STEPHEN PLATT: A PROPHET(ABLE) ADVENTURE (continued)
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CVM: Explain your creative process towards your work.
Platt: I see it as a motion picture; I also have to know it's a comic book, you can't draw the thing as a film. I have pictures in my mind of how it's going to look before I draw it, but you can't draw the whole thing as a film because there aren't enough panels. I try and give dramatic angles. For me, I think what people like is that there is a lot to look at. There's a lot to feast on, visual "food". People like the grit; people like the detail. I get fans who say they like all different things, for all sorts of different reasons. If there is a responsive chord that I'm hitting, then I think it's great. I'm having a good time, and I hope it shows.
CVM: What's more important to you in terms of a comic book, the story or the art? Or is it about equal?
Platt: That's a terrible question because I don't want to piss off any writers, but if the artwork is exceptionally visual, sequentially, you can almost read it without words. For me as an artist, somebody who has a strong affinity for visual mediums, when you ultimately get down to it, it's got to be the art. We're not writing a novel without words, we're writing a picture book that has words in it, and I think it goes in that order. A writer may tell you that writing is the most important thing. It inspires great art in a lot of ways. One inspires the other; it's a reciprocal relationship. If you get a great plot and you're really excited about it, you create great visuals. Then the writer is going to get excited about it, and you're going to have a good book. I see it as a cohesive discipline.
CVM: Most of the other people at Image have written and drawn their own material. Do you think that will happen to you down the road?
Platt: Absolutely. I have characters I want to introduce, and I have storylines I want to introduce. I have an agenda. People have this attitude, and I find this a lot, that superhero comic books are no longer worthy. They're very much into the Sandman school and the Neil Gaiman school of writing. That's valid, because comic books have succumbed to this generic ideology of what hero books should be, and they have become boring in a lot of ways. I subscribe to that somewhat, but to me, it's so simple that people miss it: there is no such thing as a bad character. In the end, these are just people that wear costumes. What we bring to them is basically what they are. There's no such thing as a bad character, there's just bad writers and bad artists. That is the bottom line.
Pencils of Prophet by Stephen Platt
CVM: What is your impression of the comic book market these days?
Platt: I'm not an expert on the comic book market. I have to say that right now, I just love drawing comics. All I know is what I'm doing, and if the fans like it, that makes me very happy. What I've heard is that sales are dropping all over the place…
CVM: What I've heard is that it's a more level playing field now.
Platt: There's so much to choose from now. I'm not going to say that it's the most important thing to me because if I create a book that I could be proud of…
CVM: Something to be read as opposed to something polybagged with a trading card…
Platt: Absolutely! If it's [expletive deleted], you put in a polybag and trading card, it's still going to be [expletive deleted] when you open it up. You can giftwrap whatever you want, it's what's in the box that you're getting.
If the comic market shrinks, I think people are going to be more discerning buyers. I think people will start staying away from titles that don't have it for them anymore. People will start collecting comics to get what they like, and not necessarily what they feel will go up in value. When Moon Knight #55 came out, people bought it because they liked the cover, and they thought it was a neat book. They felt the character had been revamped. No one bought it as a speculator. Now, it's being bought as a speculation book. It was a big surprise. Either, you were in the store that day when it came in or you weren't. Then, when the book shot up in value, all the speculators jumped out of the woodwork and said [Platt] is going to be the next guy or whatever. I get that every day. I'm not even thinking in those terms. I'm just thinking, right now, I have to finish Moon Knight #60. After that, I'm going to do Prophet.
CVM: Where do you see yourself in the future?
Platt: I want to create stories that spark discussion. I don't have that luxury right now at Marvel; I have nothing to do with the plot. That's Terry Kavanagh's arena. When I came to Image, one of the biggest draws was that I was going to say what happened to Prophet. We don't have to go through a board of directors. We don't have to go through editors who say, "No, that's not in my continuity."
I have a lot of favorite guys in comics. Todd McFarlane was one of the guys that made me see you could have a good time doing this. Visually he's stunning. He's so appealing to me, always will be. His work has so much visual energy…
Some guys have a feeling for aesthetics, what lines do to people, and the way things are drawn. There are a lot of guys who are pedestrian artists, who stay in the safe area. Todd progressed. I saw his earlier stuff, and I didn't even know it was him. I see where he is now, and I want to be like that. I want to create the definitive Stephen Platt. I want people to say, "Wow! That guy Platt has really changed from his Moon Knight stuff."
Five years from now or ten years from now, I want to be drawing comics. I want to create a character that won't die once you go.
I just got in this business. I literally came out a couple of months ago. That's why I feel all this is so bizarre. I feel like I jumped into comics head first, and when I thought I was heading down, I caught this jet stream that was going straight up on a vertical. It's so weird the way things happen.
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