For those who love science fiction, I have good news for you: Image Comics has a doozy of a comic coming out in November in “Drifter” #1. This book from writer Ivan Brandon and artist Nic Klein is a really exceptional debut, and delivers a story that feels like a more hardened version of the first half of “Pitch Black” but with absolutely stunning art from Klein. Of course, you can read my review from earlier for more, but the point is, this is a book you’ll want to check out when it arrives.
Today brings Final Order Cutoff for the book – get your order in to your comic shop, folks! – and to help encourage you even more to pick this book up, I talked with Klein and designer Tom Muller about the look of this book and what they’re hoping to accomplish in it. Take a look below, and get a look at some of that amazing art as well.
Nic Klein: With the exception of one book, I have always done all the art, including colours, on every project. A part of that comes me being a huge control freak, and another part is that I just really like doing colours, as well as the actual drawing part. Colors can make or break a drawing, it can add depth and mood, etc.
For DRIFTER, I wanted to do most of the rendering through the colours, and just have a clean line drawing with no spotted blacks/hatching, etc. I think it might’ve been a logistic nightmare to have someone else color it with my “art OCD” looking over their shoulder. A lot of times I leave out things because I know I can tackle it in the colors for example. It just made no sense to not do it myself.
The disadvantage of this, is of course, time. The colours take almost longer than the actual drawing part of the book. Long days and no Weekends seems to be the answer to that Problem, but if people appreciate the art then it’s worth it.
You’re not tackling every aspect of the look, though, as Tom is designing and Clem Robins is lettering the book. What is it that you think the two of them bring to the project that make them the best fits for Drifter?
NK: Tom is a world class designer, and we (Ivan and I) wanted to have a look to the book that is outside of the visual norm of comics (like the design elements such as the line grids, going OVER the art for example) After working together with Tom on Viking, it wasn’t even a thought to ask someone else to design the look of DRIFTER. Tom is like the King Midas of Design.
Clem has an incredible track record on Hellboy, 100 Bullets, Batman, just to name a few, you might know his work without realising it. What made him right for Drifter is his great hand lettered style, which is important with art that goes into the painted direction. Digital fonts feel alien to art that has very little spotted blacks & linework, thats where Clem’s qualities come in.
Tom, when you were developing the look and the feel of the book, design wise, how closely did the three of you work together? Was it more of a “Tom, you do your thing” type situation?
Tom Muller: It was definitely a team effort. I can’t remember when exactly, but Ivan and I started talking about me being involved in the series in terms of the design of the series — and he had sent me a batch of Nic’s early sketches and concept art. As always (since working with Ivan on 24SEVEN and with both Ivan and Nic on VIKING) I can “do my thing”, but from the moment I sent in the first design ideas it was a constant team discussion as we talked through the designs, sharing references that could be appropriate etc., working towards the design language that we settled on for Drifter — very minimal, grid based, modular.
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TM: It really came out of us discussing the design, and I literally designed the basic version of the logo during a Skype chat with Ivan and Nic. I was initially going in a very different direction with the design, but Ivan and I had been looking at the same references (the Typographische Monatsblätter (TM) archive), and out of that came the idea to treat the cover, and the logotype, in a very, gridded, systemic manner, referencing data punch cards and dot matrix printers.
One thing I thought was interesting is that for the second cover, the lines that are overlaid on the covers changed somewhat. The first cover featured all straight lines, while the second was covered in criss-crossed, graph paper like boxes. Was that change out of need or is that something that is going to change up each issue?
TM: When I created the assets for the cover design, it was always the idea to explore and expand the grid as the series moves along. The issue 1 cover only has straight lines because that really worked well with Nic’s piece, and the we stuck to that for the variants of that issue to create a consistent set. But you can expect to see the grid and the overlays change over the course of the books — its a purposefully flexible system that can be adapted to suit the art, and build a distinct look on the shelves, but not overwhelm the art. Maybe you’ll see circular or diagonal grids in the future!
Let’s talk about influences on this project, Nic. What have you looked to, if anything, in terms of helping you develop the world Drifter takes place in and the denizens that reside there? Are there any particular influences, or any ones that may surprise us?
NK: No, no particular influences…except decades of watching movies and reading comics, in this case maybe more european comics as some people have noted already. I am huge Sci-fi fan and read quite a lot of Prose as well, and audio books while working. Doing a sic fi book has been a thing Ive wanted to do since I started doing comics. My first comic in art school (unpublished) was a sci-fi book. So really Ive had this stuff build up inside for a while, and it feels good to get it out.
There’s a two page spread in the first issue that shows off the frontier town Abram wakes up, and on it, you can see all kinds of tire tracks in the dust of the town in the shot. This town is going to be hugely important to the story going forward, I’m sure, but I’m curious how much of the town and its vehicles you’ve thought out and developed as you’ve worked to formulate the story? Are you the type of artist who goes in and develops details like that from the start, or is it more something you approach as you need it?
NK: Well, the Town is important and it is one of the main settings- The design is pretty much finished in terms of visuals, what each building in every nook is hasn’t been decided yet. But the main settings are already planned out.
As for vehicles, there are certain types of vehicles that have been designed, and others that most likely will be designed later on if the need arises. I have a more “as we need” approach to world building, to an extent. Obviously some stuff has to be there from the get go, but other stuff as long as it stays within the look that has been established can come along as needed. Planning out an entire world is great, but you sometimes spend time on things that are irrelevant or don’t even show up. And then you fall in live with an idea and want to work it in just for the sake of it… and thats when things can get wonky. I know so many people who have proclaimed “I started designing stuff for a comic I want to do” sand then never get around to actually doing a book…so yeah, designing and thinking about things is fun, but it shouldn’t be your main focus. In my opinion.
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NK: Yes, I will be doing all SFX in the art. I just thing it looks most homogenous if the SFX are incorporated rather than laid on top. I tend to use the SFX as a layer in the panel, so sometimes they’ll be behind things, or between elements, thus adding depth and or a sense of placements/direction.
You talk about how the colors actually takes about as much time as the drawing itself, and how you’re doing much of the rendering through those. What is it about the colors that takes such a considerable amount of time and effort?
NK: What takes so long is the actual rendering, adding shape/dimension to the line art. Depth, lighting, etc. It takes a lot more time then to say colour something with flat colors, or cell shading. Not that those aren’t difficult, flat colours are very hard as well because you have to get them just right. For DRIFTER however I wanted to do something that has a painted feel to it. Especially in an alien world the colours and the atmospheric perspective ad a lot to the feeling for the place.
In the first issue, your colors are gorgeous and really stand out as one of the biggest strengths of the issue. What’s your approach to your color work? Are you more of someone who tries to use colors in a more realistic fashion, or are you more of someone who colors to mood?
NK: I don’t think Mood & realism are exclusive, rather the opposite. Rendering something realistically (lighting, shadows, tone, etc) can also be done in different moods i.e. colour schemes. If I want a sober mood it can go into a blueish direction, violent could go into a reddish direction. My approach is very instinctive, and comes out of colouring digitally, where you have the option of playing around a lot. If I were to do this Analogue it would mean lot more time in the planning stage to get the colour schemes just right before getting to the actual painting. That is one of the luxuries of working digitally, you can play a lot easier.
I usually have a basic idea of what I want the colours to be like, at the layout stage even. But its vague, like for example “blue”, and only when I get to the colors I figure out the rest of it.
TM: Usually the design of the issue starts with the cover (primarily because thats the first thing that needs to get out there for Previews and general PR), and I’ll use that as the foundation to design the rest of the issue so it becomes a consistent, coherent comic where from cover to cover. And again, this adapts per issue.
As you said, the system you’re using is flexible and designed to adapt to suit the art, but I’m curious, are you approaching each cover differently depending on the artist, not just the issue? The first issue is a consistent set, but might there be variations on your design depending on the artist and the variant they create?
TM: We’ll see what happens, and I might end up slightly changing a cover design based on the artist’s piece which is fine since the design approach is flexible. But ideally we want to try and have these series of covers per issue that are all recognizably linked through the design.
