Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on capesandites.com. I'm your host, Justin Soderberg, and for those watching can see this, but if those are listening, they can't. I'm sitting here with my son, Nova. Say hi.
Oh, no. Okay.
I only brought Nova on here, too, because Nova's homesick with me. And Vladimir Popoff, who came on to talk comics today, was willing enough to reschedule a couple of times due to illnesses and so on and so forth. So I wanted to show the reason why. It took some time to get Vladimir on here, but Vladimir is a comic book artist and creator who has worked on titles like Highlander, Robocop, Fearscape, Port of Earth, Hellraiser, Ice nine Kills, Youngblood, where monsters lie, and so much more. Vladimir is a super talented artist and creator, and so he took time out of his day to talk to us from Serbia to talk about all things comics. But I focused a lot on where monsters lie, one of my favorite comics of 2023. So check him out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all those things as well. But check us out there, too, as well as follow us, rate, review, all that stuff on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and all that stuff. So, yeah, this is Vladimir Pop off talking comics on the and tights podcast.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Enjoy.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Everybody say enjoy.
Welcome to the podcast, Vlad. How are you?
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Hey, thanks for having.
I'm good, I'm good.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Good, yeah.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Happy to be on a podcast.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: It's fun because I've talked to people all over the world on the podcast. I did one for the comic Antarctica with that creative team over at Topcow and image, and at that point, I think we had four people on. So it was me and three other people. All other people were in a different country. So we had, like, a south american country. We had me in the United States, we had someone in Scotland, there was someone in Japan. And it was the funniest thing. It was the weirdest fact that all of us were in different countries, and that's my first time talking to someone living in Serbia, so. Well, welcome to the podcast.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Worldwide on this.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Europe relations. Yeah.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: So we're here to talk some comics and stuff. So it's been a hell of a week for me personally and stuff like that. My son being sick, we had to reschedule. I was sick. Had to reschedule. So finally we get on here and doing this and talking some fun world of comics with you. And so as we get started, how did you get into.
You're obviously an artist. But were you a comic book fan your entire life, too?
[00:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I was a comic book fan pretty much my entire life. I started reading them around when I was four, and I learned to read on Disney comics. And then I watched cartoons like Superman, Spider man, some european cartoons like asterisks. And then around age seven or eight, I was like, this is, I'd, like, try to do it.
And then I started scribbling, like, seven years old, started driving and doodling and everything.
And my first comic books were influenced by italian comic books, actually by italian comic book named Alan Ford.
It's not much popular in us because it's mostly in italian, but it was popular in Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, in this part of the world a lot.
So that was my first style kind of driving. And then when I was around 13 or 14 years old, I discovered learn to draw the Marvel way, the biggest book on comics. And that's when I got acquainted to superhero drawing. I learned to, sorry.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: I was like, I had how to draw comics the Marvel ways by Stanley and John Bochema. So that's kind of funny. I was like, I was just looking on that shelf, and I remembered I had it.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: That's the one. And also, I think they recorded a video I saw that was both of them talking the same book, going chapters all over. So that was my first educational book. And, of course, superhero comic books and everything. And that's how I got started. And then as I progressed, I was searching for books. For example, there is one really cool book on anatomy, anatomy for artists by Bern Hoggart. That's a classic one. And also a really useful book that I came across around 98 or 99 was learn animation by Preston Blair.
He was working, I think, at Disney or Hanabar, but I can't remember. But that's like the big book on animation and cartoons and the whole doodles. So that was a learning part in my teenage. Then I entered college. I didn't do much driving there because studying and various jobs in 20s.
But the passion for comic books was always there because I was reading, and the video game was booming early 2000s, so that was the focus. I studied it on my university, so I was much more in that. And I was in comics as a hobby reader, collecting and learning and everything. And then around, the passion was always there. And I was like, I would like to try myself, see if I can make it as a career.
The thought start to form around age 27. It was kind of, like, always there in the back of my mind, but that was like, that when I was kind of more determined to go for it. And then I made a website I started using.
That was like around 2009, 2010, I started preparing my portfolio. I made a website and started preparing the publishers. I made a profile on digital webbing, the old forum where everybody was connecting.
And that's how I landed my first gig on that forum.
And it was for a small publisher from Ohio, broken icon comics. And then we worked together for like year and a half. And we made some web comics. We make some comics. They made a convention there between Virginia and Ohio. I helped them as a community manager on that one. And after that, I started adding people on Facebook because that was the thing around 2011, 2012, before everything else.
And I started adding people from the industry, how I was finding them. And I was able to find the editors, because when you're overseas in that time, that period when online wasn't so developed, the only way to find who is working on what was like. If you have the comic book and see the editor's name, and then you go online and Google. Google was okay with indexing everything, so I had luck in searches. So that's how I found about majority of publishers contacts. And I started talking with people. And eventually I landed a gig at Boom studios. My first big gig was Hellraiser.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Hellraiser, yeah. It's a pretty cool book to be on as your first bigger book like that. That's a pretty cool book to be on.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it was. I mean, I was 29 when I got it. In the age of life, you're 29, so you should be having experience in work and everything, which I did. But in terms of art, you're like a toddler. You're just starting.
You want it, you got it. Here you go, man. Do something cool.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: I got a lot of backup from Clive Barker through the editors. We never met or had a direct contact, but he was like, give the guy space and let him see what he can do.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: So.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: That was a good experience. I was super creative, I was super free to do, but I was always aware that's a book that's licensed properly, that's big. So I always tried to get back to the previous issues and stay in the universe because that was the reader's experience. That's what people would expect to do. So I gave it a little bit of a spin on my own. I developed some tools and techniques and build experience, and we got a nice book. And after that, it just took over. One publisher, other publisher met people, we started doing work together.
One of the biggest partners in crimes, Andrea Moody.
You guys had a podcast before?
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Yes, Andrea. He's one of my favorite artists of all time.
It's insane in the amount of styles and things that Andrea can do. It's just beautiful. And I love saying that to another person who is also an artist. But, no, seriously, I think a lot of people would agree with me that he's an unbelievable artist.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Man.
He found about me in 2013, and he was like, I have this cool book. I like your style. Let's see what we can do. And I did some color tests for him. He sent it to dynamite, and we got the book titled Noir about Shadow and Miss Fury and Black Hair, like all those pop characters with writer Victor Gischler. And that's. We started. That was our first job together, project together. And then after that, ten years later, we got under 1000 pages together on all sorts of projects, licensed and printer owned.
He's an amazing human being and an artist and a great mentor, actually.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: I absolutely stumbled upon. That was the funny thing, too, is the number of times on this podcast I've reached out to a publisher or a publicist and said, I'm interested in getting this person on the podcast. How can we make this happen? And then they'll throw in people, which is kind of funny thing. They're like, well, so the artist is available, too. And I think that was the episode, too, where it was like, well, Andrea can join you, too. I'm like, how would I say no to that? No, I'm sorry. Please. I don't want that much talent on the podcast. Like, please.
It was an unbelievable talking to him.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Well, I think these types of podcasts are extremely important. This wasn't a thing like five years ago, before pandemic, but it's really helpful because we all are scared all around the world and in the States. United States, continent is huge. It takes the same amount of time from Los Angeles to New York as is from New York to Amsterdam.
There is no difference in the length. So when you're scattered like that, this helps to connect and to talk to people to meet. I always consider working on a comic book, like part of a band. We jam together, we do exchange ideas, and then we make a book. That's a nice reader's experience.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: My number one country a couple of weeks ago on rankings. I try not to look at the rankings that much because I just don't like to live off of that. I do this pure. Obviously, it's not a financial benefit for me. I do it mainly to try to get word out about people's comics and things that I like. But also it's a fun outlook to have someone to just talk to about comics. And so to me, it's more of a passion. So I don't ever want the numbers to actually adjust. Like, oh, this was a really good episode, so I want to make sure I do more episodes like that. It's more like I'm going to do episodes that I want to do. Whether they flop or they're amazing, they are what they are. I enjoy doing them, but every once in a while I get an email and it was Saudi Arabia was my number one country that week, Saudi Arabia. For some reason, I didn't have any saudi arabian artists on, creators on. I didn't have anything. It was just some reason Saudi Arabia really liked the episodes that week. I don't know. It was weird. But yeah, it's all over the world.
I don't remember now. Now I have to go back and look at it. But it was honest, like maybe a month ago. But it doesn't mean specifically that the episodes that week were popular.
That episode of the week was that popular. It was episodes that were listened to that week. And so it's possible someone in Saudi Arabia heard an episode and then was like, I'm going to listen to the entire catalog. And that bumped the numbers up because we were listening to a lot.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Also, when you mentioned there was in December in Abu Dhabi, there was a comic book convention, and I saw like a few Ryan, Katie, and I think Matt from top cow, like, they went there and a few publishers. So you might, who knows?
[00:13:14] Speaker A: I do it as a passion. It's a fun thing to do. And if I can get think about it. If someone goes out there and purchases is a trade paperback or a single issue of a book that you've done in the past, if one person does it, in my opinion, we did our job because that's one more person. Become a fan of yours. Hopefully hundreds of people do it. But if one person does, I think it's a success on doing these things and making sure that people know about your books and you've worked on some amazing books that are like, you're mostly on the independent side, but you have these licensed properties. You've done creator owned comics with other people.
You've worked with people like, you know and so on and so forth. But the ones that I know you from are port of earth with my budy Zach Kaplan. That's a great book over there in Andrea Moody and where monsters lie with Kyle Starks. And another artist that I absolutely love is where monsters lie. And then he did Carmen line recently with Dennis hopeless over at Mad Cave. And that was unbelievable, too. I just absolutely love Peter's artwork. Yeah. So this is the one when we talked originally where monsters lie was the one that I was like, oh, I really like, talk about that with Vladimir. This is a comic book that I really enjoyed and end up on my top ten list or top 20 lists of the ten list. Top ten. Did I do top 20? No, I did top ten. Top ten comics of the year, where monsters lie actually ended up on that list. So it's pretty awesome. So you've had a wide variety of talent that you've worked with, but also, like, titles you've worked with. This is not like you only do creator own. You only do licensed properties. You only do big two. You have, like, a mixture. That must be fun, actually.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it is, because when you're working on licensed property, you got to follow the license, and there's a specific set of rules that you got to kind of figure out how you're going to approach that, because most of the times it's multiple people who are involved in that, and some of those people you don't know. For example, we work on Highlander, and that was through IDW. So we made pages. Then the editor sent it to the production company. Then they had to veto it, check it out, and give the green light so that we can go back and forth. So when it's licensed property, there is always that back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And sometimes you have revisions. Sometimes they maybe change a little bit of a vision or something, but it's an ongoing process, so that's different than, for example, creator own, like, where monsters live, where we were the ones who were doing everything on it. Editor was like, this is the Dell, and just make it cool and make it on time.
Go for it. And then Pioder and Kyle and I, we talked, and everybody did their part, and everybody's full creativity, and that's how we made the book. So in those terms, creator owned comics are more like making a music band jamming in a basement. We exchange some cool ideas and like, oh, that's cool, that's cool, that's cool. Let's put it in. That sounds nice. Let's do it. And license is more structured, and you got to figure out the reader's expectations on that one. So it's a different approach. But equally, both are interesting, and both have their own challenges and makes you grow. So I like both approaches. And also, when you get a licensed property, you get to play with some cool characters that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Yes, and that's a lot of times, I think people have talked to people who have drawn, like, Star wars, for an example or TMNT or any of those ones, and it's like it is a dream come true.
There is a small sliver of it where you don't like to always peek behind the curtain, like being in the behind the scenes and making these things. You could piss people off, you know what I mean? Depending on how the story goes, you're touching their sovereign things. Like, if people do a big hellraiser fan and you do something in the comic book that kind of doesn't jive, well, they might be upset. So whereas in a creator side of the creative own side is no one knows how issues one through four are going to go, but the creative team, there's no preconceived notion on what there is in a book or how a character looks or acts or so on. And so I can see liking both sides of it. Pinch me, moments of I get to draw, I don't know, adventure time, color adventure time. And then there's also moments where like, oh, I get a cool work on a creation that no one's ever seen, what color the house is in, know community in way monsters lie and stuff like that. But you've colored a lot of things, including this one. You've colored artists like Andrea Mutey, you've colored Peter, you've colored George Perez, just to name a couple. Honestly, I don't want to go on your whole thing. What's it like with artists with names like that and having to basically partner with them? I mean, I know creative teams. When you're drawing lines with a writer, you're partnering with that person, but when you're partnering with the art side, it must be a little different. When someone's doing, when you guys are working together to create what the art looks like, is it something that's nerve wracking or is it just part of your job?
[00:18:50] Speaker B: No, actually, I don't know. With pretty much everyone who I worked with, we kind of, like, clicked on a first basis, and then we talk, we exchange ideas, and, like a team colleague, we grow the relationship, and then over time, we learn each other's strengths and how challenges and how everybody feels about something, and then we talk through, and there is a bond between us, and we can be free to create. Andrea knows what he can expect from me. I know what I can expect from him. So he can be free and say, okay, I can do maybe more open panels, more line art, because I'm going to color, put some into coloring inside, or Pyotr can do something else. So in that way, with creators, you get to meet the people on the book. Even when we meet for the first time and start collaborating, like on issue one, issue one is like we trying to get each other to know each other. And then by issue five or ten, we are already like, we've been through a few pages, and we know how to navigate that, and it's just like a flow. So that's my experience, actually.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: It must be, I say easier because nothing, none of this is easy for anybody to do. But if it is easier to do issues, say, for an example, if we're talking where monsters lie, there's four issues. You do all of the artwork or all of it through all four issues. I mean, you do the coloring in all four issues. So, you know, when you set up issue one, and by the time you get to four, you know the colors of different things and what the artwork looks like and so on and so forth, when you just jump in and someone needs to color an issue five or an issue six, that means you then have to go back and read those first four issues, right. To make sure you're knowing you're not screwing something up, you're not making as an issue of, is it immortal hulk, where it was like, issue like, seven or something like that, where Captain America was accidentally colored red, like his suit was red, and it was actually, like, one of those ones that, because of that, obviously, it was an error in the printing, so the comic book is worth a lot more. But obviously, that's just a mistake because obviously, people know what color Captain America's suit is. It's blue, but it was colored a wrong color. So you have to make sure you don't do that. You have to make sure you don't actually go in there and do something wrong. And so, like I said, I said it's not easy, but easier to do all of the issues than it is to just step in and do a couple of issues, I'm guessing.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. But on the other side, when you get into a fill in, for example, if it's miniseries of, like, eight issues, and you get on issue four, you kind of get to experience the first three issues. A reader.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Exactly. You're like, oh, I got to read those issues now. I get to color them. That's awesome. This is amazing or so on, but.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: I do have to do that because sometimes you got to figure out what you're going to do. Actually, it's kind of like a homework in comics.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: With your variety of titles you've worked on in creators and things, when products come across your desk nowadays, is it more of what you want to work? Obviously everybody's looking for work. We want to pay our bills and stuff like that. So if someone needs help on something that you're not over the moon about, it's a job. You might do it, but is it the title that you're looking at? Is it the creative team that you want to work around? What makes it so you pick a book to work on if someone were to call you and ask you to work on it?
[00:22:32] Speaker B: Well, when I was a younger, more inexperienced and hungrier for work, I was kind of more excited. I wanted to work on specific titles, but through the age and when I got to do unlicensed properties, when I got a lot of experience under my hand, nowadays, it's just about with who I want to work. I would rather work with people who I can have good chemistry and have a good balance and be able to express myself than to work on some licensed property with a creator who is not really flexible or is stubborn on the vision or something like that.
I had a few discussions on that, so I might be sounding a bit different. But if the creator is the owner of that, so he's the boss. So okay, then it's tolerable. But if we are equally owning the, if we are together in a creation process, then it needs to be some tolerance. Because if a writer wants to be the one who controls everything, then go and write a novel. Yes, this is a collaborative thing.
It's all part of adaptation. The writer writes a script, the artist adapts that script. Then I come in and then I adapt the line art. Then the writer comes in and he adapts the script because of the art. So it's kind of like a circle, and then we get that into print.
So, yeah, it's between the people. But most of the time, I did so many work, and now I know a lot of people. So basically I'm always full and it's an enjoyable process for me.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: That's awesome.
You're saying, sorry, go ahead.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Well, but I'm always open to find new people, to experience new things and, yeah, it's kind of like a karate kid like vaccine wax out.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: Well, it's one of those things that I don't know, I like throwing mixtures into things. So if all of a sudden all you did was ever work with Andrea, or all you ever did was work with a specific creator, it might get to the point where you're like, well, I kind of need to branch out a little bit, or someone who's worked for marvel their entire life sometimes just be like, I just need to do an independent book just to be away from superheroes for a little bit. So I can see where you need and the ability to be an artist and work with other writers. You're not the one having to create everything from the ground up. You can work with a team with someone else, but, so it's like, it could be nice to be able to say, I just want to go over here and maybe just Color Andrea Mutey's lines. Let's just do that. I'll just do that this time. It'd be fun. I work with him. It's a cool title. And so, yeah, I like having that mixture. So if I was you, I would want the mixture to a little bit of everything and so on and so forth. And that's why I don't understand, honestly, as a big marvel head over here, I don't understand some people who can only draw marvel characters their entire lives. I'm just like, come on, you need to get some other things in there to mix it up. I mean, the paychecks are probably.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Skill is one thing, creativity is also skill, which is another. And then maybe somebody is good at what they do. It's a job.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it's job.
I think it's a lot going to understand.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
With art, it's tricky. If you go into finance or something, you're set to go, like, whatever you do, you're going to be paid. And that's the job. On the system side, this is a creative side. So when you go, if you have three kids and two mortgages or something, a lot of stuff behind your back, and you're an artist, and, I don't know, you live in more expensive state. In us, for example, you don't have really room to experiment with the geeky Sci-Fi from your teenage years that might take off or might not take off in true image or some other program. So in a way, I can understand that where people do come, but I think you can always find a way. You can do commissions. You can do, like, sketches, sketchbooks, and there are ways to express your creativity even if you don't have time for that.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: That makes sense. It does. Yeah.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: I could see that, yeah, casual, doing maybe some superhero stuff.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: And you see that. You see the people who are potentially someone who does superhero stuff all the time. You do see that every once in a while on their instagram or their twitter, they just post a picture of them drawing spawn, or they draw some other character that's not their own property. They just want to get it out there, enjoy. And a lot of times, I know some artists who I'm friends with, Ben Bishop, who does the artwork for the last Ronan or some of the artwork for last Ronan. And a lot of times if he has a sketch for someone, they pay him to do a commission, and they're like, can you do the Walking Dead? And he's like, I don't even do the Walking Dead, but they love the Walking dead. They love my art sale, and they want to see a character in the Walking Dead. So I'll draw it when I have time and so on and so forth. So he gets to play in that. Even if he doesn't get to actually do day to day artwork in the Walking Dead combo, obviously it's not around anymore, so it's hard to draw the walking dead if it doesn't exist anymore, but in their reprinting of it, but it doesn't actually exist in new issues.
You got on where monsters lie, again, I would say in my reading, is my favorite out of all the work you've done. And that's mainly just because I love this creative team, and that's because Kyle, I think, is a wonderful comedic writer, but he's also a wonderful horror writer, and I think a lot of people don't give him as much credit on his horror side as he does his comedy side. And with where monsters lie, it's like a mixture of the two. There's the jokes in there, but there's also some crazy good artwork that's gruesome. And working on a book that has things like, not to spoil it for anybody, but, like, eyes getting stabbed out of the head with an ice pick.
That must have been some fun time working on this book, in my opinion, at least.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's one nice, interesting, casual, everyday, mundane book with an occasional bizarre killer.
Nothing to see here.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: I love it, too.
I read most of my comics when I'm going to bed at night. A lot of times I get them, a lot of these dark horse and things like that. We get advanced copies, and I'm reading the digital pdf on my iPad, and the lights are off, and I'm getting ready to fall in sleepy and all of a sudden I know where I just see someone's eye get stabbed out with an ice pick. I'm like, cool. I'm not going to sleep tonight. That's awesome. Thank you. Appreciate it, guys.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: All right, well, I'm glad we made.
[00:29:47] Speaker A: You, like, chills a little bit. It's pretty funny on that, but no, it's a cool concept of where serial killers go to spend their downtime and what happens when someone doesn't pay attention to the rules and things like that, and there's a little bit more to it and so on and so forth. Kyle's come on the podcast to talk about comics in general and stuff like that, too. And I was saying that the biggest thing to me is the fact that a lot of people are probably going to see this and be like, I don't like comedy comic books. And I'm like, no, it's not that. Read it. Read it. It's more than that and like it. But yeah, it's beautifully done.
I think. Again, the artwork is amazing and so on. And then the other one be port of earth. It's a great book over by Zach Kaplan. I think it's coming out in trade paperback here pretty soon, isn't it?
[00:30:36] Speaker B: I think, yeah.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: That'S a great thing.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Everything.
What was it called?
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Porter.
That's another book. Again, I just caught my attention because I struggle sometimes to get the entire creative team in my head. Like, I can remember a lot of times just the artist or just the writer or just the letterer or just the colorist or one mixture of the two. And when I go through and read things, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's no wonder I like that comic book. It's because this team was on it or whatever. You know what I mean? It's no wonder you finish a movie and you're like, oh, that was a great movie. And then you go back and look at the director, you're like, well, no crap, I like that movie. It's because it was directed by so and so.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: I feel it on that I have. When I look at the artwork.
Who's that guy? I can't remember, but I know the artwork.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I was trying to figure it out now, but I know they were rereleasing it in trade paperback format, but I don't remember who put it out there.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: July, I think.
[00:31:42] Speaker A: Is it July?
[00:31:42] Speaker B: June.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: Okay. I was just trying to get it out there.
It's funny about that is because it doesn't matter, because of the fact that all these dates always change anyway. In the world of comics.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: Printers of books have never run out of paper or.
That's not it. That's the new printing. It says, where's the new printing?
No, that's the old printing. It's coming back out in print. Guys, I'm just letting everybody know that at some point. Check it out. I was trying to be helpful here and help promote it, but I guess I didn't look it up early enough. But top cow should have more information on that out there. Top cow?
[00:32:28] Speaker B: Yeah, they'll have it on their website and socials.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's just check that out, because, porter, earth's amazing. Where monsters lie is available in trade paperback as well at most comic book shops. The best thing about trades in the United States, around the world, really, is that trade paperbacks are available in bookstores, whereas single issue comics are only allowed in places that sell, like, local comic book shops and things like that. So when it hits the trade paperback market, like, where monsters lie is right now, is that go to your local bookstore. If you don't have a comic book shop, you can go to your local bookstore and just be like, I want this trade paperback. And they can get it for you, which is great if they don't already have in stock, which is always fun. Or you can go online and get it a shop, your local place, or with your creators. Like, if Kyle has it on his website or someone has it on their website, grab it there. But if you can't just go to Amazon, people just buy the book.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: Amazon is international?
[00:33:20] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: I think they're doing the distribution through Penguin Random House. And Penguin is like trans Global. They're everywhere.
So if you go to Dubai, you might pick it up.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Everywhere.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: I found my other book in Dubai.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Really?
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: That's awesome.
And so. So you've colored most of the books out there that are on your resume of sorts, have your coloring on it. Is there something that strikes when you go into. Start doing a book? Do you start putting a palette together? How do you start this process of actually coloring a book?
[00:34:06] Speaker B: I kind of have, like, in a way, think, feel, think kind of process.
I check the script. I check the line art, then I think about it in which direction I would like to go.
For example, when it comes to where monsters lie, I decided to go in two directions. First one was to check out Norman Rockpool's paintings. It's the american painter, one of the more famous ones, with his realism and everything.
And I went online on YouTube to check out Jeffrey Dahmer's interviews.
I think tv show was coming up at that time when we were doing production, and I saw it and I was like, I wanted to Google who the guy is. And then when I saw the interviews, that was chilling.
That was really chilling experience online. And I was like, that's it. Because the book had the mundane and the injury was like, jeffrey was sitting in a prison room. There was a journalist next to him, and he was talking casually, like we were doing, like he was exchanging recipes for a soup, except he was talking about his victims. So dad was like, he was fully aware of what he was doing. And that kind of mind fuck is a moment where you're like, well, that's chilling. And that's the stuff that goes into this comic book. This is a comic book where they walk, talk, and do crazy stuff with certain stuff, like eye popping and all that aside. So that's how I approach. So that was the thinking phase. And then when I was going to coloring, the mechanics behind me, the filling phase is like, I color, and then I visualize my head, like, how I want to see the scene. And then I truly feel like, okay, this is like, nice green palette. Maybe I could do more darker and back and forth, back and forth with myself and how my internal gun feel, how I think the things should do. And then when I get at that zing, like, okay, this is it. This is good. Then I finish the page and move on to the next one. And then I go to think fill process again. And then when I finish the whole book, I go, like, another thinking process to see all the pages, if everything connects together, if I haven't missed something somewhere, or like consistency in saturation and coloring and all of that panel layouts. So that's my approach to pretty much every book that I do. And I use the wheel. I don't have, like, I have those small, I call it in Photoshop. So I have those small squares with predefined colors if I really need to pull something out. But most of the time, it's like that color wheel or the color square. And then I pick up what I want.
I most of the time know how these work, the situation, where, how it goes, like the sections. So that's how I pick up the colors. And also that's not only there is layers and then transparency and filters and all that stuff to get that unique look for the specific book. Plus brushes. I do design my own brushes, custom brushes, not for every project, but where I think it's suitable. I do. I have some old brushes for different kind of weather conditions, snows, rains, like five different types of rain and weather fog. So those kind of things to use and make the visual style unique. When it comes to rendering, I also have my own style of rendering. Like ten years ago, I took the lightning and I took a beast ahead, and then I was playing with lightning and doing photo screens to make my own references to see how I want to shadow something. Most of the shadowing when you go through is pretty much standard, but those small nuances and details, and then when you do that to yourself on your face. So that's how all those small details to make it like the technicalities that people most often do not notice. But it makes art what it is.
And then over the years, it's a training. You kind of learn your tools and tricks, like, all those skills, and then it's a muscle memory, and then you feel like, okay, for this one, I'm going to do that shadow number 17, for example.
Kind of like. Kind of like my own 22 panels that always work, except I haven't made them in an extra sheet. I did at one point.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: Exactly. Well, that's awesome.
The thing that's funny is that I hate to say it makes our job easier, but as an artist, I'm a graphic artist by trade during the day and the Internet and YouTube and references to things have made jobs so much more, made us do our job better, if that makes any sense. I don't to want say the word easier, but I want to say it makes us be able to do our jobs better because of the fact that you being able to look up Jeffrey Dahmer's videos and so on and so forth. 2030 years ago, 1520 years ago, it would have been a lot harder to try to find those movies or those interviews because you had to watch them on tv when they came out or recorded them or knew someone or something like that. Whereas nowadays, with the ability to just be like, I need to know this, and you look it up and it's like, okay, now I can reference that, whatever it may be. The funny thing is also, I think I talked to an artist once who said there's so many pictures on their phone of selfies in weird positions and weird lighting, so that they know what to do for shading and things like that. And it's like, if someone ever murders you and they look at your phone, what is with this person? All it is is these weird pictures of you selfie because they're, like, working in your studio. It's hot out. You have no shirt on or whatever, and they're just taking a photo. Yeah, it's an interesting.
[00:40:16] Speaker B: I don't think there is such a thing as normal gallery on a phone of everybody.
I don't think that exists. Even if it does what it would be.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: Don't look at someone's photo galleries.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: No, you don't do that.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: But yeah, that's awesome hearing from someone who is an artist. So an artist who specifically draws lines and doesn't actually do a lot of their own coloring or the opposite or whatever. It's nice to hear from the other segment of comics that people don't see the four titles of names on a cover. A lot of people don't. Your average consumer or new consumer in the comic book industry might not know what that means. They might not know. Know. When you see Kyle Starks on there, what does Kyle do? Some people think that the creator of a comic book is the person does everything, and some people do. We're not going to take away from that. There are people who write, draw, color, letter, all that stuff. They're crazy. I'll say that right now. They're absolutely insane. Because having a team to work with you makes your life easier.
[00:41:24] Speaker B: Well, sometimes that's a nice thing to do.
I think everybody should. Every creator should have like ten pages that he completely did himself. Because that's how you learn the process of making. That's the cycle.
You don't have to learn every step of the process, but if you do, it's easier to navigate with everybody.
You'll be more comfortable and there's benefits to it.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: Let's say, I think it was my budy Joseph Schmalke who said to me once, he's like, also, I can do everything. So he does his book, seven years in darkness. It's out right now on CeX Publishing. He does write, draw color. He has someone else edit every one of his books, which is really necessary because that has ability of having another name or another person to look at your work. But he stopped lettering his own books. He says, I'm not any good at it, and why not hire someone who's good at it to do it? There you go. That's the way to do it. If you can do it, doesn't mean you should do it. And that means that if you were really good at illustrating and coloring and lettering a book, get someone to write your book. If you're good at writing books, but you're not good at coloring, get someone to do that. But if you can do it, yes, it's fun to do. And again, you mentioned doing it all helps you learn the process, but in the end, sometimes do what also makes you happy. So if you're not happy doing the rest of the stuff, get someone else to do it for you.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: But if you had one year to do, like, five issues, then that's okay by go. It all depends what you want. But for the book to be functional in the United States on a monthly level, you have to do as a team, especially in today's world, when you have content everywhere. Why does somebody go and pay $5 for 20 pages of comic book when he can go on TikTok and browse forever, everything free or YouTube or for $5, he can have Netflix or any other kind of subscription or play video. There is so much more content than before 30 years.
[00:43:43] Speaker A: The comics are awesome. So I think that's the reason why people should buy comics, is because they're amazing. But I will say that I was in a slump this week because my son has been sick. There's a lot going on at work. My wife is 34 weeks pregnant, so we got another month or so before we're having our baby, our second child, and so there's a lot going on.
[00:44:03] Speaker B: Congratulations.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: Thank you very much. But there's a lot going on. So last night, with my son being sick and I barely got any sleep, I wanted to put something up on the website about Ed Briston's new book, the Displaced, and I was just like, I can't get myself to read it just because I don't want to take the time to do that right now. I just want to sleep, whatever. Force myself to. In a sense, I'm forcing myself to. Obviously, I didn't force. I want to read comics, and I'm so glad I did because it was amazing, and everybody should read it when it comes out because it's absolutely wonderful. Actually, when this episode drops, it comes out today. I know it has nothing to do with Vladimir here, but it's unbelievable. So even if you feel like you wake up one day, you're like, I want to read comics today. Pick one up, because it might be the best comic book you've ever read. So get into comics and read comics. In my opinion, I think as a.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: Creator that comic books are, if not the most important form of art than one of the top three. But I think it's the most important one because in comic books, you have pretty much summary of every other type of art. Like, you have filmmaking through the panel direction, you have writing.
You can do poetry you can do fiction. You can do prose. You can even do, like, textbook in a comic book. Google has a textbook comic book that explains how Google works. For example, you have to learn to do the architecture, like costume design, all that stuff.
And then even it is a performance art because you have to sit down and jog the same way. You have to go and play an instrument. So in a way, it's most complex and most important because it boosts your creativity. It's nice pictures, and it's kind of like a universal language, and it connects people. That's how actually comic books started and formed in the United States, like, in 1890, because somebody drew a panel and somebody extended that, and then the stories were about immigrants who came at the late 19th century. So they can connect and educate and just survive to the experience together. And that's what comic books did today all around the world, like us and everything else, to the passion, all that early on.
[00:46:26] Speaker A: This is episode 151 of the podcast. But early on, within the first 20 episodes, I had Ian Rosenberg and Mike Cavallaro on the podcast to talk about this book, which is called Free Speech Handbook, and it's about the history of free speech in the United States. But it's a history book, basically, it was researched and all that stuff. But it's a comic book. And so that's the thing, is, comics are in everything. Stan Lee's biography is in comic book.
Like, there's so much that Kate Beaton wrote this book, which is a comic book, but it's about her, about the comics are in everything, I think. And I think that they're worth reading, and I think we're preaching to the choir, probably, on this one, because let's be honest, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably read comics, but the ones that I would highly recommend you pick up is where monsters lie. I'll tell you that.
[00:47:18] Speaker B: And if you don't read comics, give.
[00:47:20] Speaker A: Them a chance or buy them for someone else like them.
I don't like comics, but you can have it. I'll buy it for you. No. And then also port of Earth, like I mentioned, port of Earth is a good one, but obviously, anything that Vladimir's touched has honestly been good. So I will say that you are an unbelievable artist and creator in your own right.
You've partnered up with a bunch of good names, but you're in there, too. So if I were to talk to Andre, I'd be like, you remember when you worked with Vladimir? And he'd say, yeah, I love that guy. So you're up there. Don't worry.
So grab those books. They're available. Like I said, trade paperbacks and things like that. Are you working on anything? Obviously, you might not be able to say what it is. Are you working currently on.
[00:48:03] Speaker B: I'm working right now, yeah. I'm working on a few projects. I can't say about anything yet, but I can say about one, my personal project that I'm working on beside the hard stuff. And this one is not a comic book, but it is about comic books.
[00:48:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:48:24] Speaker B: So this is the section that I haven't mentioned, but in 2019, I enrolled in PhD studies of contemporary arts and media because I'm a huge fan of social scientists, social sciences, and I started writing editorial thesis on comic books, on american comic books, specifically from the social science and a little bit of philosophical approach. So I'm writing a textbook. So that's a project that I can talk about a little.
I'm currently writing chapter two and three. So, yeah.
[00:48:57] Speaker A: Okay. That's awesome.
[00:48:57] Speaker B: I'm hoping that I'm going to finish the first draft by this year, and hopefully maybe by the end of 2025 or 2026, I'll have the english version that will be available for worldwide.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: That's awesome. Little light reading, right?
[00:49:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
I'm going to try to make it like for the end reader because that's the point. First chapter is, for example, historical in value, like some context, some symbolic comic books, how they. So it's a bit of, let's say a dry read, but it's a much more serious read because it's kind of like a scientific. So sometimes, but it's education on comics and also my way to give it back to the community. Yeah, that's awesome.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: That's so cool. You have many talents over there, Vladimir. You got many talents.
[00:49:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: Single talented person.
[00:49:52] Speaker B: I was kind of like a nerdy kid most of my life, so still know.
[00:49:58] Speaker A: That's awesome. I'm looking forward to it.
I'll keep my eye out personally, but everybody else should keep their eye out. Who listens to this podcast about Vladimir? Pop up's name on things. If you see it, check it out because it's probably worth picking up. I mentioned earlier, and we've talked about this on this podcast is the people you've worked with are also unbelievable. So in all likelihood, if your name's on it, then everybody else that's in that problem probably going to be pretty talented lineup of creators there. So check that out. But I'm still going to hammer home that you should all buy where monsters lie from Dark wars comics, because that's one of my favorite comic books that came out last year, and I just can't find a flaw with it. So that's a big thing.
[00:50:39] Speaker B: Also, if we're going to advertise it a little bit more. Where monsters lie was nominated for the brand stalkers award, and also it was one of the top ten horror comic books overall for 2023 by comic book resources. And kind of like that.
Nobody was expecting that, but I'm not.
[00:51:01] Speaker A: On an island here. I'm not the only one that says this. People, the people that actually matter out there have said this as well. So I will hope we win a Bram Stoker award. That'd be amazing. That would be so wonderful.
[00:51:12] Speaker B: I mean, they are so awesome. They have these small statues as a prize, like the castle. That was amazing. I was like, I'd like to win it just for the statue.
[00:51:25] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[00:51:26] Speaker B: The statue is cool.
[00:51:29] Speaker A: That'd be awesome.
Everybody else is out there putting in their closet somewhere. You've got it, like, on your coffee table so people can see.
[00:51:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:39] Speaker A: That'S awesome. But, yeah, so you know what? It's been so much fun. I'm so thankful that you actually rescheduled me not only once, but twice because of things that come up, illnesses and so on and so forth. Appreciate you taking the time out of your day or your night to talk to us about comics and so much more. Be sure to check out Vladimir. But you're on Twitter and Instagram, right?
[00:52:01] Speaker B: Yeah, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook.
[00:52:05] Speaker A: Check all those places out. Check out your.
Yeah. Thank you so much again, appreciate you taking the time out.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. Was a pleasure. It was enjoyable. So we can do it again sometime in the future.
[00:52:22] Speaker A: I'll reschedule, like, four times that time, though. Okay, we got to.
[00:52:25] Speaker B: That's okay.
[00:52:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
I really appreciate it, Vladimir.
