FANTAZIA #14 (Jul 1991)

War of the Gods is part of Wonder Woman's 50th anniversary celebrations. What is the story line about?
War of the Gods basically deals with Circe the Sorceress' master plan to fulfill the revenge of the Hecate, one of the moon goddesses that has been betrayed by an Olympian god during the pre-history. The War of the Gods basic premise is that different pantheons of gods are called to wreak havoc on the Earth, although the gods themselves aren't really trying to destroy the Earth, just reclaiming what they consider theirs in the first place.

What their plan is is to re-create the world according to their own myths, of course many of these contradict each other so you have the conflict between the various gods and with the superheroes who are caught in the middle of all this.

Coinciding with this is Wonder Woman's50th anniversary and because of the nature of the cross-over and the fact that she does have her own book , she has stories crossing over with this. She sometimes plays a lesser active role in some of the issue, so that the other characters, especially those like Aqua Man who haven't had their own series, can get a better,fuller role to play.

Also in addition to the Creek gods and how they relate to Wonder Woman, is also how they relate to Captain Marvel. I try to deal with why the Z in Shazam stands for Zeus, if the Zeus according to the revised Wonder Woman legend, has had no physical involvement in modem humanity up until the time Diana came to Patriachs world. It's not really a redefinition of Captain Marvel as opposed to a redefinition of Shazam. For example, who is the old wizard that gave him his powers and why should a Roman deity, a demi-god and one Judaic leader all get together to create a superhero, which is what Captain Marvel ended up being ?

I always wondered why all these legends created this character ? Why did they manifest all of their energies into creating this super heroin a red and yellow costume ? The one thing I want to keep in Captain Marvel despite all that,is that sense of innocence. He is not just Superman in a different suit and he doesn't use mythology so much that he becomes Wonder Woman in drag !

Other characters who will be popping in that will have major roles include everyone from The Demon, to a totally obscure character that DC bought from Charlton Comics and that's the Son of Vulcan because of his mythological tie-in. He also provides me with the opportunity to use the character totally freely, without worrying about upsetting too much of his past history because very few people remember his past history !

In the case of Wonder Woman, the one thing we set out to do is to finish off the next stage of her development . She has gone from being a messianic figure that is trying to save the world from Aries, to being a teacher, an ambassador getting the world of man for the arrival of the Amazons and the recognition of Themyscira as an existing nation and now I want to assimilate her into the superhero community.

Basically I want to put her back into DC's mainstream again which will also finish off my run on Wonder Women, because War of the Gods, and issue 62 of Wonder Women which directly follows War of the Gods will be my last Wonder Woman series.

You're just doing the layouts on War of the Gods I understand ?
Yes, I'm doing the layouts on the original boards, but not quite the way that Keith Giffen does on all the stories that he works on. It's closer to the sort of work I did on Superman before Kerry Gammill came in. When I worked with Brett Breeding I did the layouts which were very loose except for some of the main characters, who I might do a little more definition on the faces in order to get the exact emotion I want. But this way the body language, the ideas for the actual scene and scenery are mind and then in this case Cynthia Martin's

How is the work coming along with Cynthia Martin? Is it looking the way you expected it to ?
Looking at Cynthia's work the one thing I notice that's different from mine is a softer touch. My characters tend to be more grandiose, with more macho appeal if you like as far as the men are concerned and hers have a much more elegant look to them. She doesn't go as dark as I do, some of that could be because her knowledge of the character is more limited. She has a very graceful style and that's one of the reasons why I'm doing layouts as opposed to doing a script and having her finish it off.

Her elegance, combined with 'my power has a nice unique feel. It's different enough that I know it's not mine, yet my strength is still there because of how much work went into the layouts. There's an opening sequence with the New Olympus that I actually had to full pencil,because there was no way I could say, draw a circle and say: "That's where the new Olympus is going to be" and expect anything of my imagination to be in there. So those type of pages and certain characters are mine and the rest are Cynthia's. She's also using a ton of reference, many of them from the books I've done. So some stuff of hers looks more like mine than others and some stuff looks totally Cynthia Martins.

I see you've worked with a number of women in the recent years, most notably on the second Wonder Woman annual. Do you find it easier to work with women than men ?
I don't find any essential difference between working with either one of them. The second Wonder Woman annual was a gimmick annual. I wanted to work with female artists on a book that featured a prominent female superhero, but because Wonder Woman only had one title, the annual provided us with an outlet for different female artists, to work on without committing their time as they all had regular work to do. Female artists being readers as well, don't often particularly care to read superhero books about the next kind of incarnation of the macho bare-chested hero, or superhero with a gun kind of comic book.They come into it with a fresh approach which is a little different. Most of the time if you deal with a male artist and you mention a certain character, he will probably know who that character is and probably have kept up with him as they may have been fans of that particular genre as they were growing up. Many of the women have not, some have, but most have not, and that provides the difference why working with men gives a different outlook.Because of that, dealing with Cynthia on the regular series, I have to be a little more precise in what I want. For example, if a character is going to perform a certain act, sometimes you have describe how that character can perform that action because there are certain characteristics that are inherent in that character that they may not be aware of and you have to not take it for granted that they know this.

Beyond that, they provide their own insights, and sometimes it's interesting to note that I might describe a character as beingh and some and how a woman would interpret that. Because the men have a certain ideas of what handsome means but to a woman it's a totally different idea. So sometimes I get some interesting feedback, some totally different points of view.

How about the writing side. Their point view as being women, does that cause anyconfusion?
The only trouble I've ever had in the writing and that's got better with more experience is the storytelling aspect. In working with Jill Compton for a while I went toa full script because we had a little trouble with her storytelling. Again it's not something that's she's grown up with. Standard fare, there are certain ways of following through a fight scene which they might find to be incredibly boring, I don't blame them. That's the only time, I've had any problems in the writing aspect. If I don't totally put the stuff down in the original plot or the script, then they may misinterpret what I want.

To be completely frank, I have had that trouble with one or two male artists. I think every writer has that trouble with an artist atone point or another. Just in the case of Jill in particular, who worked on her own layouts, it was getting used to emphasizing the correct things in a story, making sure that the characters are going to have dialogue and to provide space for that dialogue and to provide different angles so that people aren't just sitting there and letting the words cruise over their heads. Those were the kind of problems that had to be worked out and whether it's because they're women, which I seriously doubt or because they're new which could very well be a reason. Those are the only major things that I've had to deal with but it's got better with time.

You're no longer under exclusive contract DC Will you be still working for them?
Oh yes, my retirement from Wonder Woman is a natural thing. I told them sometime ago that I was going to retire after my fifth year on the series.

I've done all I can or that I can think of anyway and I would like to go on to other projects. The one thing that I will not be doing for either Marvel or DC is a regular series.Writing for someone else is not as satisfying as writing for myself, so I don't know what I will do afterwards. I loved working for DC and I ove working for Marvel right now, but what I will be doing next really depends on how I feel fter of the Gods at DC and The Infinity Guantlet at Marvel, are over and done with. I'll probably take about six months off and work asan inker for a while so that I don't have to pu my creative juices through such a taskingburden again for a while. That way I don't haveto worry about how the story is going to bedesignedd as it's already in front of me, I don'thave to worry how the story progresses, that'salready done for me. I can just treat drawingmechanically for a while at least until Irecharge my batteries and figure out what Iwant to do next.

The one thing that DC have going for them and in my decision to work for them in thefuture, is Karen Berger whom I have enjoyed working with immensely as an editor. She is the best editor I have ever worked with and hasa great grasp of what makes a comic work. Shedoesn't tie it down to a series of preconceptions, she likes creators to have alittle more free rein than most. A lot of whatWonder Woman is now is due to Karen Berger.She's just had a baby, I hope that she decides tostay working on a full-time basis as I definitelywant to work with her again.

Are you working on both Infinity Gauntlet and War of the Gods at the same time ?
Yes, in fact I've just finished drawing two pages for Gauntlet this morning and I have to work on some layouts for Cynthia on War of the Gods this afternoon.

It's a very nerve racking thing to do, I will never do such a thing again , it was a real case of bad timing. When I went freelance last year,I suddenly forgot what the word NO meant, soI just started taking on any and all assignments,covers here, one-shots there, everything just piled up. All the time I had and I did have a good head start on The Infinity Gauntlet and War of the Gods, I pretty much ate up. So now I'm working double- time to maintain the schedule on both books.

This period if nothing else has taught me my lesson, which is why I if I volunteer for any other project, I won't take on anything else which is more than two months long if I have anything to say about it. If nothing else it will be financially rewarding and sheer coincidence that it happened to have god-beings in both series, I have had to draw two versions of Zeus because of doing these cross-over series.

When I make my decisions for next year, I will be able to afford the luxury of time to think hopefully from the money that will be incurred from these projects.

You've just said there were two versions of Zeus for instance. Do you ever worry you might start pencilling in the wrong characters from the wrong company ?
Maybe that's why it's a good thing I'm doing just layouts on War of the Gods. The one thing I worry about by working on both books,is that both of them will have my storytelling and so become repetitious. There are many similarities between Jim Starlins' story on The Infinity Gauntlet and mine for War of the Gods. So much so that I have to make sure as an artist on both books that I don't repeat clichés. With the Earth in danger of being destroyed in both books it's pretty hard not to fall into some clichés about that, you have earthquakes, floods, lightning, you're pretty much caught in a limited scenario that you canplay in.

War of the Gods really deals with a lot more mythological aspects of a god war in case of Infinity Gauntlet, Jim has pretty much written out the gods in issue two, after that there's no more similarity, but up until then the similarity was getting so comparatively close that I was starting to worry that it was going to look that I was doing the same book for both companies, even though I knew Jim had been planning the Thanes storyline for quite a while.The first synopsis for War of the Gods was handed in in January 1990 and it hasn't changed all that much since then but it's one of those things of parallel thinking. Jim just happened to have to come up with an idea,that's similar, but thankfully he is doing basically a superhero cosmic story and I'm doing a superhero mythology story.

Most people when they are asked to draw crowd scenes, they seem to go for the easy way out, but you seem to thrive on group situations. When you get halfway through something like that, do you ever throw your hands up in despair ?
There are many pages that I consider to be my Frankenstein, creating this beast that now will not die and that I sometimes regret ,particularly if they are of my own doing as opposed to someone else asking me. For example I'll go "Oh, lets do a big crowd scene"and I'll put all these characters in there then realise that the sequence goes on for a couple of pages and you're stuck drawing all those things, over and over again.

I did an issue of Teen Titan years ago, thefirst issue of the Baxter series where writerMary Wolfman describes this limbo area. Weboth talked about it and I even layed it out firstwith the character Raven walking across thisstone bridge and then when I finished thepencilling, I changed my. mind and I decided tobe more dramatic and draw all these twisted bodies, all these souls and it made for a greatshot and then of course the Frankensteinsyndrome occurred and I had to draw thesescenes for three more pages. You know rock isa hell of a lot easier to draw , so I tend to do that, but genuinely love to draw.

Maybe it's because I work alone all the timethat I like the idea of doing the inter-relationship of characters with each other.Whatever the reason, I sincerely love to drawthe characters. The biggest example of how Ican get carried away is the cover of numberfive of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Mary, upon mywife’s request, asked me to do a simple coverwith only about two or three of the charactersheads floating around and Earth exploding. Thatcover ended up with two merging Earths andninety six heads on the cover ! It's become partof my self so much, that I am uncomfortabledoing it any other way. When I do a page thathas very little on it, that's an impact page for meas opposed to other artists who if they put a lotof detail or if they have a lot of characters on thepage, then that's their impact page. People getused to my crowd scenes so that when I dosomething that is just an explosion or acharacter standing in the middle of a desert,that has impact !

I understand your also doing a classicillustrated Julius Caesar. That will have alot of characters as well I take it ?
I am supposed to be doing a ClassicsIllustrated, I'm assuming I still am, but I'veheard so many different rumours that I'm notsure. As far as I know I'm still doing it. In myusing a lot of characters, I didn't want anyperson who stabbed Julius Caesar to be ananonymous character. So that with any smallpiece of the most minor of the conspirators, Imade sure had some emphasis in the art work,that the character is introduced and that anindividual face is drawn for that character.

I made sure that when the daggers aredrawn and thrust into Caesar, the sequence istotally silent, I did it basically all in one page.All the stabbings ate done by people who youcan only see their faces, they have no littlename tags on them and that's the type ofapproach I went for and again I enjoyed it .

I also happen to have a great love for plays,I love dialogue. I have done a bit of communitytheatre, I act but I don't get asked to direct butthen again I direct people on paper all the time.I like the interplay, maybe it's my great love ofhearing good dialogue going back and forthamong characters. I hear the characters talkingin my head when I'm drawing.

In Julius Caesar, other than lookingforward to being able to use all the Romanarchitechture after doing the Creeks for so longin Wonder Woman it's nice to get to graduate toRome.Ienjoy getting to do all these individualcharacters, that being on the stage you have allthese different actors playing different roles,they have different faces, different bodies. So incomics it can't just be the same face done withvariations done on different figures. That's thepart I enjoyed the most. During my days on theTitans it's that I tried to develop in my stylewithin the limits of my own abilities, trying togive characters a definite and different facialand body look, particularly if they're going tobe regular characters something that is going tomake them identifiable.

Titans started to get exceedingly bad when Iwas drawing the same face for Kid Flash as I was drawing for Robin and even I was startingto get confused. So I decided to really startworking on developing faces and started basing faces on, if not on actual photos, then actualimpressions I have of real people. Many of thecast members of Wonder Woman are realpeople with characters of their own. In doingJulius Caesar I tried to use as much actualreference, statues, any different portraiture that I could find. It was a lot tougher obviously forother characters but I wanted to use some realbasis in my head without using models to create the cast of characters.

When we did a readers poll in Fantazia,your name came up as the most requested for interviews. You have a lot of fans over in Britain. Do you hope to make it over for convention in the future ?
Oh I would love to. I haven't been to England since 1977. The people I have met there as I remember they were very friendly.

I would love to go back there if I get invited to an English convention that doesn't clash with the work within my schedule  then I would love to go back there again. I haven’t been there in a long time.