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Patrick Zircher Talks About His Trials With Editors

Published Sat, 15 Dec 2018 16:30:23 -0600

Bleeding Cool has a lot of time for Patrick Zircher. He tells it like it is. And over the last few days, he has been telling us how it is to work with certain editors. The difference he has found between working for Marvel and DC Comics. The impact of corrections on his work. And what went wrong for him recently on Silencer – part of the New Age Of DC Heroes titles that was meant to be artist-led.

Enjoy a few select tweets.

A tale of two Supermans; the first Superman is how I originally presented him, the 2nd after multiple editorial requests.
I knew I was in trouble.
I wanted to present a 'sensitivity' and a Chris Reeve-ish look.
The revision is much more in line with standard superhero fare. pic.twitter.com/eV2B7TLThB

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

Furthermore, that's close to an entire page redraw, in an attempt to have me draw like another artist.
I have never had to do that before.

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

also made more sense with the story, he was not mad at that point; just concerned and on his way to investigate. https://t.co/I0vSAXeGzM

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

I was at Marvel 17 years. I had to do corrections on about 6 pages in seventeen years.
At DC, I had to do more than 100 corrections in 4 years. https://t.co/sRLLlkoL7z

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

Drawing a comic page is a 10 hour day.
Corrections are unpaid Overtime.

Corrections are only inconvenient if you like to eat or sleep. https://t.co/JTGXGm7VWq

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

The creative team's goal is to make art.
The publisher's goal is to make money.

Find a publisher who wants to sell art.

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

Weigh it with what happens to the artist; working longer hours, not appreciating their take, trying to bring in another artist's approach and you have a 'minus'.
You've stripped the guy drawing the book of his confidence going forward.
The artist isn't a machine we calibrate. https://t.co/V8iJ9ZuZ9d

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

A friend of mine described me as "thorny".
Yeah, I'm thorny. Because I'm trying to grow 'roses' on that comic page.

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

My speed is directly related to my happiness. If I'm happy on a title, a page every day. If I'm miserable I would rather clean the roof gutters than draw. https://t.co/stY3xGabsB

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

To some, what comic artists & comic art-lovers see, others see as splitting hairs.

I see a huge difference in the quality of the two Superman drawings. I also see a push toward commercialism, toward Jim Lee's work.
I wouldn't want Jim Lee to be me anymore than I want to be him. https://t.co/GmquxSfkoI

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

There are editors that like loud and cartoon-y. It is anguish when they hire me. I don't think the editor and I saw eye to eye on The Silencer either.

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

Thank you.
But I thought I would be drawing something sleek, shadowy, with some grit; a little Daniel Craig Bond, Black Widow, Punisher– the character is built for that.
I can't fathom the direction we took with the amusement park, the giant Godzilla-creature, and the sorceress. https://t.co/HZ2agM14fo

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

I drew a splash page a while back that was tilted, with the panel borders as shown below.
"Why are there weird black triangles?"
I had to remove them and detail in the black areas.

Guess what I'm saying is I was slowly being driven bat-shit insane. pic.twitter.com/hVWYmm1gFq

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

The editor at another publisher that said "You're a superhero artist." had an anti-superhero bias. Because, if someone is looking, the superhero is about 10% of what's drawn in a superhero book. https://t.co/Pfj4FsYvbh

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

For example, my (unpublished) page of Beleth. Take Beleth (the bat-winged warrior-woman) out of the drawing, this art works for a wide variety of stories. pic.twitter.com/tHHEZOkNrX

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 12, 2018

"More fun" is not always the solution.
I recently drew a story with a kaiju, a giant godzilla-like monster in it— more fun, right?
It didn't belong, it didn't fit the tone of the series. https://t.co/BkJTJtRQ5K

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 14, 2018

There was also a deleted tweet regarding an editor who described his work as stiff.

I'd never had an editor insult me in an email before. Especially after assisting her on a book that was running late.
Thought it was a pretty awful bit of editing. https://t.co/DjPMinrqs0

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 14, 2018

It was almost out of the blue, a response after I turned pages in (pages that every comic review I read said looked great). I then had to do 4 hours of corrections that ended up nearly circular, close to the original drawing.
I thought I had entered the Twiilight Zone. https://t.co/Ttzxg8txI1

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 14, 2018

What should have happened is she should have been brought into a Senior editor's office and schooled a little bit on how you interact with freelancers.

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) December 14, 2018

There's plenty more of course, Patrick Zircher should be in everyone's follow feed…

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