ENTERING THE DARK TOWER III: RICHARD ISANOVE

[MattBrady]

It was a subtle change – something that not many people caught, early on in the publicity cycle for Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born - the credits for art on the series moved from Jae Lee, pencils; Richard Isanove, colorist, to simply, “Art by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove.” The line was erased.

Why?

As Jae Lee joked yesterday, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada feels that there’s a “third artist” involved with the series somewhere, as the finished work he’s seeing isn’t clearly Lee’s and not clearly Isanove’s. Together, to get all musical, the two are Lennon and McCartney – sure, on their own they make some good stuff, but together? Solid gold.

Continuing with our conversations with the team on Dark Tower, we spoke with Isanove about how he approaches the pencils, why he thinks his work compliments Lee’s so well, and more.

Click here for our initial chat with Isanove from late 2005 about the project.

Newsarama: Let’s just roll the clock back a little, and start with a recap of how you got on to the project in the first place – this was just a cold call from Joe Quesada, right?

Richard Isanove: Correct. I had talked to Joe about it early on when I had heard that they had approached Stephen King, because I am a huge Stephen King fan, but Joe downplayed it, and said that he was retiring, and not looking at doing too much more. Then, about two years later, Joe called me out of the blue and asked if I wanted to be involved with The Dark Tower.

NRAMA: And you turned into a Tex Avery character then, with your eyes popping out of your head, and jaw dropping?

RI: [laughs] Kind of – it took me a few minutes to figure out what he was talking about, but once I did – I didn’t even hesitate.

He’s probably the one author who I’ve read the most books from. I became a Stephen King fan kind of late, but I’ve caught up quick – when I work, I listen to audio books, and his titles make up a huge portion of my collection.



NRAMA: In terms of you working on it, you really never stopped even though there was a delay from the originally announced ship date and the final ship date, right?

RI: yeah – and it’s been great. We took the time that we never would have had if we were in a monthly schedule to get to know each other’s styles. Around spring, I finished issue #1, and in fact, I had only sent them the jpegs of the pages for their approvals, not the finished files that they would print from. A little while ago, actually, they called and asked if I could send them, because they needed to send it to the printer.

But the time it took form the initial announcement until now allowed Jae and me to just go over the pages and make sure they were just perfect. The week before Christmas, I went over each page is issue #1 again with a fresh eye, since I had not looked at them carefully in a while, and was able to make sure they looked just absolutely perfect before they went to the printer. I’ve never had that opportunity – both to let something rest, and then to be able to fine tune everything. We actually did some fairly major corrections on page two of the first issue, just because we had the time. I’ll be going over #2 soon in the same way – just re-checking it and retouching it where it needs to be.

NRAMA: Can you give an example of something you’ve caught that you’ve needed to correct?

RI: The character Cort – who was the instructor of the boys in Gilead. He was supposed to be something of a drunk, so I gave him a slight reddish touch on his nose to indicate that he might have been drinking just prior to the scene he appears in. Looking back on it, I could see that, throughout the scene, I went back and forth, from a light pinkish glow to a more clown-like red. So I was able to retouch that. When you have the opportunity to see the whole work in continuity, which you often don’t with monthly comics, you can look at the whole story. As I said, its wonderful to have that opportunity.

As a result, I think this is the best work that I have done to date. And I have to give a lot of the credit to Jae – he’s really doing his best work ever, and that just causes me to want to match him in terms of effort.

NRAMA: As Jae related, Joe Quesada has said that he feels that he’s being tricked, and that there’s a third artist involved with the book somehow…

RI: Yeah – I’ve heard that. I think a lot of that has to do that Jae and I talk to each other a lot, and Jae is someone who’s very protective of his art, and very quick and willing to tell me when he thinks something needs to be changed, or might work better another way. He’s used to inking himself, which he isn’t doing here, which may make it a little difficult for him to let go of some of the control he normally has over the finished image, but we’ve found a middle ground.

NRAMA: How long did it take for you two to find that “middle ground?”

RI: It took about three issues before we’d really settled into a place where we were both very comfortable. Now, I know exactly what he wants. A lot of it was really just fine-tuning. I don’t think that people will even notice a difference between the first three issues and the rest, as we were learning how to work with each other, but for us, we could see things, and there was some fine tuning that needed to be done.

NRAMA: As Jae has said, all you’ve done before this was a cover for a Lady Death event, and setting side what you’ve said about the fine tuning, what is it about Jae’s art that just seems to click with you? Does he give you more room to work, in a sense? After all, he likes to use a lot of blacks if he has his way…

RI: I guess it has to do something along the lines of when I tell people what I do, I say that the artist does the picture and the blacks, and I do everything else. With Andy Kubert on Origin for example, that art was done with a lot of grays, so I had to go over the line art and be able to work on top of it – there was very little black to work on.

When I saw Jae’s approach which really uses a lot of shadows, I had to take the time to deconstruct it a little to understand how he worked, and how he came to the image. But when you work with someone good like Jae – or Joe Quesada, or Andy Kubert for that matter, it becomes like rock climbing – every time you reach out, you find something to hold. With Jae, when it comes to composition and space, I know that he’ll leave things where they need to be to allow me to go in and do my work.

And also, we’re both pretty talkative – we can spend hours on the phone just chitchatting about the work. We’ve gotten to the point where we try not to call each other too much, because simple calls often turn into hour-long conversations about a lot of different things. But it all helps, because we talk about artists and things that we like and we don’t like, so I know what to avoid and make sure I don’t do to his art [laughs]. He’s not shy when it comes to pointing out work he doesn’t like.

NRAMA: What’s the most important thing that an artist does that can make your job easier or more difficult? Is there a key element?

RI: Light source. That’s the most important thing. Jae makes sure that his light source is always focused and consistent within the image, and the he puts the shadows in, you can see that he really understands the light in the image. My job then, is to put the highlights and color really compliment the shadows and the light.

NRAMA: Yeah – and here I thought you were going to talk about color theory or something, but I’d imagine if you don’t have a good foundation to build from, all the rest doesn’t matter…

RI: Exactly. It’s the hardest thing in the world to work with an artist who doesn’t understand light. I’ve worked with people who will produce an image where the face it lit from the left, the body from the right, and the legs are backlight. It can work in black and white – kind of – but when you have to color it, it becomes very clear that it will not work. It can’t become three dimensional that way, so you have to figure out ways to work around the bad lighting. It can be a very hard and tedious exercise.

But with someone like Jae, who understands light so well, you can focus on pure color theory and texture. If you don’t have to spend time making the drawing coherent, you have more time to do what you’re brought on the book to do.

NRAMA: What are some of the specific elements that you put into the book that came after Jae’s pencils?

RI: In the world of The Dark Tower, the whole world is decaying, so it’s always foggy or dusty, or hazy – there are always particles in the air. That has to be seen. Jae will put some in, but then I created a texture that I use in the book which almost looks like a tight airbrush effect. I’m able to use that over the art and not lose the design that he had.

NRAMA: Speaking of your approach to the project as a whole, in terms of pre-production development, did you develop specific palettes for the different lands or book as a whole to give a unity to the feel and tone?

RI: I pretty much treat every scene as its own, and work to give each one the look that it should have, but there are themes, say, when we visit the Crimson King – everything is in reds, and Marten is steeped in magic, so I’ll pull in greens and oranges. And then, in the desert, of course – it has its own look. It’s most making sure that the color works both with the storytelling and with what Jae had drawn. When I first get the drawing, I can usually just see in my head where I’ll be going with it. By now, with where I am on the series, I feel pretty confident about the mood and the feel of the locations and scenes.

But in terms of my work, the palette that I found myself using a broader range of colors – it’s not as codified as other work I do. For instance, I can change the shirt color and texture on Roland if I want to from one day to the next. With Spider-Man, there’s no changing the uniforms or larger colors. Usually, when I color a superhero comic, I develop a color scheme based on the costume and stay pretty close to that throughout the book, but on this, I don’t have any of that. There’s no restriction, I can put what I want on each page.

NRAMA: So even though it’s a very fantastic world, it’s a much more realistic one on terms of the approach you’re taking…

RI: Yeah – I don’t have to use fluorescent red. The approach I’m taking is something more like how a painter would approach work, rather than how I work normally. It’s very freeing to work on.

NRAMA: So – judging from all that you said, and what Jae has said before, this is something that you’re not about to leave anytime soon?

RI: They call The Dark Tower Stephen King’s magnum opus, and Jae and I have kind of come to feel the same way about it too. All told, it will probably take us about three years to complete it, and that’s longer than either Jae or I have stayed on any project before this. We both really want to see this through to the end, and I can’t see another artist other than Jae on it. We’re a little territorial about it [laughs]. It’s just a wonderful project to be working on.

Previously:

Entering the Dark Tower I: Peter David
Entering the Dark Tower II: Jae Lee

[Glass]

Sweet! Thanx, Matt & Richard!

JoeQ is right - Jae and Richard have become their own uber-hybrid artist. The work is simply amazing. I wonder if when Peter gets to look over the last of his writing duties on the book -- any editing he is given to do on his own writing -- and sees this art in its full glory, if it gives him a deeper feel for his own writing and lends any further weight on this end to make slight changes or additions before the book finally goes off to the printer?

Great stuff guys. Really.

[Poolman]

This book looks so good... another comic to show to my art studio buddies

[RockLeefan]

Wow, love those from pencil to colour sequences you have shown in the interview. It just goes to show how important the colourist is in comics now. I'm pleased they are producing such a great looking comic to pull in those newcomers, who are going to be judging the comic world on this title alone.

[bebopeva88]

Isanove is the MAN. Best in the biz -- everything looks wonderful so far.

[The Guvnor]

I think that colourists are really under-rated in comics, their names still don't even appear on the covers of some books. Richard Isanove is the premier colourist in the business and it is great to see that he is getting the recognition he truly deserves.

He could probably make my crappy art look brilliant...well maybe he is not THAT good.

[Agent Wax]

Isanove has gotta be the best in the biz.
Pages are amazing, I can't wait.

[pilapz]

it's so........beautiful......must pick this up.....so........beautiful......

[Glass]

Amen, Agent Wax!

[patman]

he definitely is one of the best if not the best colorist in the business. it is just a pity that you can't purchase his original work apart from the comic book that you hold.

[RIsanove]

Hey
thanks y'all.
Now, I can only hope you guys enjoy the book as much as we do.

-Richard Isanove

[Charlie Hustle]

Originally Posted by The Guvnor

I think that colourists are really under-rated in comics, their names still don't even appear on the covers of some books. Richard Isanove is the premier colourist in the business and it is great to see that he is getting the recognition he truly deserves.

He could probably make my crappy art look brilliant...well maybe he is not THAT good.

I dont think they're still underrated, you have to realize that until digital coloring coloring was really pretty basic in books, so they're getting attention now because outside of stuff that was hand painted there wasn't much reason to notice them before. Seriously look at some old stuff by guys like art adams, the coloring was horrible.

[Glass]

I was thinking on this the other day, Charlie, and you nailed it. Coloring once was dumping the same color between inked lines and that was that. It's really amazing how much Adobe and the other software packages out there have allowed colorists to literally become painters of comic books. I love it.

And Richard, we already love it. No worries there.

Shawn - The Signed Page

[The Guvnor]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hustle

I dont think they're still underrated, you have to realize that until digital coloring coloring was really pretty basic in books, so they're getting attention now because outside of stuff that was hand painted there wasn't much reason to notice them before. Seriously look at some old stuff by guys like art adams, the coloring was horrible.

Fair point. I'm just glad that their names are starting to be put on the front covers.