[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ - 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 Bill Sienkiewicz.

Bill welcome back to "Comic Culture".

- Terence, great to see you, great to see everybody, thanks for having me.

- Bill I know that this is a busy time for you because I saw on your Twitter feed that they are about to start exhibit at the Dunn Museum of your work, so, how does that sort of come about?

Because I'm imagining that's a big honor, I know that the previous exhibit at that museum was for Ansel Adams and he's no small name in the world of art.

So how do you sort of follow in those footsteps?

- I think I've just made it my career to follow anybody with the name Adams, you know?

Which, those who don't know it's like I grew up emulating a style of an artist named Neal Adams and it was a bad pun and it was just completely...

I shouldn't even have gone there.

The Dunn Museum is looking for other art forms to honor so to speak, I mean it's a far cry from what I grew up with in terms of comics being viewed a certain way, so, I'm thrilled.

And a lot of the coordination was worked out through my art rep Sal Abbinanti, who also represents Alex Ross.

So yeah, I'm very excited.

- So it seems like it's quite an undertaking to put together an exhibit like this, because from what I've seen on the pictures that you've posted there, they are sort of making the floor space match your particular artistic style, the color palette that you use and the like.

So is that something that you kind of work with them on or is that something that they present to you and say that that's how they're going to honor your craft?

- You know, that's their domain, it's like so I kind of defer to what they do, I mean unless it's something completely off the mark or whatever, but I do appreciate what they're doing.

I'm kind of curious to see more of what they do with all of it, 'cause I've not been there yet, so, I've only seen some of the images that they've posted.

But I'm very excited to see it, very much so.

- When you are honored in an exhibit, the question I guess becomes, how involved are you in picking the pieces or is this something where they go to other collectors and ask them for their pieces?

Or is this something that you're just providing to them and that they're displaying?

- Well in the case of... With Sal having... As my art rep, he's got quite a few pieces in hand.

But because I think they're trying to do a little bit of a retrospective of some of my pieces, there are some pieces that are not better in private collections.

And I think that they've...

Both Sal and the museum have reached out to collectors to have pieces in the show for the purposes of the exhibition, some pieces that nobody has really ever seen, probably.

And certainly for me there probably would be some pieces that I'll see that I haven't seen since I did them or since I relinquished them many, many years ago or sold them or whatever.

So yeah, I mean it's promising to be kind of a wide sampling.

And I have also sent some additional pieces of newer pieces that I have here in my studio and my home that I've added to that.

So I think we're trying to give a fully rounded, historical kind of presentation.

- You mentioned that there are some pieces that you haven't seen since you did them or sold them or whatnot.

When you look back at some of your older work, I'm sure if I looked back at something that I had done many years ago, I might see where I needed to get better and I might see the progress or I might see that something was on the cusp of being where I wanted it to be.

Are you sometimes looking at your older pieces and saying, oh man, if only or are you just saying, well that's the process and I had to learn and I had to get better somehow?

- Well, yeah, I mean I...

There's a lot of stuff I look at that I just kind of...

It's a mix of cringe and well, what are you gonna do?

And it is part of the process.

Certainly a good portion of my early issues of "Moon Knight", it wasn't until...

I think I was learning the ropes, it wasn't until the later issues when I kind of felt like I was getting a little bit of a handle on what I wanted to say.

You know some of the drawings that I did on "Moon Knight" and also on "The FF" at the time, some of my drawings I thought were a little off or quite a bit off, but I knew that the different anchors that I had, like certainly with Joe Sinnot on "The FF".

But I was just trying to find my way.

It wasn't until the later issues, when I felt like I had an idea of what I was doing and that I really felt like it all came together.

So a lot of the earlier stuff I kind of... Like I said, I look at it with a little bit a mixed bag of emotions.

Not the least of which is....

There is a little bit of sort of sympathy for the kid, you know?

It's like I realize you gotta start somewhere.

And I am not one of the artists... Like Frank Frazetta was well known for getting back pieces that he had done, if they were published as a paperback or whatever, he would bring them back into the studio and change pieces and change them again and change them again, he felt like no piece was ever finished.

For me I do each piece as like locked into that time, like it's emblematic of that era and for good or ill, it is what it is and I'll leave it at that.

And if I choose to revisit it, I'll revisit it with a more of an updated spin, but the original I don't touch, I'll bring something, a different sensibility to it.

So, yeah, I just...

I feel like usually when I'm done with a piece I'm done with it, it's like okay.

- I mean it's interesting because you do hear about some musicians like the late Mike Nesmith would remaster his album, "The Prison", he did two or three different mixes over the course of decades because he just wasn't quite happy with how it turned out and yet if you listen to all of these mixes, they're all beautiful and all have something to say and it's interesting to hear that you're looking at that as that time capsule and you're gonna move on.

One of the things that you've done in your career is you have moved on, because you've gone from comic work to doing a lot of fine art and to doing some illustration and movie posters and I know recently you worked on the IMAX poster for "The Batman" motion picture.

I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that piece because it's gotta be tough to work on something that has to have that almost photo reference quality for the likenesses of the leads in the film and yet still have that artistic sensibility that people are expecting from you, you're Bill Sienkiewicz after all.

- Well I found that...

When I started doing comics, I was also very much in love with illustration.

And some of my major influences did covers for Sports Illustrated or TV Guide or Time Magazine or interiors in women's magazines or again Sports Illustrated.

And that was a whole arena that I wanted to kind of explore, but that... At the time I started getting into comics, that business or that business model was winding down.

But I've always loved doing portraiture and likenesses.

So and I'm aware that that's part of the requisite for doing posters or doing magazine covers of specific people.

For me, the idea of doing art is also important as well.

So trying to find that blend is always sort of a challenge, but it's one that I absolutely love.

So, luckily, because I've done stuff for superheroes and I've also done a lot of likenesses and campaigns, ad campaigns, like for Nike and other places.

When they reached out to me to do that, to do the triptych poster for "The Batman", all of them were incredibly gracious with the amount of reference I was permitted to use and they had some idea of what they wanted, but they also were very fluid in terms of allowing me to kind of run with it, which was great, which was really...

I appreciated the level of trust that they brought to it.

So it felt like more of a collaboration than simply a job, where they're dictating what they want.

I mean I've had those and those are... Those could be a little tougher to take.

- One thing that I noticed about that poster is it has a very strong color palette and I'm assuming that that is in keeping with the film.

So, is this something where...

I know you've gotta sign a nondisclosure agreement and everything, but are they showing you what the picture looks like, what the film looks like so that way you can kind of capture that in the poster or are they just saying, you know what, go and do?

- Yeah, I mean there's a whole marketing campaign that's been set up and in terms of identity of the film.

And I think that some of the earliest images for "The Batman" had a color scheme of black and red, it was very, binary in that way.

And I think that later on they started to introduce some evening colors, like the evening glow, especially some of the images of Batman and Catwoman, where it's a sunset and so which implies a level of hope, the color psychologically implies something that's not quite as binary or as dark or as dramatic and it also implies a level of... Like there's a tomorrow, like love might conquer all and you know... And so, I'm aware of that because they... That's something that they're bringing into the campaign as they're producing it for audience response or for wetting the appetite of most viewers, that's actually a part of the discussion.

And I knew that, like if I had gone into a more of a gray or a darker palette or a more muted palette, it might have worked for any piece, it might have worked for the piece, but it might not have worked in terms of the overall push of the campaign.

So I had to adjust some of that to make the colors a little bit more red and I did introduce some of the more muted colors and some of the more sunset type of colors.

But the main challenge was to divide the image up into threes, 'cause it really is one piece, but it's a triptych, so each piece has to work individually and that was the challenge, because it can look overly congested.

It's always nice to be able to do a piece where you've got an area of focus and then some areas of passive color or shape or something that gives the eye a rest.

And if you got a middle portion of a poster, that's just the rest, like the relaxation place for the eye, it doesn't exactly work for the person getting that slice of the triptych.

So it's a bit of a challenge, but that's sort of part of the deal.

- It's really fascinating, you talk about how certain colors represent hope and obviously things... We see red and that makes us cautious and we wanna stop and one thing I noticed in your work is that you have a great idea of light and shadow, you kind of have this ability to create something stark and yet have all these subtleties in there.

So I'm wondering when you are doing a piece and you're thinking about the lighting and where the shadows are going to be and what to highlight, how much of this is like pre-planning and maybe a thumbnail and how much of it is just as it happens, it's just going to appear?

- There is some being in the moment and letting things sort of move through and let it be what it's going to... What a piece is going to be.

But a lot of it is...

There's a level of planning because in a weird way, I feel sometimes like I'm a conductor in terms of... Or I'm a photographer or I'm an artist who... Like trying to focus where I want the viewer to look.

And there's a certain psychology associated with color schemes or with value schemes, like high key imagery, like lighter values can imply a summer day or a spring day and hope and light and whimsy and where darker, more somber value arrangements can imply the opposite.

And so, there is a level of manipulation, but hopefully done not necessarily with a cynicism, but with trying the best way to convey what the story is about.

So to me, that's the challenge, it's to kind of get out of the way of the story and what I'm trying to present and not do it in a clumsy way or not do it in a way that's too patently obvious, but just simply...

I'd rather let a piece breathe and shoehorn everything in, 'cause it's really easy to do too much and it's like putting sugar in your coffee, it's like you might wanna sweeten it, but you don't want the whole bag, you know?

So it's a little bit of knowing when to back off.

So that's a constant thing that I do, is sort of like reevaluating a piece as I'm working on it.

- And with modern digital tools, are you ever tempted to maybe take a piece that you think you gone a little too far, you added too much of that sugar to it and maybe erase something in Photoshop or are you just, again, kind of just saying, well that's what happened at that moment and in the next piece I will have that in my mind and I won't go ahead and do something.

Are you ever tempted just to kind of go in and sort of remix it in the digital realm?

- Yeah, that's actually one of the benefits of working digitally and especially for the layout portion and for the concept portion.

'Cause I've done color roughs and sketches by hand and I might do 3, 4, 10, but if I'm working digitally, I can solve a lot of...

I can explore very quickly a wider range of approaches and solutions.

And often I find that less really is more, it doesn't need a lot of the bells and whistles or value arrangements that might just be... End up being distracting.

But for me, the idea of if I can solve as many problems as I can to get the most direct emotional response for a piece, if I can work all of that through before I go to final, the final piece, that to me is the optimum.

And there have been plenty of times when I've done a piece because of deadline, that I will work up...

I draw everything by hand and then I'll scan it in and then I'll sometimes arrange things in Photoshop to get the layouts of where I want them or I might have an idea of what I want, but also I can move different elements around because some things will happen by accident, just simply by virtue of, oh that's unusual, or like I didn't think of that.

And so if I'm working in that way, sometimes I've had to do a finish digitally, but I will use that as sort of the final comprehensive color sketch and then I'll make a final painting 'cause I always... For me the idea of... Digital is photons hitting your eye, that to me it's like, it's not the same as the tangibility factor of the human connection of being able to hold something physical in your hands.

And that may be...

Even in the era of NFTs and everything else, I still I'm analog enough to know that, I may read my comic books on my iPad, I may read Vanity Fair, read all of my magazines on my iPad, National Geographic, whatever, you name it, they're all like there.

But if I get an art book, I want something I can put on a shelf or I can put it on my coffee table and the heft of it and the tangibility of it and the thickness of the paper and the print and it's like, it exists in... Not as ones and zeros.

So to me, digital is a tool and it's as much a part of the tool and the process, but in no way do I feel that it is the be all end all.

I'm wondering if Frank... Not to go too far into the question, but to bring it back what we were saying about Frank Frazetta or what I was saying about Frank Frazetta, is that I wonder if he had done more digital, if he'd be changing his pieces digitally or if he'd go back into the oil paints, just speculation.

[Terence laughing] - I saw recently someone posted a Frank Frazetta, a Superman piece that was...

Looked like something he may have done quickly, but was just... Had such energy and such flow to it and you could tell that there's a love behind the artist and the art and that's one of the things that we do get with your pieces and again, I was looking recently on your Twitter and you were I think posting some various designs that you have had over the years of Kingpin.

Everything from the "Elektra" books where he's this massive figure that we saw I guess used for "Into the Spider-Verse" and then some very, very gentle, looked like it was pen and ink work, a lot of cross hatching.

And I was just wondering, again, when you're looking at a character that you've drawn many times, many different ways, are you going to stick to that model for later books that you might do?

Or is it something where whatever you feel at this particular moment, that's how that character's going to be?

- That's actually a good question, I think if I'm gonna do a character once, it's like I'll try to find a way to do it, like for "Love and War", which I eventually used that version of the Kingpin for the "Spider-Verse".

I was at a certain place creatively and I was into animation and everything and I wanted to play with the massive aspect of him, you know the shapes.

And other variations on that theme with pen and ink or with more subtlety or nuance.

To me, everything evokes the level of complexity or hopefully, the goal is that like even a cartoon character or a comic book character, I mean people think of the Hulk as this gritted, pants are torn, he's sort of gritting his teeth and you know, "Hulk smash".

And yet there might be a point when he's ruminative, he might be thinking something, it's like where there's a whole slew of grays in there and shades that might be fun to explore, you know?

Rather than sort of the obvious solution.

So to me, it's almost a challenge of what kind of nuance can I pull out of a character, how can I approach this character to produce a side of him that...

Him or her, that other people might not have considered before?

So to me, it's like I have to sort of view them with a level of empathy, the characters themselves, as that they're much more complex.

And to me that's what keeps me coming back to the drawing board.

- It's interesting because we have, in comics in particular, people love continuity, they love going back to, oh in this issue of "Spider-man" this happened, so in this issue 10 years later, we shouldn't make this comment, you know?

And I'm imagining comic fans have come up to you over the years and said, I like the way you did it this way in this book, why didn't you do it this way in that book?

So it's interesting to see that you're not wedded to any sort of artistic continuity when it comes to maybe designing a character and just sort of going with how it feels in relation to the story which I guess is paramount.

- Yeah, it is story related, definitely.

It also depends on the feelings about the characters, 'cause when I was doing the anniversary issue with Chris Claremont, revisiting "The New Mutants", I had a lot of ideas about wanting to sort of bring more of my modern or my more recent kind of approach to things, stylistically.

And then as I started working on it, I realized it was all about the kids and about the characters.

All of the sort of bells and whistles and sort of artistic things I wanted to try, I ended up shaving a lot of that away and just concentrating on the storytelling with the kids.

And it felt like I was not letting the tail wag the dog, I was kind of going back to the meat and potatoes of it, which is that it's about these characters.

Of course with time passing and continuity, it also depends on, there's much more of an interaction and intersection between comics and TV and films, so you've got certain actors playing certain roles and tastes change and points of view change.

So sometimes that's kind of called...

I'm kinda called upon there to bring that into the mix as well, about approaching how I draw the character or how I interpret the character.

One example certainly would be if I were to do "The New Mutants", it's like, if I draw any of the characters I'll see them the way that I drew them, but also I can't deny that Anya Taylor-Joy doesn't come into my mind when I'm drawing Illyana or Maisie or Henry Zaga, for all the characters.

Or certainly with "Legion" with Dan Stevens.

I see the actor's interpretation and they've influenced me, so it feels like it's a very nice circuitous influence, where my work may have inspired them to do certain takes on things, certainly with Vincent D'Onofrio and the Kingpin, he's made it really kind of public and generously so, that he was influenced by what David Mack and I had done.

And now when I think of the Kingpin, I can't not think of Vincent.

So, it informs a continual sort of wheel.

- So Bill they're telling us we have about a minute or so left in our conversation which is a shame because there's so many interesting things I'd like to talk to you about.

But just very briefly, I just wanted to ask you real quick about "Moon Knight", which is making it... Or just debuted on Disney Plus.

And I know that that's a character that you have had a big influence on and many current artists are sort of still using the aesthetic that you've created, so, I'm sure you're immensely proud of the work that is happening on Disney Plus.

But just when you are looking at something like that, are you looking at things and saying, oh yeah, I did that?

- That's a little... That's a tough line to walk because I sort of feel like I'm...

If it brings more readers in, if it makes people as excited for the characters, I mean I'm absolutely very proud of what I've done in terms of contributions to the character, but I do try to draw the line at self-aggrandizement, 'cause I sort of feel like I'm kind of a place placeholder for a lot of things and I had my time to do this character, and other people are gonna come in.

And if it inspires other people to come in and run with it, into the big tent that is comics, I'm thrilled about that.

So, do I ever feel like my version of anything is a be all end all?

Not at all, not at all, it's like I...

I mean, it's like the Joker, I mean you look at Jack Nicholson's version of the Joker, you look at Keanu... Not Keanu Reeves, I'm sorry, Heath Ledger and you look at Joaquin and then the new actor in the newest film, it's like, you always find something new to bring to the character, so I'm very proud of what I did.

But the one interesting thing about "Moon Knight" is it's such a mutable character.

So he can be many, many things.

- Well bill, they are telling us that we've run out of time, I wanna thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule, it's been a great half hour.

- Oh, thank you, just flew by and we'll again... Hopefully we'll get a chance to do it again sometime.

But it's always nice to visit with you and thank you again for having me.

- Well, it's been great.

I'd like to thank everyone at home for watching "Comic Culture", we will see you again, soon.

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