By Martijn Form  Vertigo lovers, Didn't I promise a special column for this week? Yes, I definitely did. And I feel as giddy as a schoolgirl, as a little boy walking into a toy store with Mom's credit card. Why? Well, a few months back I got this lovely email from Peter Gross: "I'm glad to see someone writing a column about Vertigo titles!" And he reported really enjoying the column. I, likewise, was thrilled because he is one of my all-time favorite Vertigo artists. He did most of the artwork for The Books of Magic, a series that I re-read every year. This is one of the best magical series ever done, regardless of medium. If you've read The Books of Magic and was as impressed with them as I was, I'm happy to report that he has outdone himself with Lucifer, which contains my all-time favorite comic arc, especially these two books:
Gross's creation, Thole, king of the Stitchglass, is amazing. Thole is a heart-warming character whose interior belies his exterior: he's a grey spider/ant-like creature with a heart of gold. Thole's primary focus is the building of a love nest, which he stitches out of emotions. But as Thole has no use for sad emotions, he dumps those into the slophole, which in reality is the attic of a house where a little boy named Martin lives. Without Thole being aware of it, his emotionally toxic waste makes Martin a very sad and depressed boy who doesn't feel he belongs in our reality. When they finally meet, Thole becomes a loving father to the boy, and the narrative that unfolds, especially the last page, brings tears to my eyes. Gross and I talked about his past endeavors for Vertigo, and he gave me a glimpse of what's he got in store for us in the future. Martijn Form: You have an impressive Vertigo resume that extends over many years, perhaps most notably working on The Books Of Magic and Lucifer. How would you describe your experience working on Vertigo titles? Peter Gross: For me, Vertigo isn't about a certain type of book but more about a certain way of working. And I like that way. At Vertigo, story rules, and everyone puts a lot of time and effort into making sure that the story comes out as effectively as possible. It means you're going to have a lot more involvement with the other creators and with the editors. I think it's shaped me as an artist; and I'll put clarity of story over doing the big money shots. I get a kick out of reading reviews where someone will say they don't really like my art much, but they really like the story. Well, that means they do like my art because I'm the one communicating that story to them—it's just working on a level they're a little less aware of. MF: Can you recall your first Vertigo assignment and how that came about? PG: I'm not even sure what my first actual Vertigo issue was because those early books started out as DC titles and changed over to Vertigo at some point. I had worked on Doctor Fate with Stuart Moore, and after that got cancelled because it was getting down towards 40,000 copies per issue (those were the days!), I was doing a lot of inking in the DCU to pay the bills. One day, out of the blue, I got a phone call from a former editor from Comico, Shelly Roeberg (now Bond), and she had just been hired to be Karen Berger's assistant and was wondering if I could do part of an issue of Shade, the Changing Man. And I think from that point on, I've been pretty much consistently working on something with Vertigo. And I think that was right at the time when the Vertigo imprint started. But even before that, the very first person to approach me about working at DC was Karen Berger. I had been doing a black-and-white book that I created called Empire Lanes, and Karen took me out to lunch at the Chicago comic convention and asked me to submit some proposals to her. So I guess I was always meant to end up working there. MF: The Books of Magic was your first extended Vertigo project. What did you think about the concept when you first read it? PG: I'd read Neil's mini-series of course, and Stuart Moore had asked me to pencil the Arcana special for the "Children's Crusade" event. (In a bit of marketing genius they had decided not to call it Books of Magic!) It was a big one-shot issue, 60-something pages long, and they had trouble finding an inker so they had me start inking it as I went while they kept looking for someone—and eventually I finished most of it so they just had me do the whole thing. They asked me if I wanted to work on the follow-up series. I did a few sample pages, but I sort of passed on it because I was working at Marvel too at that point and was really busy. I also thought that The Books of Magic was going to suck. The Arcana special was decent, but it was long and not much happened. The writer was new to comics and had some things to work out, and it wasn't Neil so I thought the series would almost certainly be a disaster. So while I was working at Marvel, Vertigo called me up because they were having some trouble with the inks on the first issue of TBoM. They were working with new artist Gary Amaro, who was doing some lovely stuff but had a few things that needed fixing, and the inker who was on the book hadn't worked out quite the way they wanted. So they asked me if I could re-ink those pages from photocopies and then ink the rest of the book. That worked out okay with my schedule, and since I was young and had an endless capacity to work 20 hours a day back then, I did it. It worked out well, and they asked me to be the regular inker on the series. The writing by John Rieber had really proved itself at that point, and the book looked like it was actually going to be fun so I said yes. And then, as it worked out, Gary was slow with his pencils, and by #4, I was helping out with that. Then I penciled the next arc, and by the end of that first year, I left Hellstorm at Marvel and became the lead artist on the TBoM (with Peter Snejbjerg doing additional arcs). MF: If you ask me, John Ney Rieber's writing on The Books of Magic is amazing. Can you describe a "typical" Rieber TBoM script and how you worked from it? PG: John's scripts were amazing, and one of the things he did was introduce an incredible amount of great characters in a short time. At one point, we had thought about doing a TBoM T-shirt, and I was going to do a little grid design with different characters in it. I quickly ran out of room. It's a pretty impressive feat and one that's more unusual in comics than you might think. I remember thinking that John had created as many memorable villains in his relatively short run on TBoM than had been created in all the years of Batman by all those different writers.  As far as scripts go, I remember that a lot of times that John would write great stuff in the panel descriptions (for the artist and editor) that wasn't necessarily going to show up in the book—little background info and such, and I always wanted to find a way to get that in the actual comic. And the other thing John had a tendency to do was that he is such a good writer that he could write himself out of any story he started. His characters could take over and go off in a direction that even he didn't anticipate. I would routinely delay drawing the last page of any script because John would often find that something unanticipated would occur in the next one, and we'd have to go back and redo the end to accommodate the new direction. MF: With issue #51, you took over TBoM writing chores from John Ney Rieber and still did most of the art work. How did that come about? And what did it mean for your work load? Do you find it's easier or more difficult to draw from your own scripts? PG: Around issue 40 of TBoM, John decided he was going to quit the book in a year. Julie Rottenberg (then the editor before moving on to become an Emmy-nominated writer on Sex in the City) and Stuart Moore asked me if I was interested in taking over. I wasn't too interested; I didn't think I had a lot to say with Tim's character that John hadn't already, so I passed. But the writers they were talking to didn't seem to have much of a grasp of Tim's character, so I agreed to submit a few stories to bridge the gap. I think it was Julie who asked me to write up something about what direction I thought TBoM should go in. I wrote a letter basically saying that Tim should end up a failure, or dead, because of all the avoidance and bad choices he'd already made—but that he should fail in a way that saves the world—fails in a way that we wouldn't want to change. It's harder to explain now without getting into the character, but basically Vertigo liked what I wrote and kept encouraging me to write more. Eventually, I had a 24-issue arc outline in great detail, and to my surprise, they approved the whole thing as written; I jumped into producing it. When I think back, it was amazing to know you could have two years without worrying about numbers getting too low to sustain a book, but that was more the nature of the business back then. It was during those two years that the comic market went through a steady decline, and by the end of that run, it was clear we wouldn't have the same luxury in the future. But the amazing thing about the whole run was that I went into it intending to fulfill my initial Tim is a failure” storyline, but somewhere in there, something magical happened. And I swear Tim's character took over and showed me a way to save him that I had never imagined. And now, years later I have to say that Tim's solution bore a certain similarity to what happened in the final Harry Potter book 10 years later! Maybe there's only so many ways you can go with boy wizards. To answer the second part of your question about working from my own scripts, I'd have to say that it isn't much different than working with another writer. I was so used to working from full scripts that I decided I'd continue writing that way for myself, and I made a conscious effort to treat my own scripts like I would anyone else's. With any script I work with, I try to tear it apart and look for weaknesses that I can fix in the art. I get pretty involved and always try to find ways to get to the writer's intent more than the writer may have called for. And oddly enough, I'd find just as many opportunities with my own scripts—the words are such a different process than the visuals. MF: After TBoM, your next major Vertigo project was Lucifer, another story full of magic and fantasy. Would you say your art style is best suited for this genre? PG: I had a beloved painting teacher in college, a Hungarian who had escaped to America back in the ‘50's. He told me once that he really liked my paintings but that I painted beautiful women like they were potatoes, so my response was to paint a picture of potatoes like they were beautiful women! I still have that painting hanging on my living room wall (one of the few I've ever kept). So I guess, the answer to your question is that I draw magic and fantasy like they are potatoes. I think I approach it in a very down-to-earth everyday way and stress the humanity over the supernatural. I think that served me well on those two series, and also on Chosen (now American Jesus) with Mark Millar.  One of my proudest moments in comics was a small thing: a writer I had worked with at Vertigo was writing at Marvel and told me that they had been asked not to write so many subtle emotions and moments for the character because the comic artists wouldn't be able to draw them. That writer was really surprised because I was able to handle all those moments just fine. I'll take that as a great compliment. MF: If I'm not mistaken, your next Vertigo project will be a five-part Fables back-up story. Can you tell us more about that? PG: I'm midway through my 25 pages of back-up stories about Mowgli and Bagheera (and Bigby's brothers) journeying back to the Jungle Book after the war is over. I'm having a great time on it. Bill Willingham and I have wanted to do something together for a long time, and Fables fits me well. I'm glad we finally had a moment of convergence where we could do it! MF: Are there any other upcoming Peter Gross Vertigo projects that readers can look forward to? PG: There are, but unfortunately, I'm forbidden to talk about them. I'm incredibly busy and have been under exclusive contract with Vertigo, but I've had virtually nothing published since the end of Testament because I've been so immersed in two different projects. I'm hoping to get to the point where I can talk about them because they're the best work I've ever done, and one of them is shaping up to be one of the best comics I've ever read. I think it's a classic in the making, and every moment working on it is sheer joy! If it's half as good as all of us working on it think it is, it should be a huge hit for Vertigo sometime in 2009! And I'm also supposed to do the American Jesus with Mark Millar in 2009, so it's shaping up to be a big year! MF: Yes, American Jesus is a fantastic book. I read its original incarnation when it was published by Dark Horse. Well, thank you so much, Peter, for doing this great interview and making a dream come true. And if you're are trying to save some money, like me, to buy a original comic page by Peter Gross, just go to his website: www.petergrossart.com. You will find tons of great artwork from Lucifer and The Books of Magic. Well, that's it, I couldn't have ended my run on the Vertigo Spotlight in a better way. That's right, dear readers, this is my last Vertigo Spotlight column here at CB. Due to some changes at Comics Bulletin, I'm leaving CB all together, and someone else will be taking over the column. It has been an amazing ride. I loved getting you inside information, exclusive art, sketches and scripts you can't find anywhere else as well as writing reviews on works I love. I would like to thank you, the readers, for great feedback, and the Vertigo creators for all of their support. Last, but not least, I would like to thank my former editor Keith Dallas, for all the wonderful work he did editing my scribbling. He made me look a lot better than I am. The passion and the fire I feel for Vertigo and comics in general is burning brighter than ever in me, and maybe we cross ways again in the future. Only time will tell. Humbly yours, Martijn Form |
