I had a bit of a shock this morning - Matt Camp, artist on Zero Killer, commented on my review of issue #1. Not being one to let the opportunity pass me by, I dropped Matt an email in response, and he consented to an interview.
For those of you who have not read the issue, I’m not going to post any art here, because I do not like the idea of being sued. But, please go out and buy a copy. If you need a reason take a look at this cover image.
So Matt, how did you come to work on this project?
I had put together a 5 page sample for the NYCC ’06 show and showed it around, it had gotten good reactions but no work. That same night Jade Dodge (Shadows), Devon Devereaux (Tales of Hot Rod Horror), Arvid Nelson (Rex Mundi) and I had dinner and I had brought along the sample. Arvid really loved it, so we chatted about his recent move to Dark Horse and how he liked it. So to make a long story short I went home and got an email from Arvid asking if I was interested in doing something creator owned through Dark Horse and I of course said yes.
What have you previously worked on?
I started at Image with “Shadows” [Ed.'s NOTE: Newsrama has some art posted from the series here] , written by Jade Dodge, and illustrated by myself, then I did a fill in on the “Cisco Kid” for Moonstone. Besides a few pin-ups that’s it, but I am doing something with another company that I don’t think I can talk about yet.
How difficult was it for you to break into comics, and what would you do differently if you had another chance?
I’ve only ever submitted twice, once to Wildstorm, which was very fairly rejected, and then later to Image, which got picked up pretty quickly. I’ve been very lucky, hopefully it stays that way. If I could do anything differently it would probably be finding out the tone of what I want the books to be like earlier. Starting a new series has a lot to do with finding your footing, and once you have that you go from there, but finding that is hard to do.
What advice would you give to someone starting out? And by this, I mean real practical advice that you’ve never seen in print… too often this becomes “keep at it,” but what I mean is something technical and specific.
Keep at it does sound like a cop-out doesn’t it? I would say learning all the steps it takes to make a book is pretty useful. Knowing how to color, letter, and even write is helpful to an artist and it also provides a basic knowledge when working with the people that do that with you. If you try and think about what they have to have to do a good job it’ll really aid you and them in the long run. Another good piece of advice is to really study how a page gets laid out, panel structure and variation of shots, sometimes the want to make things look really exciting destroys the need to tell a good story, and young artists fall into that trap pretty often. Even knowing how thick to make your panel borders is good, changing those really alters the look of the book.
How closely do you work with Arvid Nelson and Dave Stewart?
Arvid and I talk on the phone once or twice a week, emailing almost daily, usually to discuss ideas since pretty much every page has something in it that has to be designed in one way or another. Dave on the other hand I just leave alone, he doesn’t need my help at all so I just keep my mouth shut. He just won another Eisner [Ed.'s Note: Yesterday, in fact -- and I feel the need to point out that this was posted here before it made it up on Wikipedia, though Colleen Doran has a full list up], so all I really do is compliment him. Our editors Philip Simon, Ryan Jorgensen and Scott Allie have been pretty helpful for bouncing ideas off of, and coming up with their own. It’s definitely a team project.
What’s your background in terms of art training?
Self taught, but I’ll still hopefully take some Kubert school classes through the mail eventually, I never want to stop learning.
You manage an almost photo-realistic view of the city in this project, what kind of research did you have to do for that (what with it being the burnt out husk of 1970s New York)?
So far I’ve been to Manhattan twice and luckily brought my camera both times, really if I use reference for ideas I just ignore buildings that look new. Buildings are something that always scared me so it’s been a good learning experience. But the perfectionist in me has to see it for himself, so going to New York was a must. And a write off.
I have to admit, this kind of surprised the Hell out of me, as the backgrounds in this book really reach out and grab you.
I’ve got to say again that I’m really looking forward to seeing where this goes from here. The first issue is available now wherever comics are sold [Ed.'s NOTE: Okay, not exactly, they sell "Archie" at the grocery store, but haven't really moved on to more mature minded titles, but you know, like comic shops should have it, probably Barnes and Noble, or Borders...], and the next issue comes out on September 19th.
Many thanks to Matt for replying to my questions!