Posted in: Comics | Tagged: avatar press, Comics, dynamite, entertainment, Razor, red sonja, Walter Geovani, witchblade

Artist Spotlight – Walter Geovani of Dynamite's Red Sonja

Published Tue, 20 May 2014 16:00:25 -0500

Today I'm going to swing the Artist Spotlight over to a guy who I worked with on a small Razor fill-in story for Avatar Press. It was Walter Geovani's first work and now he has been killing it on Red Sonja for quite some time. He has the talent to be a top tier star.

BLEEDING COOL: How did you get started drawing?

WALTER GEOVANI: From what I remember, I started drawing when I was 4 years old. I loved to see my brother drawing and he worked on a comic book shop, so my love for comics started very soon. I grew up reading comics, and drawing comics, and when I was 14 or 15, I decided to send samples to an agency that had Brazilian artists working for American comics. They returned my samples, saying that I needed to improve my work, so I called them asking for comic art school and in the middle of the conversation they found out that I lived on the same city as Ed Benes (I have heard of him at that time, but I was too shy to go there and talk to him). They advised me to look him for some help. I was too shy (and still am), but I end up going to Ed´s house with a friend and he was very kind. From that day on I was going to his house almost every week to show him my arts he was kindly teaching me, showing me how to draw, training me and one the day he called me to be his assistant. After one year working with him, I stopped drawing and went to work on another job, but I couldn´t stand too much there and came back to draw and work as Ed´s assistant again until I got my first work in comics.

BC: Who were your biggest influences?

WG: Like I said, I love comics since I was a little kid, but I only decided to become a comic book artist when I saw Jim Lee work on X-Men. I don´t know if I would be a comic book artist if I had not seen his work. He was my biggest influence for a long time.

But back in 2006, working with Ed Benes, I was doing samples and getting no job, I was ignoring Ed´s advises (unfortunately, some -or most- young artists have this problem of not listening professionals advises) until one day I decided to talk to him and said: "man, I need a job and my way of trying to get it is not working. What should I do? I´ll do whatever you say" He handed me a few books and said: "Here´s what you need. You need to study this. You need to study this guy." The artist of those books? MARC SILVESTRI!!

After a couple of months studying Marc´s work, I started to getting jobs. That changed my career, my life. Marc Silvestri became my biggest influence.

But I don´t want to forget to mention that John Buscema, the Kuberts, the Romitas, Garcia Lopez, Jack Kirby, Joe Mad and so many others are my influences, too. They all are my TEACHERS. I´ll keep learning from them for the rest of my life. But again, those who inspire me to draw are Jim lee and Marc Silvestri.

BC: What is your process for doing a page? How long does it take you?

WG: After reading the script, I draw each shot of each panel. I like to "save" the visual information of each panel before I do the entire page layout. But these are very quick drawings, just stick figures to remind me who´s talking first and what they´re doing. After that I do thumbnails for each page. Sometimes I do several thumbnails to decided what will work best, and then I do the layout of the page. This sounds like it´s a very slow process, but it´s not. I learned that with artist Syd Mead: plan on thumbnails (that are very very quick and small drawings) all the composition of the page it allows me to work faster on the layout and on the final art. Since the layout is done, I send it to approval. Once approved, I print it on a A3 size and on a light box I transfer it to the paper board. Finally I do the pencils and inks. Most of the corrections I do on Photoshop.

In General, one page can take an entire day, pencils and inks.

BC: Where might folks have seen your work previously?

WG: My very first work on comics was on Razor X:Requiem #1 for Avatar Press back in 2003. If I remember well, I drew 10 pages. I was so happy that I worked over the Christmas and New Year holidays of 2003. Not because I had to (and I didn´t have), but because I was so excited with my first work that it was more fun to work the book than spend the holidays with family and friends. After that I worked on War Angel, also for Avatar. In 2006, I drew a book based on a game called Demons of Mercy from Maxum Games. The book was published by Marvel, but unfortunately, it was cancelled.Issue #2 never came out. I also worked on an online comic called SideChicks that year. In 2007 I did my first work for Dynamite, it was a 10 pages story of Red Sonja of a book called savage Tales, then 2 issues of Witchblade: Shades of Grey#3 and #4, and became the monthly book artist of Red Sonja in 2008. Also, I did a mini series called Red Sonja: Wrath of the Gods, Vampirella #7, the one-shot Red Sonja: Blue and the crossover Prophecy.

BC: What are you working on now?

WG: I´m working on the Red Sonja montly book with Gail Simone. She is a great writer, she´s very creative and a very kind person. She writes better and better month after month. I´m having a lot of fun!

Also, colorist Adriano Lucas is killing it on the colors and Simon Bowland does a fantastic job on the letters. I´ve been working with Simon for all these years on Dynamite in most of the books I did.

BC: What is your dream project?