Colleen Doran: Working Hard
By Tim O'Shea
[Throughout the following Colleen Doran interview there will be bracketed comments with certain illustrations {Click on the illustrations for larger versions}. These bracketed comments are notes that Doran sent with the specific illustration.: “This is a double page spread from issue four {of Reign of the Zodiac}. My uninked pencils. I got so tired of doing stuff like this in pencil, that on future pages like this, I will be inking as I go.”]
Colleen Doran is a creator I’ve grown to greatly respect in recent years. I’m merely jumping on her bandwagon well after many other folks in the industry. Most of the time, I try to keep introductory biographies brief and let the interview tell the story. But Doran’s creative bio (from her official site) is so rich, I’m going to deviate from the norm and quote extensively:“Colleen Doran has illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines and dozens of stories and articles.
At the age of five, she won an art contest sponsored by the Walt Disney Company and landed her first professional assignment for an advertising agency at age fifteen. While still in college, she was a full-time professional artist who was able to add her professional work to her college art curriculum for credit. Overwhelmed with assignments, she left college early and has worked steadily since.
Her latest projects include Orbiter, a 104 page original graphic novel written by the acclaimed author Warren Ellis. Orbiter has already been profiled in major venues such as Entertainment Weekly and the highly anticipated hardcover edition premiered in comic book shops April and mainstream bookstores in June 2003. Look for it at Barnes and Noble, Borders, www.amazon.com and wherever graphic novels are sold.
Orbiter is the story of a space shuttle mission that disappears on a mission. A demoralized American public decides to end its manned space program and Kennedy Space Center becomes a shanty-town. Ten years later, the space shuttle returns to Earth in a ball of fire and a small team of disillusioned scientists and psychologists must find out what has happened and where the shuttle has been from the sole surviving occupant.
Orbiter was over a year-and-a-half in the making and was completed the very week of the shuttle Columbia disaster. Doran and Ellis have dedicated Orbiter to the memory of the space shuttle Columbia crew.
Doran is also busy drawing the new DC creator-owned series Reign of the Zodiac, an original fantasy about the twelve warring royal houses of the zodiac. Written by Keith Giffen and designed by Doran, this series eschews the stereotypical comic book fantasy trappings and seeks to embrace the scope and drama of literary fantasy. No spandex, no “costumes” and no shtick, Reign of the Zodiac is a fully realized fantasy world in comic book form, with strong characterization, convoluted politics and a depth of visual realization that is virtually unmatched in American fantasy comics. Reign of the Zodiac premiered as a monthly series in July 2003. Doran created her graphic novel series A Distant Soil at the age of twelve and she now writes and draws the series for Image Comics. It is now in its third collected volume and the first volume is in three printings. It is published in Spanish and soon to be published in Italian. It has sold, collectively, more than 500,000 copies.”
There’s more, but you can visit her site to read the whole shebang. More recently, in the good news department, Ellis and Doran’s Orbiter was reviewed in Publisher's Weekly. Again, Doran’s release on this development is worth quoting:
“The latest graphic novel from Warren Ellis, with art by Colleen Doran, Orbiter, joins Neil Gaiman's new Sandman graphic novel in the list of starred graphic novel reviews in the September 15 issue of the trade journal Publisher's Weekly.
The coveted starred review is a strong recommendation from this bastion of the publishing trade. Though Orbiter was released some months ago, strong continuing backlist sales and mainstream interest in the project have propelled the book into becoming one of DC/Vertigo's best selling original graphic novels in years, a rarity for a work that was initially released in hardcover and which was not preceded by a series. The magazine Library Journal also gave Orbiter a "highest recommendation" nod, and Bookpage called it "smart, suspenseful and well-written, and it's tremendously detailed, realistic artwork is perfectly suited to the more science-than-fiction plot."
…
‘I sincerely hope that the good mainstream press for books like Orbiter and Sandman will continue this positive trend for comics and graphic novels, both in terms of recognition and sales, in the mainstream bookstore trade. Anything that gets more folks into reading comics and graphic novels is okay by me,’ Doran said.”
Well, enough with the background material, now on with the interview, which focuses mainly on Zodiac.
Tim O’Shea: How long have you and Mr. Giffen been developing this project (Reign of the Zodiac)? How and why was the decision made to set this in the DC universe instead of Vertigo?
Colleen Doran: Wow, we have been developing this for well over a year. Keith began talking to me about it as early as 2001. He asked if I might be available for work after I was finished with Orbiter and if I had any interest in astrology and so on.
[“Here is a page that is partially inked by me already. Even though Bob Wiacek is the official inker, since I can draw in ink without preliminary pencils, it saves time for me to just go ahead and do some of the panels like this. It is hard to get a clean line in pencil, but easy to draw immediately in ink, so when I don't have to worry about word balloon placement, I just ink as I go.The first two pencils are already inked by me and the rest of the page is in pencil, waiting for Bob Wiacek. I just started working this way because the duplication of effort when it is not necessary just seems very silly to me.”]
The timing was amazing because I had, sometime in summer 2000, actually been hired by a magazine to do some astrological designs and concepts. I had spent days working on sketches and had gotten them approved and only after doing all this design work did they inform me that they thought I was a computer artist and could I turn it all in layers and Photoshop and what all. At the time, I had never done any computer art at all and realized that I had just drawn all this stuff and come up with all these great designs for nothing. Fortunately, I hadn't turned in the contract. I liked my ideas and concepts and decided to tell them to get another artist. I was keeping my work and I waived the fee. I liked the designs and I knew I could use them for something later.
When I got the call from Keith about Zodiac, I couldn't believe the, uh, amazing alignment of the stars bringing me this good fortune. I showed Keith my concept work and he loved it. We agreed if we could get the right deal, we would have an appealing project for some publisher! DC decided to pick it up almost immediately. Even before Orbiter was finished, we had begun work in earnest on Zodiac.
As a matter of fact, I had drawn preliminary pages and began working on costumes and gathering reference based on Keith's first scripts almost fourteen months ago. I did the first pages of story art sometime in July 2002. I spent a lot of time trying to peg a new art style for the book. There were a number of pages I didn't even use for the book because I actually started drawing issue three before issue one! Then I went back and drew issue one, liked the art style I began forming for issue one, then had to dump issue three completely and start over from scratch!!!
I think I did about 20 partially finished pencils that will never be used. There's just an enormous amount of planning and preliminary work in the series. I tallied up about 200 costume designs so far.
[“Uninked pencils from issue three. I like these battlefield scenes. These are the only costumes in the book I didn't design myself. These were designed by Keith Giffen.”]It's fortunate that I am an obsessive photo bug because all these years of world travel has given me a terrific library of my own photos to draw from and on this book I need every single one of them.
I honestly don't know why this isn't a Vertigo book. I guess DC is just trying to branch out and Zodiac has more general market appeal than some of the Vertigo books. Not a lot of explicit stuff going on in Zodiac. Just obscure swear words that no one will ever know what the heck they are.
TO: Over at the DC message board, you described the first issue as that it "sets up the history of our Zodiac world and it is drawn to reflect a kind of epic, Cecil B Demille scope" Given that description, how much does film influence your approach toward art and/or storytelling in general?
CD: Oh man, film is a big influence on me. I love the experience immersion of film. That is a sensation that is missing from a lot of comics. The kind of total world building I see in films like The Lord of the Rings is something I embrace. I adore the work of directors like David Lean, Cecil B. Demille, Kurosawa, Peter Jackson. I especially love black and white films, the early great epics, silent films. I love the early Napoleon film, shot with the split screen technique, almost like comic book panels, and all those great, over the top epics, even the wacky, cheesy silent films. I just watched A Trip to the Moon the other day. Charming! I often have movies on when I am working, especially films with sparkling dialogue. I'm a big Bettie Davis fan and must have seen All about Eve a hundred times.
I want to give my readers the same sensation of immersion as film. From costumes, to set design to characterization, to casting, I want a complete, storytelling experience on every level, not just how the panels are arranged and how the figures move within the panels, but every detail of the interaction of the people, the things, the mood in the panels. If I am creating an alien world, I have to create it from its foundation up, and I love that kind of challenge. You have hundreds of people in a movie to do this task. In Zodiac or A Distant Soil or Orbiter, I am responsible for the complete visual sensibility. It's rough, but I love it. Wouldn't want to do anything else.
I don't believe that comics have to be like film in terms of storytelling technique at all. If that is what the artist wants, then fine. My work is less cinematic than illustrative, I think.
When I look to film, it is for sensibility or mood. If I want something grand, I look to grandeur. If I want something moody, I throw Hitchcock on the tube. Bright and sparkly, I may watch Moulin Rouge.
[“Another page from issue four, with one panel obviously already inked by me. There is no dialogue in this panel, so I simply drew it straight in ink and left the blacks for Bob to spot, and the rest of the page for him to finish.Also, when I have a facial expression that simply can't be altered, I will now draw it in ink myself and leave the rest of the work to the inker. That way I don't have to worry about any nuances being lost in another artist's interpretation.”]
Usually when I have a movie on, it is not that I am actually watching it, but I am listening to it so that I can infuse the mood into the work I am doing. Rarely do I actually get to watch a movie anymore. I can't have a movie I truly love, like Lawrence of Arabia on the television while I am working because I can't take my eyes off it!
The style sensibility of the film may have absolutely nothing to do with what I am drawing, just the mood of it. I think I watched Gone with the Wind while working on the first issue of Zodiac, but I doubt you will find Tara or Scarlett anywhere in our book!
Hollywood sure looks to comics often enough! I had some artist come up to me at San Diego Comic Con. He was a designer on some SF TV series and he was standing there telling me about all the stuff he had gotten from my work. I didn't know whether to be flattered or call my lawyer. I've never seen the show, so I don't know. I'm trying to avoid it.
TO: You're an artist respected for the grandeur and scale of your work, with an incredibly staggering attention to detail. Given your unique perspective on your own work, I was wondering what value you think inker Bob Wiacek and colorist Lovern Kindzierski add?
CD: The most important thing Bob Wiacek can do for me is to show respect for my pencils and a lot of inkers simply do not. They take one look at my work and quit. Or they give up and just do a sloppy job. I got a bad reputation as an artist years ago because I got really butchered by some bad inkers. I've even had a couple call the editor and beg to be allowed to erase or use a lot of ink because my pencils are too hard for them. I swore I would never work with another inker again, but when I am allowed to have Bob Wiacek, I breathe easier. He is very respectful of my pencils and we have worked together before.
Since I often do a lot of my work with no preliminary drawing, I just got permission from the editor to do some of the background work directly in ink myself. It seems silly to draw something twice to me, so some of the detail work is just going to be drawn straight in ink from now on. I am sure this will make Bob happy! I just did this monster double page spread on issue four that I knew I could have just drawn half of it straight in ink in the first place. Would have saved a lot of time if I had. If I get anymore pages like that, I'm just going to ink the places I want to straight off.
Lovern has a really rough job. I think he is ready to pull his hair out. I don't spot a lot of blacks and I have very specific ideas about how the book should look. All that detail must be murder on him.
TO: Could you give an idea of how much of a give and take collaborative process Zodiac is between you and writer Keith Giffen? Are there certain scenes that played out far differently than originally planned at the outset, because of certain revisions (by either writer or artist)?
CD: I have made some suggestions, but I don't tell the writer what I think he should be doing. I am so involved with the look of the book, I couldn't imagine fiddling with the story. If I read something that doesn't work to me, I will say something and I've only done that once so far.
Keith was very cool. He takes constructive criticism beautifully. I presented my reasons clearly and dispassionately, he said "You're right. What can we do about it?" and the clever fellow fixed the problem with about two word balloons. Really sharp of him!
There was one thing I did that changed something because I was so tired when working on one page that I goofed big time! Keith and I were on the phone while I was penciling and we kept talking about this one character and her role in upcoming issues. I just happened to be drawing a page in an earlier issue and accidentally drew this character into a page in which she didn't appear! Keith loved it! It turned out to be a really great plot twist and actually streamlined the plot overall, so we left her in the scene!
TO:You're a creator with a rich and diverse history, but as of late it seems your profile is on the rise even more than it already was in the past. Do you think the one-two combination of Orbiter (with Warren Ellis) and Reign of the Zodiac will open your work to a whole new segment of the industry, who may have not known about A Distant Soil or your other work?
CD: Heck yeah. I have kept a really low profile for years. I even considered leaving comics entirely a few years ago. I just wasn't getting the kind of work I felt I was suited for. My agent, Spencer Beck, was helping me to get some jobs, but I really wanted more challenging work.
Even though I was happy to be doing A Distant Soil for Image, it is a modestly successful book and I couldn't make a living on it. I hadn't done any serious mainstream work in years and I wasn't getting any market attention at all.
Warren Ellis was the guy who really changed a lot of people's minds about my work. He insisted that I be the artist for Orbiter. Most people didn't believe I could do it. When I started turning in pages, no one could identify the artist. They just couldn't believe that Colleen Doran was this space geek with astronaut toys around her house. People were shocked that I was into things like that and even more shocked that I could draw that book. I think Reign of the Zodiac has pretty much convinced people I can draw anything. My profile was so low for so many years that a lot of people think I am a newcomer! That's okay. Maybe A Distant Soil will become hot now!
TO: How hard was it to draw the first issue, from the standpoint of telling a tale through the dialogue of two people, who actually don't show up until page 17 of a 22-page story?
CD: That wasn't hard at all. Keith described in his script what he wanted in each panel. I also use a similar storytelling technique in A Distant Soil, the divergent storyline, visuals that tell one story while word balloons or captions tell another. Comics are interactive. People who are used to having their stories spoon fed to them have trouble with this kind of reading. It requires a certain amount of abstract thinking on the part of the reader. Some people really, really got it. Others didn't.
The hardest thing about the first issue was the subject matter itself. The sinking of Atlantis and all those splash pages and whatnot made for some brutally difficult work. One spread took four days.
I have to work weekends on this book, that's all there is to it. And I can't say no to some projects, so I am still doing A Distant Soil and just finished up illustrations for The Essential Tolkien Sourcebook. I haven't had a day off since last April. Keith Giffen says I am insane, and coming from him, that means something.
I love to draw and I have been begging for this kind of work for years. Now that I have it, I'm not blowing the opportunity. I always told people that if they gave me the chance, I would give them my very best and I meant it. I am willing to work hard.
I would like to thank Colleen not only for her time and thoughts, but also for her willingness to scan and share numerous illustrations in addition to the interview itself. As evidenced by the interview, she is quite busy, and SBC appreciates the opportunity to share these final few illustrations.
[“Attached is a Wonder Woman painting I did for a graphic novel called WonderWoman: The Once and Future Story. DC decided not to use it.”]
[“Here is something else I do on the side: formal portraiture.”]
[“This is something folks in comics wouldn't have seen: an illo for PSM magazine for the game Silent Hill.”]
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