Scott Kolins: Might Makes Right

By Keith Dallas

November may have to be renamed “Scott Kolins’ Month.” Two new, high-profile Marvel books featuring his artwork will be released that month — Earth's Mightiest Heroes, an eight issue bi-weekly mini-series written by longtime Wildcats scribe Joe Casey and Marvel Team-Up, an ongoing title written by rising star Robert Kirkman (Invincible). I talked to Kolins about his upcoming books, the monthly Avengers gig he had, and why LockJaw should fight alongside Spider-Man.

KEITH DALLAS: How were you approached to draw these titles? Did one title get set up before the other or were they set up simultaneously?

SCOTT KOLINS: Joe Casey and Marvel approached me with Earth's Mightiest Heroes when the Avengers monthly was going in a “different direction” and I was basically out of a job. It was many months later that Marvel Team-Up with Robert Kirkman was brought to me by Marvel, when we started talking about what I was going to work on after EMH. It's just a weird publishing quirk that they are coming out at the same time. I've just about finished EMH completely and am now starting MTU as my monthly gig.

KD: In a year’s time you drew seven issues of Avengers (Geoff Johns’ final story-arc, Search for She-Hulk, and the three issue Chuck Austen story arc, Once an Invader). I found an August 2003 interview in which you expressed the desire to “draw Ultron, Kang, Taskmaster, Squadron Supreme… even the Grim Reaper.” Evidently, you’re not going to get that chance for a while. What was your reaction when Avengers was “taken away from you”? Surprised? Confused? Upset? A combination of emotions?

SK: I wasn’t entirely surprised. And sure I wasn’t happy about being booted, but no one usually is. People were definitely disappointed that Geoff Johns left writing the book and there was some controversy about Chuck taking over. The issues I drew sold well, but didn't blow the doors off sales and nothing about the book seemed like it was headed in a solid direction, especially since the big issue #500 was approaching. All that led me to wonder how long I’d be on the book. Let me be clear, I'm not mad at Marvel or their decision to do this for the Avengers. I completely understand and agree. For me, it was just disappointing to be off the book, and I feel like I hadn’t had a chance to get into the monthly flow and build something.

KD: Okay, so what attracted you to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Marvel Team-Up? Do the titles have mostly similar or somewhat different appeals to you?

SK: Well, they are similar in that it’s fun to be playing in the Marvel Universe. I get warm fuzzies for both books because they are both fun books. EMH is fun because it’s old school fun with that “year one” feel. Drawing those old characters and the origins of the group are just too cool. Marvel Team-Up is fun because it’s not bogged down with heavy continuity. We get to use this character or that one — how we want — and then leave them alone afterwards. Seeing this guy meet that one and play out the scenario that hits them is fun. MTU is more like a fun game where we ask who's met whom and have they ever faced this before? Kirkman is a perfect writer for this.

KD: You've established a reputation as a fast artist who can still provide meticulous detail in every panel, but with two books coming out in November (and one of those books being a bi-weekly), readers are going to assume you can churn out 60 penciled pages a month. To dispel that assumption, can you tell me how long ago you started drawing Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and how long ago you started drawing Marvel Team-Up?

SK: I started EMH about 7 months ago (around January 2004) and just started MTU in June. I can do a page a day comfortably, or a book a month plus a cover or two. I’ve had to do more than that in my career but usually feel burnt out afterward and in need of a vacation — which when the calendar is added up still brings me back to doing basically a book a month.

KD: Why was November chosen as the launch date for both titles? Why not sooner? And why the decision to release Earth’s Mightiest heroes bi-weekly?

SK: Marvel decided on November as it has something to do with what’s going on with the Avengers monthly book. I can’t explain it. I’m not a salesman. EMH being bi-weekly came about because the book had been delayed so long that it will be pretty much be all done when the first issue comes out and Marvel thinks it will sell better bi-weekly. Hopefully that’s true!

KD: Okay, you just professed not to be a salesman, but I’m going to force you to be one here anyway (hey, it’s a crowded comic book marketplace). Convince the readers to buy these books. Let’s start with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Why should readers be interested in an Avengers: Year One-like mini-series?

SK: You should buy EMH if you like the book when you pick it up and look at it. Same for MTU. I think they are both good books. I know the creative teams have put everything we can into the books. If I were to see them on the stands I’d buy them — which is a fair statement I think, 'cause I’m a total miser with spending my own money.

KD: How much of EMH focuses on character interaction amongst the Avengers? And how much of it focuses on representing the “super battles” of the earliest Avengers issues?

SK: EMH is a mix of showing the cool fights and plots that occurred in the original issues then playing up more personal intrigue with some more complex plots that fit within the original framework. We cover the fights with Hulk, the Lava Men, the Masters of Evil and Kang, and there are redefined tensions between Thor and Iron Man as well as a deeper exploration of Captain America’s mental state when he’s brought back to life in the 20th century. Plus there’s also more to the story in general — like how Hawkeye joined the Avengers. We include a lot of stuff in this miniseries.

KD: You have a flair for costume design and re-design. On Flash, you designed the costumes for Cicada, Peek-a-Boo, and the new Trickster, and re-designed the costumes for Weather Wizard, Thinker, Magenta and Zoom. You told me previously that you really wanted to re-design Mirror Master’s costume, but Geoff Johns put the kibosh on that idea. Given this, what is your opinion of the original costumes of the original Avengers? You obviously are not in the position to make changes to their costumes in EMH because it’s set in the past, but if it was up to you would you make any changes?

SK: None of the original Avengers costumes are “bad” by ANY definition although Wasp’s is probably the toughest to pull off with today’s readers. It’s not nearly as sexy as most modern female costumes. Iron Man’s original all-gold thick armor did worry me at first, but it came out great and was fairly easy too. The toughest costume for me as I finish the book is the last Giant Man costume that has a helmet and a mask. It’s from around issue #15 I think. That one doesn’t seem well thought through — which is probably why he doesn’t keep it for very long. But I had to draw it and keep the continuity. I made it “OK” in my brain (which I need to do to if I’m going to give my best every time I draw him) as it seems like a desperate attempt by Hank to maybe increase his abilities or something. At this point in the story Hank and Jan are about to quit the Avengers and Hank had already described in earlier issues that he felt dwarfed in power by Iron Man and Thor. So I figure this costume was an extra idea Hank tried but quickly moved past. Now if these characters all had the same costumes “today” and I was trying to sell the book, I might make some suggestions for modernizing them while trying really hard to stay true to the original theme if possible. Olivier Coipel’s redesigned Ant Man is a perfect example of how to do this. Of course it’s silly to modernize someone like Thor unless you change the character altogether.

KD: Okay, back to your sales pitch to the readers… why should readers buy on a monthly basis a new Marvel Team-Up? This has to be a tough book to maintain readership with characters rotating in and out. Readers will come and go based on how popular each issue’s paired characters are. I think another problem that beset the team up books of the 1970s and 80s (Marvel Two-In-One with the Thing, Marvel Team-Up with Spider-Man, DC Comics Presents with Superman, Brave and the Bold with Batman) is that they presented stand alone stories, usually disconnected from the stories that came before them or after them, and typically disconnected from the overall continuity of the Marvel and DC Universes. How does this new version of Marvel Team-Up address these, in my opinion, built-in problems?

SK: Good question; that’s generally the perceived risk with this book. Robert Kirkman, the writer, is aware of this and will be interweaving a basic plot behind all these team ups for a larger story that will hopefully add to the interest of the book month after month. Beyond that we hope that we are picking an interesting variety that will appeal to a large audience. I personally think there's a lot of room for the book to grow from the previous fun incarnations.

KD: For Marvel Team-Up, have you asked Kirkman to include particular characters? Or because of the larger story he’s writing, is he “calling the shots” as to what characters appear in each issue?

SK: I’ve asked for some characters, and he’s said he can accommodate me to some degree. I’ve just started working with him, but Robert seems like another really good guy. He’s very into what he’s working on and he likes collaborating with his artists, which I like. The funniest request I’ve made is for a Lock Jaw/Spider-Man team up. I told him the basic story I thought would be fun. He said he liked it and would try to fit it in. That's cool.

KD: I’ve read that a lot of artists don’t want anything to do with Legion of Super-Heroes because of all the myriad characters they would have to keep track of. Considering the entire Marvel Universe is vastly larger than the cast of the Legion (obviously), aren’t you at all daunted by the fact that any issue of MTU will force you to draw characters you’re not completely familiar with or completely thrilled about drawing? Let me word this in a different way… is there a Marvel character that you dread drawing?

SK: Not really. I wasn’t daunted back when I worked on Legion and I’m not freaked out by lots of characters in MTU. I’m not wild about drawing them all the time as it can become a lot of work, but variety is fun. That’s going to be the fun of MTU for me — trying my hand at lots of different characters. This is why when I handed in the first issue cover rough, Joe Quesada asked me to put in more characters — “make it a Marvel Universe kinda cover” — I tried to put in all sorts of odd characters. That’s what I think of when I think of Marvel: Moon Knight. Man Thing. Silver Surfer. Lockjaw. Black Widow. Spider-Man. Doctor Strange. Wolverine. Everyone and anyone.

KD: In the same 2003 interview I referenced before, you professed Iron Man to be the most “time consuming” Avenger to draw. Since you began Marvel Team-Up, has any other character supplanted Iron Man as the most time consuming character to draw?

SK: Nope. I was referring to the modern Iron Man, which is a very busy design. The older Iron Man armors in EMH aren’t nearly as tough.

KD: The covers to Marvel Team-Up #1 and 2 indicate the first pairing is Spider-Man and Wolverine. Can you tell us what other pairings have been planned?

SK: Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange, Captain America and Black Widow, Iron Man and Hulk, Punisher and Blade, X-23 and Spider-Man; I can’t remember but there’s more planned in just the first year.

KD: Neither one of these titles has an inker, correct? You don’t even ink your own pencils. For those of us unfamiliar with the process, can you explain how this is done?

SK: I pencil a page and it gets scanned in for the letterer and colorist. I wouldn’t call it digital inks as some have as there’s nothing really altered by the scanning. It’s basically a good photocopy of my drawing. I’ve had ups and downs with inkers and this was another way for me to get the job done. I’m very happy with my end of it and think the coloring of Morry Hollowell (on EMH) and Edgar Delgado (on MTU) will surprise everyone who thinks they know what my stuff looks like. My open artwork is very susceptible to the coloring. I’ve had night and day reactions to the same page colored by different people.

KD: Is this scanning of pencils becoming more prevalent in the comic book industry? By removing the inker from the production process, is a lot of time saved?

SK: I think it is becoming more prevalent for the fact that Marvel even has a name for it in my contract. “Enhanced penciler” is what it says. Sounds pretty, doesn’t it? [He says with a wink.] If you’re like me and draw very tight pencils anyway, there can be time saved off a deadline as well as extra pay. Friends remarked for years that my photocopies were publishable — why not try it? Now let me say that there are great inkers out there that deserve to be paid twice what they are and I’d give anything to be inked by them. But I’m not Alan Davis or Adam Hughes who gets the top inkers. I was lucky enough to get Doug Hazlewood, Dan Panosian and Andy Lanning on Flash and on the Thing mini, and they all did outstanding jobs.

KD: During your run on Flash, you silhouetted the characters with some thick lines. Your work on Avengers and from what I can see on Earth's Mightiest Heroes, however, uses much thinner lines. Why the change?

SK: It was another way to get closer to my sketchbook style of drawing that usually got better reactions than my comic pages. But it was also a way to keep the job interesting after 10 years and keep me on my toes and hopefully keep learning, keep me looking at the problem of solving a page of story with a fresh eye. I’ll probably switch to something else in a few years or whenever people get tired of this style.

KD: Can you anticipate how you’ll change your style then?

SK: I eventually want to draw and color my own book. I’m near that competency but still a few years off. I’ve actually colored all the EMH covers and several of my Avengers covers as well as all my Flash covers.

KD: How would you evaluate your coloring work on covers?

SK: I’m capable and have a certain edge, as I know my drawing and what I want out of it. I’m not as proficient with Photoshop as a lot of other people, but I get by. And I like the idea of looking different, so I’m using what is called a cut-color-style, that some like and some don’t. I think I’m good enough to be paid but still a long way to go to be really good.

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