From reading “X-Men” comics at the drugstore, to drawing “X-Men” covers for a new comic reading generation, Mark Brooks has had quite the journey.
Brooks, an award-winning comic illustrator known for his cover art on titles like “Spider-Man,” “Fantastic Four,” and “The Avengers” – will be a guest at this year’s MomoCon, Atlanta’s premiere convention for all things nerd culture.
Brooks’ career spans decades, his first work published in 2001. After signing a contract with Marvel Comics in 2004, Brooks won Comic-Con International’s Inkpot Award in 2014, and was nominated for an Eisner Award in two categories for his work on a five-issue Han Solo miniseries in 2016.
Ahead of MomoCon, which takes place May 25-28, Rough Draft Atlanta spoke with Brooks about his career, how his style has evolved over the years, and what’s coming next. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Let’s start at the beginning. When did you first know you wanted to work in comics?
Mark Brooks: I think that I started probably not dissimilar to a lot of people, in that I read comics as a kid. My mother’s a minister, and after church every Sunday, because she’s the minister, she had to stick around after church for a while. I would get five bucks or so and go down to the cool drugstore on the corner and get my candy or something like that, and spin a rack of comics. I bought my first comic there and was pretty much hooked right from the jump.
Do you remember any specific ones that really stuck with you?
Brooks: Absolutely. The first book I ever read was “Uncanny X-Men #217.” It was a Marvel comic and something about the X-Men really spoke to me. They’ve always been kind of a mirror to reality, as far as the experiences that we as a society go through. They’ve always in the comic books represented the minority class. I don’t know if I necessarily realized it at the time, because I was just a kid, but there was something about it that I think, whether it was subconscious or not, resonated with me. I was hooked on it from the beginning.
Your first published work was for “10th Muse” for Image Comics, is that right?
Brooks: Yeah, that was the first thing I ever did. It was a back-up story for a character called Atlas. It appeared in the comic book “10th Muse,” and then it went on to become its own series. I did the first two issues before moving on to other companies.
How old were you when you landed that job, and what do you remember about the journey leading up to it?
Brooks: I want to say I was around 26 or 27. I used to go to a lot of conventions, and that’s where a lot of editors and creators would go and sign books, and meet up-and-comers and hopefuls like me. I just went about taking my work around and meeting editors until somebody apparently felt I was good enough that they could offer me some work.
Are there other comic book artists whose styles you think influenced yours? Where does inspiration usually come from for you?
Brooks: I mean obviously there are a lot of comic artists that back at the time when I was trying to break in that I really felt an inspiration from – artists like Marc Silvestri, Alan Davis. But the older I got, the more I got into illustrated work. I was more influenced by classic illustrators like. Alphonse Mucha, or Norman Rockwell. They were working illustrators, but at this point considered classic, you know? They’re known for doing their magazine covers or posters back in the turn of the century [for] French cinema and stage shows. Alphonse Mucha was doing a lot of those posters and things, but he was a classically trained painter. Same thing goes for Norman Rockwell. Their ability to render in a classic style, but at the same time tell a story with their artwork is what really attracted me to them. To this day, I still look at them as big inspirations.
In 2004, you signed a contract with Marvel. You mentioned theirs was one of the first comics you loved and obviously they’re a huge juggernaut in the industry. How did that feel?
Brooks: It was surreal, because the comic books I grew up reading were all Marvel. I was introduced at a convention to the publisher of Marvel Comics, Bill Jemas at the time, and he liked my work and he gave me a test script to work on. That test script ended up being for a Spider-Man comic book that ended up becoming this huge movement in Marvel to sell comics through Target or Walmart. My first test script that I did for them ended up being used to sell this idea to Target, Walmart, big box retailers, to do more kid-friendly comic magazines and get a younger audience.
I realize that when it comes to right place and right time, you have to be prepared when it happens. I like to think I was prepared, but some of it is just right place, right time. Apparently, I was in that right place. It kind of just steamrolled from there. When I got my second gig after that, I’m the one who actually enquired with Marvel. Which was kind of funny, because I was waiting for them to offer me a contract, because we’re all contractors, right? But to get a contract means that you are exclusive to that company, and they guarantee you a certain amount of work. Normally, it also comes with a page rate hike and things like that. I was talking to my editor one day about a book I was working on – this was shortly after the Spider-Man gig. I said, by the way – is there any possibility that I could get a contract with Marvel? And it was almost like they were waiting for me to ask. The reaction was, oh yeah of course! We weren’t sure if you wanted one or not. I’m like, well yes of course I want one! [Laughs]
Yeah, duh.
Brooks: Yeah, exactly. I thought it was really funny. I’m like, what’s taking you so long? That’s when I learned – I have this motto that you should always ask for anything you want, because the worst they can say is no. That was a big lesson for me, to go, okay – from now on, I’m just going to ask for what I want. I’ll ask nicely, and I’m not going to bug anybody, but I’ll just say, this is what I would like. Again, sometimes they’ll say no, and you are no worse off than you were when you started.
Well you sort of stole my next question – I was going to ask if there are any lessons you’ve learned over the course of your career that you’d like to share. Are there any others, or have you seen your approach or style evolve over the past years?
Brooks: As far as style goes, my style – and I think a lot of artists do this when they first break in – they’re almost kind of mimicking the artists that they admire. I think that kind of is just part of growing as an artist. But as far as evolution of style, I kind of equate it to a mutant power, like with X-Men. If you’re going to be a mutant, maybe you hope that you’ll grow wings and can fly, but in reality, when the power manifests, you turn invisible, or you shoot fire out of your mouth. You don’t know what you’re going to get. I’m a big advocate for people – especially young upstarts – when I see them drawing and mimicking other artists, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. But when it comes to maturing as an artist, they have to just let it happen. You have to just let it develop over time and see what you get, and be happy with what you get. Otherwise, you’re fighting your own basic instincts artistically.
It’s interesting you say that. I write about movies a lot, and young directors often do the same sort of thing and people will critique them for it. But I think when you’re just getting started out, it’s hard getting your feet underneath you right away.
Brooks: That’s the thing. You can’t help but, if you admire and love something enough … you want to kind of do that. But you do realize, especially as you get older, that your unique voice isn’t there. It’s like, do you want to be the next so-and-so? Or do you want to be the first you? While it’s okay to do that, you still have to push yourself beyond that. It should be a stepping stone, not a place to rest your head.
In 2016, you penned the Han Solo miniseries, which ended up nominated for an Eisner Award – which as far as I can tell, is sort of the Oscars for comics?
Brooks: That is how I describe it, is the Oscars for comics.
How did you get involved with that project?
Brooks: Disney owns both Marvel and [Lucasfilm], so all the Star Wars comics are published through Marvel. I had done some covers with Marvel for the Star Wars books … and they were launching some miniseries. They were doing a miniseries on Lando Calrissian, they were doing a Chewbacca miniseries, and they wanted to do a Han Solo miniseries with Marjorie Liu, who is a very, very famous writer.
They got her, and then apparently Lucasfilm – I hadn’t drawn sequentials in a long time, I was a regular cover artist at this point – apparently Lucasfilm contacted Marvel and said, we want Mark to draw this, is he willing to do it? That’s when the editor-in-chief of Marvel messaged me and said, would you ever consider coming back to sequentials? I said, you know it depends on the project, and the deadline, and what the project is and who’s involved. He replied back – this is all through text – he replied back and just said, Han Solo and Chewbacca.
Han Solo and Chewbacca are my two favorite characters in Star Wars, and the Millenium Falcon is my favorite sci-fi starship vehicle of all time. So when he was like, it’s a Han Solo book, you’re going to be basically doing a version of the Kessel Run – the whole book was going to end up being like “Speed Racer,” basically – and I found out Marjorie was going to write it, I’m like I’m down for this.
As far as covers versus sequentials, did you find yourself naturally gravitating toward covers or is it something that you just sort of fell into?
Brooks: It’s weird, because there are a lot of people who are like I want to be a cover artist for Marvel. And I’m like, well most cover artists, like me, or Adam Hughes, or anybody whose main gig is covers, we started off as sequential artists. I don’t want to say that being a cover artist is a promotion, because it’s not like the rates really change or anything. It’s that I’m able to, instead of having to do like 20 pages a month, I’m doing like three or four covers a month. Which for me is more enjoyable, because when I’m doing sequential pages, I only get the ink or pencil, but when I’m doing covers I paint them. I fully paint the covers. So to me, it’s a better representation of my craft and my art.
I know you’ve also started doing designs for Marvel figurines, which are 3D. How did that opportunity arise, and can you talk about how that artistic process is different?
Brooks: It’s very different. The statues I do for Sideshow [Collectibles] and I’m doing them for a company out of Singapore called XM right now, I’m working on DC stuff for them, so I’m doing Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. For Sideshow with Marvel characters, I did Spider-Gwen and Spider-Man, and they’re all in ⅕ scale, so larger size statues.
The thing about them is when I’m drawing the comic books I don’t have to worry about what Spider-Man looks like from behind, or from the side. I’m just worried about that pose and that it looks good from the viewer’s point of view. But when you’re working in three dimensions, you have to take into account that while it might look good from this angle, you flip it around and suddenly it doesn’t look as good from that angle.
We’re doing turnarounds all the time. I’m having to not just create a pose that looks good from what’s called the optimal angle. I’m having to rotate it and give them a view from the side, the back, down view, different dimensions – it’s pretty involved. I wouldn’t say it’s as involved as the sculptor has to [be]. I actually feel bad for them, because they’re having to translate my art style into a sculpture. But it is a lot of fun to have to consider something like that when I don’t normally have to do that in my everyday job.
Out of everything you’ve done, is there anything you can think of that maybe wasn’t your favorite, necessarily, but something that you had a particularly fun time with or you found particularly challenging?
Brooks: Yeah, a few. Before I did this book, I was considered a little bit of the funny artist, because I was working on Deadpool. There’s a dark humor to him, but it is a little silly, you know? He’s the kind of guy that would up a yikes sign when he ran off a cliff. I felt like I was getting a little pigeonholed, so I talked to my editor and said, the next thing I do, I want to do something that’s not funny, and doesn’t have any silliness to it. I want to do something darker and be a little more realistic with what I’m drawing. I got to do a run on a book called “Uncanny X-Force,” which is basically like you’ve taken the X-Men characters like Psylocke and Wolverine and they’ve become this dark, covert team that are doing some Black Ops kind of thing.
It’s a dimension hopping story, and like I said it’s very dark, a little bloody, a little adult-oriented. That was my first big jump into doing something that I felt like I really wanted to do. To this day, I’m still … really, really proud of that, because I felt like it was a big jump in my style.
Han Solo is probably still the biggest accomplishment I’ve had. Currently I am the cover artist on “Immortal X-Men,” which is just a very highly acclaimed book happening right now through Marvel. I’m on my 16th cover for them, and I love this job. It’s the best.
One thing I’m doing right now, and the first issues haven’t come out yet, but back in the 80s and 90s, Marvel Comics had corner boxes in the top corners of the comics. The corner box normally had the issue number and the price and all that, but it also had a little image. Sometimes it was just a group of heads. Sometimes it was a full character. Sometimes it was a little scene from the book. What it did was it always told you – like I don’t know if you remember “Game of Thrones,” but remember in the beginning of the episode, the credits always told you which kingdoms you were going to be in by the way they went? The corner box kind of did the same thing. The characters that you would see in there, you were like, oh okay these are the ones I’m going to see in the book.
They stopped doing that in the 90s. I had been pushing for two or three years for Marvel to let me bring back corner boxes. I want to do corner boxes for Marvel! The editor-in-chief of Marvel, a friend of mind, called me a few months ago and said we’re ready to do it.
You can purchase tickets to see Brooks at MomoCon online.