This past July writer Ales Kot, artist Matt Taylor, and colorist Lee Loughridge introduced noir, fantasy and horror to LA in an all new way. “Wolf” follows Antoine Wolfe, a paranormal detective whose life becomes intertwined with an orphaned teenage girl who might be the key to the impending apocalypse. Matt Taylor brought the world of “Wolf” to life each issue with his great character work, cinematic approach to panels, and managing the quieter moments. Matt’s work as the series artist for issue 1 to 4 is now collected in the first trade of “Wolf” which released November 11th.
We were able to talk to Matt Taylor about his work on “Wolf”. You can read the interview below as Matt talks about his approach to the series, his process on the issues and how he has grown since he began “Wolf”. A big thanks to Matt for taking to the time to talk to us and about the book. You can get the first volume of “Wolf” from Image Comics out now in your comic stores and digitally online.
With the first volume out now collecting your issues 1-4, how does it feel looking back on your work?
Matt Taylor: It’s a very weird feeling, after years of reading comics, to hold that volume in my hands and sit it on my shelf and it be a thing that I actually drew. Aside from anything else, volume one is the document of the time I spent working on “Wolf” and thought I could handle drawing a monthly book! Looking at it now, I’m amazed at how coherent it feels – this was the first extended piece of comics that i had worked on, and I could feel my working style changing as I drew it, but it doesn’t show as much on the page as I thought it might (although that is in part due to the wonderful tonally consistent colouring that Lee gave it). I’m incredibly proud of it – even if I never drew comics again, it would exist as a reminder that I managed it once.
What was your general process like for an issue?
MT: For most of the issues, the scripts would come in as Ales was writing them, usually in 6-7 page installments. I laid out the pages in batches as super rough thumbnails to get the flow of the story right and then get them approved by Ales. Once they were okayed, I’d start on more finished art – because I work digitally, I don’t have to worry too much about traditional pencil and ink stages and would drawn them pretty much as finals from my roughs. Generally I would only give the dialogue a quick pass to get a sense of the scene, and rely more on the direction from Ales as to the characters mood and purpose 9this meant that when I read the finished issues I could enjoy them like a regular reader would and still be surprised in placed). I used Shutter Stock, Google Maps, Sketchup and a few other sources for all my image references for backgrounds, furniture, etc. Sketchup in particular was super useful for cars and furniture, being able to rotate a 3D model to get just the right angle and have it being technically correct for a shot has been a life saver.
There are some really big moments in “Wolf”. In between those moments it’s generally subdued with a lot of intense character interactions or very quiet scenes of everyday life. What was your thought and approach to the quiet moments of the series in contrast to a person on fire walking through the streets of the city?
MT: I tried to treat everything with a very even hand. Generally I hope I managed to avoid deliberately weird or jarring camera angles and frame everything in a very natural way, so that the big moments stand apart on their own, through the content of the scene rather than them being framed in a certain way. The opening scene is fairly dramatic, but from a composition point of view it’s pretty straightforward, and the flaming man is positioned deliberately small and low in the frame so that the focus is the city. If you look at something like steve dillon’s work on preacher or hellblazer, there’s some weird shit in there, but it’s all just framed very matter of fact so that it feels part of the world rather than sticking out like a sore thumb. I think that makes it more intense, more weird, because we’re just forced to accept that there are strange things happening alongside a world which is analogous to our own.
Continued below“Wolf” is visually very cinematic. Did you guys set out to have a specific look for the series? I loved the use of long vertical panels and a real clean and simple look to the layouts of the issues.
MT: I just tried to draw it in a way that felt right. Wide panels appeal to me – it’s something I use in my illustration work where possible – probably a hangover from watching so many movies growing up. The relative simplicity was a mix of two things: firstly in my day job as an illustrator I like to compose images in a way that has areas of heavy detail juxtaposed with sparse areas of block colour because I think it helps guide the eye around a page rather than being overwhelmed with detail and i tried to bring this across to my comics work. Secondly it was a matter of finding a way to produce the pages quickly. I could see there might be a danger of getting lost in every panel, making everything too complicated so I made a conscious decision to have a stripped back aesthetic.
“Wolf” takes place in a very grounded looking world with characters and elements not so grounded in the norm. You drew very detailed and realistic backgrounds and cityscapes in contrast to the more clean and modest characters. Was this an important distinction for you in creating “Wolf”?
MT: Yeah, I wanted it to feel like it was in our world, just one step removed. I used a lot of photos and Google Maps screenshots to build the backgrounds so that it felt as much as possible like the real Los Angeles. When Ales wrote in the script that Wolfe’s apartment is in Echo Park I spent an afternoon cruising round the area on Google Maps to find the right street for him to live on. Once I had a location it meant I could return to it and work out how he got around town – as much as possible, the routes he takes in the book should all make sense in terms of the reference I used in the backgrounds.
Was there anything you found particularly challenging about the your work on “Wolf”?
MT: Honestly? All of it. Monthly comics are HARD work, and I have so much respect for artists who do it every month for years and years – four issues almost burned me out. The economics of working on comics are really hard too; I went into this eyes open, so this is in no way a criticism of the way Image works, I was working on “Wolf” from January and I saw my first pay cheque in October (because you don’t get paid until about three months after the issue sees print, and ideally you need to have the issue complete 2/3 months before it’s printed). Luckily I was in a position where my illustration work paid the bills in the mean time, but that meant juggling a full time gig as an illustrator alongside a full time job drawing “Wolf.” It was a pretty stressful experience – and not one I’m in a rush to repeat in terms of working on a monthly book. I love comics, but I can’t imagine trying to break in as an artist without the security of a day job, and I can’t imagine being able to work a day job and then find time to draw a monthly book.
Lee’s color really brought something special to the book and felt very in line with the tone you and Ales set with the series. Was there a discussion between you and Lee about the overall look for the artwork?
MT: Not between Lee and myself – I was happy for him to just do his thing. He coloured some of the seminal “Hellblazer” issues, and Ales and I had always considered “Wolf” to be a spiritual sibling of that book, so when Lee came on we knew that he would know what to do. As far as I can remember there were almost no notes for changes (apart from tiny things where my art maybe wasn’t clear enough for him to tell what it was), he just nailed the tone straight away.
Continued belowWhat’s the difference between pre-“Wolf” Matt work and post-“Wolf” Matt work?
MT: Post-“Wolf” Matt is under no illusions about how much work is involved in making comics (which pre-“Wolf” Matt was, no matter how many times his friends who work in comics told him it would be). I’d like to think that my storytelling is better (still with room for improvement), and I’m less picky about every single panel being perfect and focused more on how a page looks as a whole rather than frame by frame. I’m still so early on in my comics career – I only have six issues of anything to my name – that I’m still on such a steep learning curve so every issue for me is an improvement.
What was your favorite moment to illustrate in “Wolf”?
MT: I think it’s the quiet moments – where it’s down to a look or a gesture to convey the mood. I was pretty happy with the hero shot that ends issue three. It’s hard for me to pick out any specific moments now because I’m looking at it as a whole. I think when I was drawing the issues there were bits I was happy with as I was working on them, but now I’d say my happiness with the whole thing makes it difficult to pick out one specific scene.
Where can readers see you next?
MT: I’m working on monthly covers for “Unfollow” over at Vertigo, and I’m about to start work on a graphic novel that’s most likely going to see print at some point in 2017. In the mean time I’m hoping to have some webcomics come out on a reasonably regular schedule so that i don’t disappear from everyone’s radar. I have a few short stories in mind along the same sort of lines as my mini-comic The Great Salt Lake that was published last year and I’d like to explore those while I’m working on The Big Comic.
