Write what you are looking for and press enter to begin your search!

Logo
live-news-icon

Live News

LEGOLAND Malaysia Brings Raya Theme To The Park & The World’s First LEGO Friends 4D Movie Premiere: In an intense match, the Lone Wolves came out victorious. Read all about the big night here // New Visions Of Mana Trailer Showcases Elemental Combat & Characters: In an intense match, the Lone Wolves came out victorious. Read all about the big night here // MMORPG Tarisland Opens Pre-Registration For SEA Gamers: In an intense match, the Lone Wolves came out victorious. Read all about the big night here
post-16 post-13

Legendary Comics Artist Greg Capullo On Batman, Spawn & What He’s Really Like

Singapore Comic Con 2019 (SGCC 2019) took place at the Marina Bay Sands Expo last weekend and we received the opportunity to interview legendary comic book artist, Greg Capullo.

For those who don’t know him, Greg Capullo is a comic book artist veteran, who is best known for his 80-issue run on Image Comics’ Spawn with Todd McFarlane and highly-acclaimed Batman series for DC Comics with Scott Snyder, introducing famous new concepts like the Court Of Owls and most recently, the DC Black Label Batman: Last Knight On Earth.

Greg Capullo 1

He is also the creator of The Creech, a sci-fi horror comic published by Image Comics, and has previously provided art for Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft franchise.

Q: You’ve worked with Scott Snyder on many great Batman stories from the Court Of Owls to most recently, Batman: Last Knight On Earth. What do you think that you bring to the table when working with him?

A: See, I don’t know. I mean, Scott writes some great stories, like Court Of Owls is brilliant. The reason why I think it’s brilliant is because Bruce Wayne or Batman is very arrogant and self-assured that no one knows Gotham better than he does.

To slip the Court Of Owls into there that’s been there for four hundred years and Batman has been completely unaware of that the whole time really, really unseats Batman and takes away that security and that cockiness.

You didn’t know as much as you thought you did, kid, and I think that’s a brilliant move on Scott’s part.

What do I bring to him, I don’t know. I’m just happy that the fans like what we’re doing. He comes up with great stories, I draw them the way that I see it should be drawn, and I’m just grateful for the fans’ reactions, but I don’t know what the formula is. I’m just happy that everybody accepts it.

Greg Capullo 2

Q: Batman: Last Knight On Earth is sort of like DC’s version of Old Man Logan. It features some of the bleakest versions of DC characters I’ve ever seen in a comic book How was the experience redesigning these iconic characters?

A: Well, the most enjoyable part is the creating itself because when I was a little boy, I just imagined most young artists, the joy is the freedom. You got your pencil or your crayon and your pad of paper, you’re free to see what comes out of your imagination. Creating is a lot like that, it’s the closest thing to being that little boy who’s just having fun.

When you’re doing comics, there’s a deadline and a lot of pressure, creating gives you a bit more of that feeling you had when you were a child exploring. I like big characters, so that was my first opportunity for drawing Bane, so it was a lot of fun to do that.

I’ve done so much Spawn with the horror stuff, to do this version of Bane and Scarecrow was just added fun, it was familiar to me, so those were the most joyous bits.

Greg Capullo 7

Q: You recently returned to Spawn after a hiatus of about a hundred issues. Was it daunting to return to drawing him?

A: No, it was the complete opposite, it was like getting comfortable slippers on and I don’t even have to think about it, you know. It was like going to a family reunion, and it’s funny because when I quit Spawn back on issue 100, I still stayed in work with Todd. At one point, Todd said that I want you to come back and do Spawn.

I was sort of on payroll, so I couldn’t say no and said, oh, okay. Or you could do Haunt with Robert Kirkman. I said, yes, anything other than Spawn, because I’ve done so much Spawn. But after so many years away from Spawn, it was fun to come back. Not that I want to return to Spawn, but it was fun to do the reunion that one time.

I’ll tell you a funny thing, back in the day, our Spawn was so detailed, and we were much younger, Todd liked to say that you could see the youth on the page. And do, I’ve given him some detailed stuff, you know, but he’s texting me and going, you’re killing me, you’re killing me with this.

Greg Capullo 3

Q: Do you have any particular DC Comics character or property that you’ve ever wanted to work on?

A: I’ve talked of doing a Wonder Woman book, but I want to do Swamp Thing, actually. Swamp Thing had a brief cameo and I told Dan DiDio that I wanted to do a Swamp Thing book and he said, let’s talk about it over dinner. He gave me a sales pitch that he wanted me to do Wonder Woman instead.

I said, alright, Wonder Woman.

Then he said, I don’t have a Swamp Thing book but if you do covers, I’ll do a Swamp Thing book from your covers.

At some point, it would be fund to do a Swamp Thing book but I’d also do Wonder Woman.

I’d also like to get my hands on Lobo. I think I would do a badass Lobo.

Q: Where do you find inspiration for your characters?

A: You got to follow your own instincts, how you feel about them. The only thing I consciously thought about with Batman was one of the things I loved from what Frank Miller did in The Dark Knight was when he put Batman in the armour and wired him up to the lamp post to fight Superman and he had like a flat helmet, I thought that looked so badass.

And so I said when I got into Batman, I wanted to do that. but then they gave me Jim Lee’s design when I started and they go, you have to draw this, I went like awww. It took a while to where I got to draw Batman the way I wanted to, but I eventually got it in in some of the later designs.

So, yeah, I just follow my own instincts, and I always knew I didn’t want, one of the things that bother me about superheroes is like they all look like contest-ready bodybuilders with the suit spray-painted on.

You can see every vein, every muscle, but they’re wearing costumes so how can that be?

So, I wanted my Batman to be more solid and monolithic and heavy-framed and more intimidating than the other stuff I had seen previously. Apart from that, there was not really much conscious things other than following my instincts and my gut.

Q: What non-DC character would you like to work on if given the opportunity?

A: Pretty much anything at Marvel. I grew up with Marvel. So you could put a blindfold on me, give me a dart, and show me a board of all the characters and I’d probably be happy no matter where the dart landed.

I grew up with Marvel Comics mostly.

I had Batman, Superman, a few others, Green Arrow, whatever, a few of those, but I’m really a Marvel guy and if you went to my house, it’s almost all Marvel books, so I’d be happy to draw almost anything at Marvel Comics.

Sorry, DC!

Q: What advice would you give to budding comic book artists?

A: My advice is don’t set out to be a comics artist, set out to be an illustrator, make yourself a good drafter because I say what if comics disappeared tomorrow? Alright, you still have a drawing skill, and you’d probably want to make money doing that, what would you do if there’s no more comics?

But if you’re a good draftsperson and you know how to illustrate stories, then it opens more possibilities, you could do storyboards for cinema, work in advertising, there’s a lot of things.

So become a draftsperson, learn as much about the craft as you can, and that’s what I tell people.

Don’t just put all you focus on that (comic book artist), so then you’ll be too limited on what you’re doing and what’s available to you, so that’s my advice.

Q: How do you feel about becoming sort of a household name, with your name on merchandise and collectibles after drawing Batman?

A: I don’t know. Here’s the weird thing, man. When you do comics, your life just goes by you because you’re always drawing. It’s almost like an assembly line, and so there’s not a lot of time to look around and reflect on anything.

You know, even the last issue I just did, it’s already in the rearview mirror. It’s like driving on a highway and the trees are going by, and you can’t focus on any of it. It’s weird because I’ll go back and open an issue of Spawn, it’s like looking at a different artist.

So now I can admire it like I’m a different person. You always have to have this moment where you have some free time to stand around, there’s toys and statues, it’s hard to even make sense of it. You know what I mean, I wanted to do this since I was eight years old, but I never thought I’d make money at it.

I didn’t know there’ll be fans, conventions, autographs, pictures. I just wanted to draw comic books. People want my name, and they want to take pictures, and make toys and statues, it’s too much to even make sense of. You’re just, wow, you know.

Q: Why don’t you do sketches at conventions?

A: One is I have so many fans. If I did sketches, I could never sign as many books as I do. My goal is to meet as many fans and sign as many books as I can. I don’t want them to stand there in line staring at the top of my bald head as I draw pictures.

The other part of that though is I work so much that when I’m away from home, I don’t want to draw. The last past is that I don’t like to draw in front of people. My wife will come into the room while I’m drawing and I stop and I put my pencil down and then I have to get my head back into the drawing.

So, I like to be isolated when I draw. It’s who I am.

Q: Despite your somewhat tough physical exterior, you’re actually softer and nicer than you look. How would you describe that to your fans?

A: You see this side of me that looks rough, but the reality of it is that I grew up rough, in a violent household, a poor neighbourhood with rough kids, and I fought a lot of fights. The things that happened in my life, they did make me a bit hard, and I used to be very quick to temper and violence.

But what happened was, I always had a nice side, but the world made me that way. My upbringing made me that way. My first wife made me aware of the problem I had, with the anger and the violence. I made a very strong effort to change, and I’ve been successful in changing, I think.

I’d rather make people laugh and smile than to make them bleed or hurt. I want to be a positive force in the world. People think that they don’t mean anything and that they’re insignificant. That’s not true. Because if you drop a pebble in a pond, those ripples go out and they affect everything around.

And so, if I pass a car and they scream and they give me the middle finger and push me into a bad mood, then I meet somebody in a bad mood, it spreads. But if you can smile at somebody or make them laugh and make them happy. Again, that affects the whole world around you, so you could change the world with your own simple action.

The world is a bad place these days, and I want to always be something positive, that could make a difference in that way. When people meet me, I want them to go away happy, I want them to be smiling, and if you see me with anybody, I hug girls, I hug guys, I want you to feel like a family, I want you to feel warm.

So, that’s me, man, I wanna be a positive force in this crappy world where there’s so much hatred and prejudice and everything else.

So that’s the real me, man. I still have that temper and anger, but it takes a lot to get it out of me now.

I try never to bring it out. I prefer a life of peace.

My biggest regret is that I wasted years of my life in this other way.

Check out more of Greg Capullo on his Instagram and Twitter.


Related News

post-07
SDCC 2020: Best Of Day 2

We're already in Day Two of the San Diego Comic-Con 2020 (SDCC 2020), or rather, Comic-Con At Home 2020. Throughout the day, we'll gradually update th...

post-07
Animangaki 2021: 5 Reasons You Should Check Out This Online Anime Convention

The pandemic is still lingering in 2021, but that isn't going to stop Malaysians from getting their anime convention on. With Animangaki 2021 happenin...

post-07
[Updated] 32nd SEA Games 2023 Cambodia: MLBB Men's Division – Teams, Schedule & Results

It's that time of the year again when esports enthusiasts gather to witness their favourite games in the SEA Games. This year's event, hosted by Cambo...

Write a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Tournament Tool Kit

Kakuchopurei Community