accidentally backed into being a cover artist.

It was never a plan.

Once I realized it could pay the bills, it could help make ends meet, and I could have the creative freedom I was looking for, I didn't fight it.

- And I think a lot of your covers have become iconic.

I'm thinking, of course, of that one cover you did, the gatefold cover for "Wizard" where it was the heroines of DC Comics all in white, and you managed to capture their personalities and, I guess, the feel of those characters to readers.

So, when you are given a cover assignment, how do you lean into what you think the character is saying, versus what the editorial might be, and make sure that you're satisfying your urge as a creator and their urge as somebody who's looking to sell as many books as possible?

- Well, it changes from job to job, editor to editor, company to company.

That piece you're talking about was actually a poster with all the women of the DC universe in sort of an Annie Leibovitz "Vanity Fair" foldout.

They were just like, "We wanna do the poster, we wanna do this as a giveaway poster."

It was never meant to be a retail poster.

They wanted to do a promotional thing for San Diego Comic-Con that year featuring all their female characters dressed up all fancy.

And I said, "Well, let's have 'em all dressed up like it's a 'Vanity Fair' cover."

And they said, "That's a great idea."

So, that was one of those instances of, they had an idea and we did a little bit of back and forth.

There are other times where somebody will come to me and say, "We need a 'Black Cat' cover."

And I'll go, "What do you want her doing?"

And they go, "We don't care.

Just, we want a nice shot of Black Cat to help sell comic book covers."

I'm getting further and further enough away from puberty where just drawing the sexy character isn't enough anymore.

I have to have some kind of little story going on.

I have to have some little something happening that either makes the reader laugh, or it's the pregnant moment before the action, or it's the sort of like moment after the action.

Any time you see stuff like that, that's usually me throwing that in.

But I recently did a "She-Hulk" cover for Nick Lowe over at Marvel, and it was She-Hulk as a lawyer and she's leaning on the judge's bench to make her final summation, but she's so big and heavy and powerful that she breaks the bench.

And the way he worded that was like, "Hey, would you wanna do another She-Hulk cover?

I said, "Sure, I love drawing She-Hulk."

And he said, "It could be something like She-Hulk breaking the judge's bench accidentally and having, like, an 'Oops' face, or just do whatever you want."

And sometimes, those editors are like, they've got something that, like, oh, they'd love to, they'd love to have me do an idea that they came up with.

I like Nick, so I won't use my usual comparison of, oh, these editors and art directors that just want Adam Hughes as some kind of art monkey.

They're just, "Sit there, here's your banana, draw."

I've got such a mild-sized ego that if somebody came along and said, "Hey, would you do a cover?

I'm just gonna throw this out there, do whatever you want, but I'm just gonna throw this out there."

And if the thing they throw out there is like, "Oh, oh, yeah!

I can totally see that in my head!"

That's a sure sign for me, is when I don't have to ponder or stare at the sunset and wonder, like, "Ah, how shall I fill this space?"

When somebody says something, and I go, "Oh, I can totally see that in my head.

I am ready to start drawing that cover right now," I'll take it and I'll give them full credit.

One of my most famous covers is the cover to "Catwoman 51".

It's the mugshot cover.

And my wife came up with that, but the editorial dictate was Catwoman is returning to her life of crime, and she's not happy about it.

And I went, "Okay, that's a good, vague dictum.

That's a good, vague art direction."

And I was sitting there thinking about it out loud, and my wife said, "Well, what about a mugshot?"

And I just kind of went, "Yeah, obviously."

That's obviously, the mugshot says, "I've returned to crime," and she's crying and her mascara's running.

she's unhappy about it.

And I was, "Problem solved."

The covers are arrived at by, I don't know if it works for everybody else, I don't know how it is for some young person starting out, but for me, at this stage in my career, some people are, they want something specific.

Some people just want me to just, "Here's 10 yards of rope.

Go hang yourself, run around the yard, do whatever you want."

And I can work all the ways.

If it's a fun gig, if it's a well-paying gig, you'll sit there, and I'll sit there and go, "Yeah, okay."

I mean, it just, I look at an artist like Moebius, Jean Giraud, the late French artist, one of the greatest masters of comics.

And he had so many different styles.

He had his sci-fi style, he had his "Blueberry" style, he had all these different ways of delivering the goods to a client.

And I've always admired that.

Ultimately, regardless of whether you think I'm, I have to move piles of money out of the way just to get to the bathroom, and I'm so rich that if you try to visit me, I'll release the hounds.

Being versatile, being a bit of a Swiss Army knife as a working artist is really beneficial.

I think that everybody that does just one thing, that's fine.

You're probably gonna master that.

But you never know how the winds of the world are gonna change.

And I like being able to work in a couple different medium, media, medium, something.

"Me am write good," as Bizarro would say.

But to be able to offer editors and art directors and prospective clients different ways of working.

We can work under a strict hand.

You can work with, if you leave me to my own devices.

I personally feel that when I'm left to my own devices, I do my best work.

When people sit there and say, "Can you draw me a Wolverine cover and have it by the end of the month?"

And I say, "I will see you at the end of the month."

That's sometimes, I would say 19 times out of 20, that works better than the editor saying, "Okay, we want a Wolverine cover, but he's gotta be doing this, and he's gotta have this on his face, and he's gotta be standing in this."

It's like, "Okay."

- Now, as you're working on covers, I know a lot of them aren't the traditional, or at least they don't seem to be the traditional pen and ink or brush and ink.

So, when you're working on a cover, what sort of techniques are you using?

- I have two main techniques when I'm working.

Both are half analog and half digital.

I always refer to myself as being amphibious.

I will do a pen and ink cover, a standard traditional pen and ink cover like they've done for over a hundred years.

And then I'll scan it in the computer and I'll color it in Photoshop or some other digital coloring application.

The other way that I like to work is slightly less traditional, where I'll do a grayscale illustration using markers and pencils and colored pencils and do a really well-rendered grayscale illustration, scan that into the computer, and then I will colorize it in the computer.

When you look at Photoshop, I remember when I was first being taught Photoshop for the use of coloring comics back in the mid-'90s, and somebody told me, 'cause I would sit there and go, "Well, what's this button for?

What's that tool for?"

And they said, "Coloring a comic book using Photoshop uses about 5% of what Photoshop's capable of."

And they said, "Photoshop, of course, was originally created to doctor photographs.

And one of the things you do is colorize a black and white photo."

And it occurred to me that, well, okay, if you can use it to colorize a black and white photo, why can't I use that in a method similar to the old painters where you would do a graphite drawing, you would put a wash over it, usually brown, so you'd have this sort of monochromatic brown piece, and then you would bring the colors up in your opaque paints?

And I thought, "Well, I think I can do something analogous to that with Photoshop."

And I've had a fair amount of success with it.

- And when you're working on a cover, I know that we met at HeroesCon this year, I know that original art has become a commodity for artists.

So, does this impact your ability to produce something that you could sell to a collector?

And again, I'm not looking for any sort of numbers, but just the idea that you can monetize this once it's been published.

- Oh, yeah, I mean, it's really, I mean, I don't understand NFTs and all that kind of stuff, but it's real easy to sell an original piece of artwork if you've got it.

And there are still collectors out there.

And my wife, Allison, who is also my art dealer, she refuses to let me have a stylist 'cause she knows I'll start working almost completely on the computer and there won't be any originals to sell, and selling the originals helps pay the mortgage.

So, I'm, I just did a stint with Marvel Studios Animation.

I was working for Disney for about 14 months and I was working on character designs for animated stuff.

This was gonna be on Disney+, and it was an interesting experience.

I wanted to try it.

It's something different, and I'm always looking for slightly different experiences, [yawns] pardon me, to expand my experience base.

Maybe I thought I could learn something new.

And I did learn a lot of things.

Mostly what I learned is what I'm bad at.

It was a really good 14 months of learning, "Well, I'm crap at this.

Okay, I don't, I never need to do this again, 'cause I know I'm no good at it."

But a buddy of mine joked while I was there, 'cause I worked the same way I work my comic book covers and illustrations.

A buddy of mine says, "You realize you're the only person working in animation who still uses a pencil?"

And I went [groans] and I felt like a dinosaur.

[laughs] But it's the way I work, and I haven't been, I'm prepared for change.

I'm prepared for the winds of the world to change and for me to have to switch the way I do things.

But for the time being, people don't seem to mind me doing half analog, half digital.

Here's the final product, hooray.

- And I see we have about three minutes or so in our conversation left.

I wanted to talk about conventions because they are, on the one hand, a great way for you to meet fans and for you to, I guess, meet fans who are interested in buying some of your artwork.

But also, it's a lot of work to pack up.

And I know that when we met at Heroes this past year, you brought your wife, who's a wonderful person, got a chance to talk with her.

But you also packed up your dogs and you had to make the trip to Charlotte, North Carolina.

So, when you are planning your itinerary, how far out do you think that you will travel?

Is it something where you're gonna go wherever the big conventions are, or are you thinking, "Gosh, this is really a lot of work and I'm just gonna stick to the ones that I know are the easy money?"

- It used to be that way.

I've been doing conventions since 1988, and I'm tired.

I'm probably the only person in the world who was like, "Thank God for COVID," because I got a two and a half to three-year break from conventions, and when we returned in 2003, I was like, "It's magical and fresh again!"

I mean, there's a couple of shows we do because we like the people, the fans, the promoter.

They're just a good, we know we can do well there.

We know we can have a good time there.

But then, there's other times, like in about a week or two, I'm getting ready to go to Stockholm, Sweden for a convention, and I've never been to Scandinavia, so I'm just sort of like, "Okay, cool."

A lot of times, these trips, these conventions are not about the money.

They're not about, they're not so much about meeting new people.

They're about, I've always wanted to be a comic book artist and I thought that I was just gonna live in my basement for the rest of my life, and my only contact would be the mailman.

And yet, now, I get to go all over the world.

I mean, I've been to South America and Europe and Asia and it's just been, it's the wonderful perk that I wasn't expecting.

- Well, Adam, they are telling us that we are out of time.

I wanted to thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk with me.

- Absolutely, not a problem.

- I'd like to thank everyone at home for watching "Comic Culture".

We will see you again soon.

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