Interview:Robert Atkins

Please Digg this interview to help others find it as well.

On March 28, 2008, Ryan Gibson Stewart conducted a phone interview with graphic novel artist Robert Atkins. Robert illustrated Pieces of Me and Bounty Hunter.

Ryan Stewart: So how did you get into comic book art?

Robert Atkins: I went to school for it. I'd say it's not necessary to have a degree to work in comics. But I tended to learn quicker and easier that way. I got my undergrad degree at Illinois State University in fine art, and then I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design and got my masters there in sequential art. It was a great opportunity because there, they teach the techniques of storytelling and storyboarding for comics. Concept and character design for any kind of entertainment, video games, etc. It was really cool--I got to go down there, and my homework all of a sudden became drawing three pictures of Spider-Man.

That's pretty great!

Yeah, that's great homework! I was really digging that! [laughs] It was really great, too, because all the professors down there were seasoned professionals. The quality of the faculty down there was just amazing.

Sounds pretty ideal.

Yeah. The department chair at the time was John Lowe. He was an inker for DC for over fifteen years. Toward the end, I had interned with him. About three months before I graduated, he had a good friend--Randy Green--who was working on X-Men at the time. He'd been working in comics for years and years, too. He was a bit behind on some deadlines and needed somebody to come in and help him out on some backgrounds. He would draw the main characters, then he'd hand the page off to me and I would put in anything that was setting-oriented, props, etc. He lived in North Carolina and I lived in Georgia at the time. So I would go up there on the weekend and travel about five hours, just for the opportunity to work with this guy. It was a great opportunity for me. I'd drive up there and we would crank out like ten pages in a weekend! I'd have to be pretty quick with drawing buildings and backgrounds, and he had it down where he could easily draw characters over a number of pages. So I was helping him get deadlines done. That was my first work, but I wasn't credited for it because I was kind of doing the production and just helping out.

After I graduated, I moved up to North Carolina and I joined the art studio that he was a part of, called Tsunami Studios. It was awesome, it was so great! I moved up there with my wife. They all shared an office space in downtown Greensboro, and they just kind of let me move in. I remember I had my own little art space. There were four other artists, and every day I would go in, and everyone was just drawing comics and working on this project or that. There was another guy who had a comic coloring studio just a few offices down. We all hung out and it was a lot of fun. I was there for a couple of years.

It sounds like a great environment.

Oh yeah, it was a really creative environment. Lots of fun! All the people I worked with had similar interests. We all kept our own hours--some days we'd be up there first thing in the morning and leave around dinnertime, sometimes we'd be up there drawing things at night. It was a blast. I really enjoyed it. About a year and a half ago I moved back to Illinois. I've got a lot of family in the area.

That's where you're from originally?

Yeah, I grew up in Illinois. We had a son, and he's coming up on two years old now. It was right after he was born that we decided to move back and be closer to family.

That's nice that you were able to do that. And you told me you're expecting another baby?

Yeah! We don't know yet if it's a boy or a girl. We just can't come up with any girl names! But we've totally got the boy name picked out. If it's a boy, I completely talked my wife into naming him after a comic book character. She had no idea! We picked out the name Norrin, the name of the Silver Surfer. So I said, "Hey, how about Norrin?" She said, "Yeah, that's kind of different." Well, then we went and saw the second Fantastic Four movie and she said, "Wait a minute, I've heard that name before. Hey, that's the name you suggested!" I said, "Oh, uh, yeah, yeah!" She said, "That's the name of the Silver Surfer! I can't believe it!" [both laugh]

Very sneaky!

I'm kind of hoping it's a boy just so I can keep the name!

So after you moved back to Illinois...

Well, we've just been here for a couple years. Since the time I moved to North Carolina, which was about four years ago, is when I really started working. It was right after I graduated. At first, I started just helping the other artists in the studio with their deadlines. I worked very much behind the scenes doing what is called "ghosting". In comics, that's when you have a ghost artist who comes in and helps the regular artist who is credited. But it helps get the book done. I never got any credit in those books, but it was a great opportunity for me to learn from these guys.

I would say my first solo published work was for G.I. Joe, working for Devil's Due Publishing. At the time, they had the rights for the G.I. Joe property. So the first thing I did for them was the Snake-Eyes: Declassified, which was the origin story for Snake-Eyes and G.I. Joe. That was about three and a half years ago.

And you did two issues of Snake-Eyes?

Yeah, two issues. Since then, I kind of hopped around on different projects for them--inking, coloring, and penciling various titles. Last summer, I did some work for Marvel--my first Marvel work. It was what they call a special project. It wasn't a regular book that hit the shelves, it was for a third party company who hires Marvel Comics to do a comic for them. So I got to work with them on that.

That must have been great working for a much bigger name like Marvel.

Oh gosh, it was wonderful! Especially Marvel--I grew up loving Marvel comics! It was a blast! I mean, the first project I did was only a twelve-page story, but it had the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and Iron Man, all in the same story.

What a lineup!

[in little kid's voice] "Woo hoo, this is the best!" It was so cool.

When you're drawing established characters who have been so beloved even since before we were born, is there more pressure to get them "just right"?

I would say yeah, you get a little anxious to hear the feedback, if somebody hates it or if they really enjoy it. But the project I did really wasn't put out there for the mainstream. There wasn't a huge amount of backlash or anything. [laughs]

Well, I've seen what you've done in the past, and I think the quality of the art all but guarantees that there wouldn't be a backlash anyway.

[laughs] As you break into comics, you really have to pay your dues, meaning that you're going to get all the projects that are just totally dumped on you. Like with that project, I had fourteen days to do twelve pages, and it had to be done. I wish I had more time to really do pre-concept character designs to really get a feel for the way I wanted the characters to look. But as it was, I was just lucky to get it done in time. You do the best you can with the time you have. There are certainly hundreds and thousands of artists out there who are way better than I am. So I think the only reason I'm getting work in comics is because an artist has to be proficient enough, but you also have to meet that deadline. You really have to know when it just looks good enough; as long as that storytelling is clear, what elements are necessary to get that across?