He’s worked with countless famous creators on a plethora of outstanding comics, all of which are must owns and staples of any given libraries. His art is highly influential and inspired, and frequently gains both critical acclaim and award recognition. He’s working on one of the most highly anticipated titles in the DCnU relaunch come September, off of a previous won that earned a GLAAD Award. Not only that, but he’s an incredibly nice guy who has chatted with us before and agreed to do it again.
The man, the myth, the legend: JH Williams III.
Check after the cut for our latest chat in the Artist August series with this fantastic artist.
Can you look back on your life and recall the single moment that made you want to work in comics? Or was it more of a natural progression that led you here?
JH Williams III: I sure can, but it was a combination of things within a close time frame. I always drew a lot as a kid. Some of my earliest memories of drawings were a lot of Marvel characters, like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, Black Panther, Thor, and I’m sure a host of others. I also paid attention to drawing DC characters too, but mainly the most popular of the time, Batman, Superman, were the main ones for me. Where I used to get my comics, there wasn’t a lot of access to DC, it was mostly Marvel on the spinner racks at the local 7-11 store. I’m old enough to remember comics being easy to get at just about any convenience store or grocer.
Anyway. I was also obsessed with a certain set of toys called Micronauts, which spawned the Marvel comic of the same name. I was so hungry for anything about those toys that when I came across Micronauts #1, I had grabbed it immediately. I remember flipping through it on the 7-11 outside stoop, before taking it home to read. The art was unique to my untrained eyes. It didn’t really look like any of the other comics I had been accustomed to. When I read the story, it was certainly better than a lot of the stuff I’d seen so far as well. It was loaded with big ideas, and imagination, and had a sense of sophistication, and emotionality. My young mind was blown away so much, that I poured over every line, every dot, every word on those pages. And because it grabbed me in that way, I finally paid attention to there being a credits box. The names of Bill Mantlo, Michael Golden, and Al Milgrom, prominently featured. This was significant to me, I hadn’t ever really thought about comics being made by people before. As a kid you just see the results, and thats it for the most part. So this comic changed my young life profoundly. I became enamored with Golden’s art a great deal. I remember hunting for new issues of that comic everyday (not realizing that comics were a monthly publication), another thing kids back then never really thought about. So this leads me to telling a friend about how amazing this comic was. They quickly said you should check out Uncanny X-men, this was the Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne period. My friend showed me some issues, and I was captivated by that just as strongly. Completely unique looking for it’s time as well, but different from the creators on Micronauts. This struck me pretty hard, seeing these creators’ work in this way, influenced me enough to realize that I could take my drawing abilities an apply myself to making comics. I remember proclaiming to anyone who’d listen that I was going to draw comics one day, I was going to make it my living, and I’m not interested in anything else. A pretty heavy declaration from a 9 or 10 year old.
Who or what – both in and outside of comics – has influenced the development of your own art style?
J3: This is really a tough question for me, because after my childhood revelation about comics that I talk about above, I became an absorption machine. Not only did I gravitate to whatever current comics trends were taking place, I sought out old comics too, even comics from other countries. I remember being exposed very early on to artists like Moebius, and getting enamored with Jack Kirby. I quickly embraced the diversity of styles that were presented to me. So I would always dabble trying out different looks, seeing what I could develop. I found that I couldn’t really settle for one style for myself. It was only later in my career that I realized the reasons for this. I don’t see myself as having having one style to call my own. Sure, there may be certain signature storytelling aspects to my work, but that has less to to do with actual drawing looks. About 10 years ago or more, I had an epiphany, the reason I can’t define myself with one style is because I subconsciously knew, from all the various comics I’d been exposed to growing up, that sort of showed me I certainly wasn’t going to be original. Nothing I did or will do, is going to be completely original, it is literally an impossible feat now. Comics are an old enough medium, that anything you or I think of today has been done before. Everything we see for writing and drawing styles, is influenced, or derivative of something else. Don’t get me wrong, I do not mean this in any cynical manner, it’s just the way it is. Sure we can put fresh spins on things, find ways to tweak things, providing new perspective to invigorate ideas. So I decided the best thing for me was to actually call this out in my work. To reflect things I’d been exposed to prominently enough that readers may get the references, but if they don’t it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the story itself, it just adds interesting visual layers. This allows the work to use various style tricks and techniques to evoke different emotional, or subliminal analytical responses from the reader as they read through comics I work on. I try to have my work reflect as commentary on comics as a medium, and language, all the while being entertaining and telling you a story. This idea adds interesting subtexts to scenes or plotlines, and in ways that aren’t immediately apparent until further inspection. I love that maybe a younger reader will see something stylistically challenging in one of my stories, not think about it, but then later end up being exposed to something close to the source of where that style or idea comes from. It’ll then give them a different perspective if they reread the work I presented.
Continued belowBut I’m also highly influenced by all kinds of things beyond comics, real life, film, music, fine art, science. I like to absorb whatever I can.
You create some of the most intriguing layouts that set you apart from others in the industry. When you’re designing a page, what is the creative process for you? What works influenced the development of your sense of physical space and depth within your illustrations?
J3: I think a few things come into play when it comes to the influence on some of my more fanciful layouts. I certainly can attribute it to my early life exposures to works in the 1970’s by such artists as Jim Starlin, Will Eisner, Jim Steranko, to name a few. These guys were doing things with layouts that broke conventions a long time ago. But what I think grabbed me the most about it was the thinking involved behind their sense of design. I never really had much formal art training in school, but I did take 2 years of advertising art and design, an off campus high school program. This class changed how I viewed my drawing forever. The great thing about it was the teacher focused less on the quality of the drawing and more on the ideas of it, what the drawing is trying to say. This forced me to think differently. It was a long struggle for me to bring this notion to full reality within the context of my comics work. My earlier work doesn’t reflect this sense of design nearly as much, I was certainly thinking about it, but wasn’t quite able to apply it. I think early on I was just worried about fitting in, getting work, build a foundation. It wasn’t until Chase that I was able to find comfort in pushing a different way to my drawings, I was feeling more confident, and thinking about creators that came before me that applied this successfully. Then Promethea came, a project that really gave me total creative freedom, this is where things really started to culminate for me, and began a defining of my views on where I was in comics and it’s history. This is where I opened up to the visual possibilities that I’m still exploring today. The interesting thing for me is I feel like this journey is far from over. I still get dissatisfied with some of the limitations I have, and feel that I’m trying to discover further explorations, on how far things can get pushed but remain entertaining. But the trick to all of it is making sure it works for the story being told, the story comes first, so sometimes my wilder ideas for layouts or use of styles just aren’t going to work all of the time. You have to keep them within the framework of the story first. As for how I come up with these layout ideas, it goes back the design class in school. I took what was learned to heart in such a way that most of my layout ideas are spontaneous, very rapid, and from my gut. My thinking process is very fast in this regard, never over think it. When working with other writers, I quite often had no idea how I was going to design an intricate layout until the night before drawing that page commenced. I almost never do thumbnails and prefer to keep things in my head. This allows me some flexibility, to alter something if need be on the spot if it isn’t working the way I imagine it. Now that I’m writing, I’m thinking these ideas farther in advance to try to get as much of that kind of information into the scripts, sometimes I write visual ideas thoroughly, other times it might just be a mention of an idea. But there are pages where I alter this when when the drawing commences. Or sometimes my scripts for some scenes won’t have that information at all, and then something occurs to me when layout begins. The most interesting thing to me now about thinking of placing layout information into a script is building scenes around the layout idea itself, influencing the movement of the story in visual terms.
Continued belowYou’re one of the foremost ‘realistic’ artists in comics, as your figures exist in a believable physical space in pointed contrast to both your stylized page layouts and the material that you’re working from. Do you have a specific rationale or thought process behind rooting fantastical elements like superheroes in this style?
J3: Yeah, I somewhat do. For me, I find that you can get a lot of steam on suspension of disbelief when dealing with more realistic looks to things. But that doesn’t mean that convention can’t broken. There are certainly plenty of examples of “cartoony”, for lack of better term, having an emotional punch on the reader. I just find my work to be easily relatable when the character’s look like people you might meet, even when those characters are diverse. It’s a fine line, because sometimes you want things to go way over the top. But if you’ve grounded things successfully, when you do go over the top, it feels like it’s happening. What I like about this notion is that even if the art style I’m applying might be more open without shadows, or gets impressionistic with more painterly effects, by having these placed over a realistic understructure, gets more subtext sometimes. It can enhance the emotionality as well. It certainly has helped with action scenes in Batwoman. Some of her movements are inspired by things you might see in Hong Kong cinema, but since we’re dealing with drawings, having a realness to the understructure can fool you into buying that she is doing some crazy moves.
Both your interiors and your covers have earned you award nominations in the past. Compared to how you develop interiors, what is your approach creating covers? What is the relationship between them to you?
J3: I try to view covers covers as symbolic storytelling. But they have to grab your attention more immediately than story pages do. But I like to take elements or ideas that are in the story and find symbolic meanings to them, broadening the ideas within the story, and get those thoughts into the image on the cover. This allows the covers to comment on what is inside symbolically. Sometimes the symbolic meaning isn’t gleaned until read the issue, or story arc itself and then the covers can show a theme emerge. But if applied and constructed properly, the elements become pleasing to look at and make the reader want to look inside to find out the answers to what questions the symbolic images represent. This is always toughest on issue #1s because no one has any idea of the full story yet. A good issue 1 cover to me should not only be selling the character, but also raise questions on what is inside. Good covers have always done this, but for me I try to apply the same design thinking process to my cover work as I do for interior pages, just in much broader terms.
You’ve worked with some of the most influential writers in comics throughout your career, such as Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Warren Ellis. When bringing their various scripts to life, what elements/stories did you find were the easiest to work with? Conversely, what were the most difficult?
J3: Honestly, I didn’t think any of them were easy. but thats the sign of a good story, and thats what makes it challenging and fun. If its too easy for me, then it’s too easy for the reader, and becomes unmemorable.
Additionally, if you could revisit any of your past projects with them for any reason, which would you choose? Why? (Aside from Batwoman, of course.)
J3: This is simple, all of them, regardless of whether it would be a revisit to previous concepts or not, or something new. If Alan asked me to work on something, and my schedule allows it, I’m there. Same for Grant, and for Greg. Greg has a concept that he wants to create with me, that I really want to do, hopefully we’ll get to do that if he’s willing to wait long enough, it could be a long while. But I would love to work on that with him. I can easily see me working with Greg again in the future. Grant and I’ve also discussed doing more projects together, but our schedules never seem to unite. Desolation Jones with Warren, It would be great to revisit that as well. There just wasn’t enough of Jones. It saddens me a bit that more Jones isn’t out there right now. Maybe if the planets align just right it’ll happen someday. But for now I can’t really think about anything beyond my own goals. Things I want to do myself.
Continued belowWhen slipping into stylistic homages to other artists (such as with the Batman “Club of Heroes” story or your Legacies back-up), what’s your process for distilling their essence in order to sync with your own work? How do you decide what artists to channel, and do their styles feed back into your own work?
J3: Hmm…not sure how I do it really, I rely on my gut for stuff like that. My instinct rarely misguides me. When I read script, certain things just call out to me for things like this. They present themselves, as if saying to me “Hey, here I am, this what I look like.” “This is what my story looks like.” Its usually quite immediate too, a fully realized thing in my head. And I follow what that tells me, what the story or character speaks to me. And yeah. the styles do feed back into me, and come out in other ways too. There are times where I see multiple styles creep in on a single figure or panel, but they work in unison to form the final result.
How does it feel to finally return to the story of Batwoman? Are you excited to continue what you and Greg Rucka had previously started, despite the various delays?
J3: Excitement is an understatement! But there is also a great sense of responsibility on our shoulders too. I think I wouldn’t be fretting as much if it was a concept that didn’t follow another’s view point. There is weight to picking this up because what came before was so profound, the fact that we are following what another writer set in motion. But instead of finding that a hinderance, we’re approaching this with wanting to honor it. The trick to it is remaining true to what came before, while taking risks, adding our voice to it. And hopefully leading to some unexpected places along the way.
With the upcoming Batwoman series you will be taking on the duties of both artist and writer. How different is the process for you now when working on the comic?
J3: I guess I cover some that in a previous answer. But I find myself wearing 2 hats now. So when I’m writing, I’m in writing mode, the focus is the story and dialogue for the most part, but I do try to put in words what I see visually. The scripts we write are pretty detailed, they’re full scripts. I write the same way for myself as if I was writing for another artist. Which I’ve done before years ago. I don’t give myself any short cuts, just because I may be drawing it. The scripts focus heavily on making sure the story works in words, that the story fully functions. I’ve learned from working with the best over the years’ on what a solid script looks like. The other goal is to make the scripts feel like something worth reading on their own too, this I certainly picked up from Alan. But I’ve had some learning curves too, and couldn’t have done it nearly as quickly or effectively without the my co-writer’s contributions, as of this interview we’re scripting issue 10 or 11. We feed off each other’s strengths and ideas. Haden Blackman and I feel that we make a formidable team. And this is certainly not an instance of him doing all of the heavy lifting that some may think because I’m artist writing with another writer. We do our best to share the load equally, and value the input we give to each other.
As both co-writer and co-artist on one of the few openly gay superheroes to be afforded any kind of limelight in the current marketplace, how does this status (some might even say “responsibility”) inform your creative process while working on Batwoman, if at all?
J3: Well it is a responsibility for sure. But our first goal is to make sure we like the story we are telling, that the character within the story is done justifiably. Yes, its important to address social issues within the context of who this character is, but we can’t forget that its an adventure story, about heroes and villains. So any socially conscious viewpoints can’t be preached, they’re just one aspect of a bigger picture that surrounds all that is Kate Kane and Batwoman, it has to work within the framework of a grander story. But we won’t be shying away from it at all, we’ll be taking some risks, making some statements along the way, some of it will be overt, while some will be in the guise of symbolic subtext.
Continued belowWith the advantage of co-writing Batwoman and your aforementioned layouts, do you ever find yourself writing to the design — that is, coming up with some visual arrangement and then trying to script to that, rather than vice versa?
J3: Yes, on occasion, as described in an above answer. The toughest part of this, is making sure it functions as a narrative, not just pretty pictures with words attached. The language of comics has to be maintained even if being stretched beyond normal conventions. If you don’t do this you’ve lost the game.
In contrast with previous works, Batwoman finds you splitting artistic duties with Amy Reeder. How is that split different for you, and how well do you feel the collaboration is working?
J3: So far so good, but the split is rather conventional really. With the zero issue we shared space on almost every page. But on the series, we’re dividing it by arcs. I’m drawing all of arc 1 (5 issues), Amy handling arc 2 (6 issues), I return to art duties for arc 3 (5 issues). It functions as a trilogy right now. Each arc stands with it’s own story points, but each are connected to form a bigger picture story. I’ve heard mention of fans dropping it when Amy comes on, and returning on arc 3, I really hope that isn’t true. The way this story moves, that would be a mistake, we’re relying on arc 2 to carry the bigger plan through, and readers would find themselves a bit lost in arc 3 without it. So Arc 2 plays a vital role to the whole thing we’re doing. The writing dovetails into each arc. We felt this was important to do if we wanted the story have any real momentum to all of the characters’ plot progressions, we can’t afford filler. The fun part was giving each segment it’s own voice, so each arc has it’s own things to say, all while building into a much bigger story. Each having their own themes, as example, arc 1 is a horror story, arc 2 is an espionage story, arc 3 a fantasy epic, and so on. But all having pieces that carry over into each other. This allows us to help build a legacy story for Batwoman beyond what Greg had established.
In the digital age, new tools are available to artists all types. How does that affect and expand your work?
J3: It doesn’t really, except when it comes to the power of color. Whether Dave Stewart is coloring interior pages or I’m coloring my covers, the massive amounts of things that can be used to help the visual looks via photoshop color is wonderful. And its very useful if something needs to be altered too, makes things easier that way. But other than that, I try to place as much as possible onto the physical art boards. I like creating something one of a kind that you can hold in your hands.
Does feedback (both positive and negative) with fans and critics via social media push you as an artist? How does that aspect affect your art?
J3: Well thats a tricky subject, because its always nice when you hear nice things, and bad when you hear bad things. Its very difficult to find merit in it. The best I can hope for is to look at critical feedback as something to listen to, but as long as I’m true to myself, it doesn’t matter what I hear. But I am grateful to hear nice comments, I very much appreciate them, same for any valid negatives as well. But ultimately, it doesn’t change how I’m going to approach something. I have to be confident that I’m doing the best I can do at the time I’m doing it. No one is going to be more critical over my work as myself, as my wife can attest.
In the average comic book criticism or review, artists are typically given a lot less hype than writers are, even though this is a visual medium. Why do you think that is?
J3: Hmm, not sure, maybe because readers mainly see story first, but sometimes fail to understand that a comics story is all of it, art and writing, color, and lettering, it all impacts the final perception of the reader. I’ve had conversations with friends who are fans, and I’m always surprised how many don’t think about the art as much. There are a lot of fans that don’t realize how much the art affects the story they take in. They just tend to react subliminally, and not examine it analytically, they either enjoyed it or they didn’t, which is fine, that is what entertain does. The art has an equal amount of impact on the final result as any writing does. Sometimes more so. There are plenty of occasions where a mediocre story is elevated because of the art being really good. I’ve also seen good stories hurt by bad art too. Comics writing and comics art, work in tandem to such a degree, that no final result is affected without taking both into consideration. This is why the best reviews I’ve seen, not just of my projects, always break the story down academically. And views all of the components equally and how well they worked together, educating whoever may be reading the review article on comics functionality.
Continued belowWho are some of your favorite artists working in comics today?
J3: Too many to mention them all, I’m a junkie!
Desert Island question: one book, one album, one film and one comic. What do you take with you?
J3: Book: Any writings by Michael Moorcock, Album: Blondie’s Autoamerican, Film: Amelie or Bladerunner, Comic: Absolute V For Vendetta
Aside from Batwoman and the next volume of Absolute Promethea, what should we be on the lookout for from you in the next year?
J3: Well I contributed a piece to the Star Wars Art: Comics book, features a character of my own invention, it was a blast. I’ve written and drawn a 2 page story for the next CBLDF Liberty Comics Annual, it’s black, grey, red, white and blue, 32 panels, 80 balloons of dialogue, involves card tricks as metaphor, within an intricate design, and yet, it all still works! I’ve written a story about the Scarecrow for the Bat office, but not sure when that will hit shelves, the plan is for it to be drawn by the talented Alex Sheikman (Robotika). Also, from what I understand we are finally getting a complete Chase tpb collection, a massive 352 pages I think, not sure but judging by the page count it may include the D.E.O. short stories we did for various Secret Files books.
