Artist Interview: Rich Lombardi, Co-Creator of Werewolf D.A.

Here is part 3 of our Firetower Studios interviews series. This time, we talked with Rich Lombardi, the artist on Werewolf DA. We discuss his influences, his love for character design, and how he almost quit being a comic artist before he'd even begun.

CBotMP: What is your comics origin story?

RL: Well, I'd feel pretty confident in saying that I've been into comics my whole life. My siblings and I, all grew up drawing. Each of us focused on different things though. For me, if a pencil was in my hand, I was drawing superheroes. We had a decent sized comic shop one town over from my childhood home. 'The Upper-Deck' in Peekskill, NY. We used to buy all our books, figures, and trading cards there. 

The place was like a walk-up dungeon. A poorly lit, dusty secret. They didn't advertise or anything like that. You either knew about it, or you didn't. To a middle schooler, it felt exclusive. The shop owner fit the classic NY small business owner archetype, old & unapproachable. He had a bulldog face and was always wearing some kind of military hat. To a child, it was like Mecca. If I saw it today, I'd probably feel same way. I'll never forget that place. 

CBotMP: How did you connect with Firetower Studios?

RL: Every year in Raleigh, they do this big downtown festival called SparkCON. It's a few summer days of art & entertainment featuring local businesses and vendors. Two years ago, my wife & I are wandering around down there, looking at chalk drawings.

CBotMP: Looking at chalk drawings?

RL: Yes! Since the event takes place outdoors in the middle of our city, they section off a couple of blocks for chalk drawing. I guess the way it works is you buy a square of street space & go crazy. Everyone's on their hands and knees like kids in a driveway, toiling away with huge hunks of chalk. You inevitably see some fantastic stuff.

Anyway, That's what we were doing when we stumbled across the Firetower Studios table. That's where I met Jeremy & Jason. We got to talking about comics, drawing, and childhood dreams. They had this group that met on Mondays to draw, write, & drink coffee. I thought to myself "I like all of those things, I should meet up with these cats". And by the next SparkCON, I was at the table with them.

CBotMP: Did you always plan on having a career in comics, or was it a kind of "hell, if these guys can do it, SO CAN I!" kind of moment?

RL: Actually, drawing comics has always been a lifelong dream of mine, but I had given up on it at an early age and I'll never forget why. My mother was taking us to the comic shop a few towns over, because there was going to be a REAL, LIVE comic artist signing books there! I was so young and wanted to pick his brain about my undoubted future profession. Anyhow, upon getting this guys autograph, I asked him if he had any advice for a young aspiring illustrator. He told me to find something else to do. Now, I never gave up on drawing, but a dream died that day. Or so I thought.

CBotMP: Who would you say are your biggest influences as an illustrator?

RL: Mark Texeira, specifically Wolverine 61 - 68. I just thought it was the most visceral thing I'd ever seen. I went back to those issues the other day and still can't believe my eyes. I got to see a bunch of his original pages at one of the last conventions we did. Super intense. His uncommonly aggressive line work is something I'll poorly imitate for the rest of my life.

CBotMP: I can see that Texeira influence now that you mention it. 

RL: I think It's important to strike a balance between what comes natural & what you've been influenced by. I think, if done right, you end up with something pretty original. 

CBotMP: I can also see that Wolverine has left a mark on your psyche.

RL: Back then there weren't a lot of characters like that! He was a short, ugly shade of grey. A bad guy doing bad things to people that just happen to be ethically worse than him. He may be overexposed and a bit toned down now, but he was the end-all-be-all of my childhood.

CBotMP: What is your favorite part of the comic creation process?

RL: Character design, hands down. When I was a kid I'd build these stacks of computer paper as thick as phone books, all full of original characters With elaborate outfits. (organized by team affiliation of course) Even if I was drawing a pre-existing character, I'd revise their duds or re-design them completely. It's still my favorite thing to do.

CBotMP: Character design seems like a lost art in comics. More often than not, the characters seem incredibly generic or rip-offs of things that have come before. Very happy to hear that it's a major focus for you.

RL: Oh absolutely. I've always felt that unless I can capture a complete visual representation of a character, I can't do anything else with him or her. 

CBotMP: Your art has a strong sense of eye-flow. It’s next to impossible to look at the wrong part of a page. The anatomy is often odd, but as with Kirby, it seems to control the reader’s focus. Does this discipline come naturally, or did it take you a while to develop?

RL: Wow, what a huge compliment! Thank you. The reality is that Werewolf DA has been my first foray into sequential art. So as far as eye-flow and controlling the readers focus, it's natural for me. As far as my sense of anatomy goes, I'd say its a result of nature and nurture working in collusion. I think that there was a certain anatomical recklessness that existed in comics when I was a child. Impossible proportions & muscles that don't exist. As someone that draws completely from there head, that's always been appealing to me. The less true to life it looks, the more it makes sense to me.

CBotMP: You render the hell out of facial hair, and just hair in general, it’s a bit of a stretch, but have you given any thought about drawing a medieval Viking comic?

RL: I'd love to do that! I've always had a fascination with history and warfare. 

CBOTMP: On average, how long does it take you to draw each strip? 

RL: If I don't take any breaks I can do a whole strip in 3 or 4 hours. 

CBOTMP: Is there anyone’s work that you are reading right now that you really enjoy?

RL: Right now I'm reading a book called "Oil!", by Upton Sinclair. It's the book that inspired "There Will Be Blood". As for comics, I'm all about The Walking Dead.

CBOTMP: The Walking Dead is definitely on everyone's must-read list these days. 

    

RL: For me, it's all about dangerous storytelling. I don't want to feel safe as I turn the page. That's what The Walking Dead has. So many characters you love, and none of them are guaranteed to make it out alive. The show works on that level too.

CBotMP: Especially the last couple episodes! Thank you for your time, Rich. And we can't wait to see all the twists and turns, and kinetic pencil work on Werewolf DA as it continues.


Be sure to check out new pages of Werewolf DA every Wednesday at firetowerstudios.com. We have two more interviews lined up in this series, we are just waiting on their responses. The Very Near Mint episode is in the can, and being edited as we speak. Should be up a little later than anticipated, but it is worth the wait! 


Thank you to everyone for all your continued support. If you have the time, check out the store, and click on our sponsors. We hope you're having as much fun reading these books as we are!

Creator Interview: Jeremy Whitley, Founder of Firetower Studios

While you are waiting for the next episode to be posted, we thought we'd share this interview we did with Jeremy Whitley. He was able to take time out from his busy schedule of writing five web comics for Firetower Studios, Princeless and his day job to answer a few questions. Even after the Indie Spotlight episode is posted, we plan on doing more interviews with each of the Firetower creators over the next few weeks.

CBotMP: Jeremy, what is your comics origin story? (what got you into sequential art to begin with?)

JEREMY WHITLEY: My dad got me into comics when I was a kid and we had a great comic store just down the street from us in Livermore CA.  When we moved to North Carolina I didn't have a local shop and kind of lost touch with comics.  However, in that time I ended up going to college for English and Creative Writing.  A few years after graduating I discovered comics again thanks to Joss Whedon and his Astonishing X-Men.  Before I knew it, I was spending $40 a month on comic books and borrowing trades and graphic novels.  Eventually I decided that there was an idea I had for a story that I really wanted to see in comic book form, so all that was left was to find an illustrator.  So I did what any serious writer would do...I posted an ad on craigslist.

CBotMP: And did you have much success?

JW: Well, Charlie Harper answered that Craigslist ad and invited me up to the local coffee shop where he had an art meetup so that we could discuss the project.  I decided to stick around and met another artist named Jason Strutz.  A lot of things happened, but a few months later we were sitting around a table in Barnes & Noble discussing officially forming a studio.

CBotMP: I can see it's grown quite a bit since then. How did the other creators become involved? 

JW: Well, Alicia & I met a long time ago in an English class.  If you read Hot Interracial Marriage, that first arc is more or less true to life.

   As for Rich, a year and a half ago we were at an outdoor festival in Raleigh with our tent full of comic books.  We were approached by this snappily dressed man who said, "Aw man, I always wanted to do what you guys are doing...and you're doing it.  That's so cool."  We invited him to come to our weekly drawing/writing meetups and he brought some ideas he was working on.  When we started talking about doing webcomics we were looking for more artists to contribute and his name immediately came up.

CBotMP: Rich's work is excellent. Switching direction over to the medium itself, why did you decide on webcomics?

JW: We've been working on print comics for what feels like so long...and it's such a long game.  Being an indy publisher and having real full time jobs, we were forced to disappear for months between issues.  Having a creative output where we get to tell stories, get them where people can see them immediately, and not have to spend money we don't have on printing is a huge plus for us.  Not to mention, we can tell stories like Werewolf D.A., which at times just feels to crazy to exist in a printed form.

CBotMP: You're not kidding. Firetower Studios "flagship book" is The Order of Dagonet. Where did the idea come from?

JW: During one of those first artist meetups Jason brought a portfolio of some of his paintings.  I found one of Titania and Bottom that reminded me of an idea I had for having modern knights do battle with actual mythological creatures.  I went home that night and wrote a script for a first issue.  I brought it to the meetup the next week and not so subtly asked Jason to read it.  After reading and chuckling, he asked how I'd feel about him taking a crack at illustrating it.  I, of course, was thrilled with the idea.

CBotMP: How much research was done for Dagonet?

JW: A few hours of direct research into trying to find good candidates for the order and learning about obscure English royalty.  Most of the rest is from memory.  I've read a lot of fantasy and I was an English major in college, so it's largely made up of things I already knew. 

CBotMP: Where do the characters come from? Are they amalgams of people you know?

JW: Well, most of them are amalgams of real people who are actual knights.  Well, amalgams may actually be putting it kindly in the cases of Dizzy and Emerald particularly.  Tottington is a little bit of Ian McKellen and a little bit of Peter O'Toole. Everyman is...well, he's a rather cynically minded Neil Gaiman to be frank.  The only truly original characters are LaVerne and my faeries.  All three of them are bits and pieces of people I know and love.

CBotMP: Each one of the web comics has a very distinct style and feel. Yet they are all written by you. Do you try and write for your artists, or do they have a rather strong say in the creative process?

JW: A little bit of both.  A lot of what I do in Faerie Sisters garners its inspiration from what Jason has done in the book.  The style and format is all him and the goofy faerie girls are all me.  Alicia is co-writer on Hot Interracial Marriage, so quite often she decides what story she wants to tell and suggests it to me.  Usually I just specialize in the formatting (and I wrote most of the first arc, which is all true by the way).  Rich and Charlie have the least to do with what I wrote, as I really started writing those strips before we had officially started the webcomics, but both of them have made the art their own in ways that are impossible to underestimate.  Charlie likes to challenge himself to do neat tricks with panel formatting and storytelling.  Rich, however, just bleeds art onto the page.  I couldn't have chosen a better style for the primal nature of these pages.

CBotMP: How far ahead are these stories mapped out?

JW: Am I supposed to map them out ahead of time?  That's only kind of a joke.  I had a huge lead on everyone when we started this thing, but while I've been paying attention to Princeless stuff, that has quickly evaporated.  I really need a vacation so I can get some work done. 

CBotMP: Any teasers you would like to tell our audience about future story lines?

JW: Well, Faerie Sisters is into its second storyline now and is going to continue to be wacky in the upcoming "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" story.  Werewolf D.A. is headed inside the courtroom, as Maya is about to find out she's not the only legal professional with a few supernatural tricks up her sleeve.  Ennui of the Dead is just going to go plain crazy with a little WWII action, some True Blood inspired naughtiness, and more examples of immortals having absolutely no sense of responsibility.