Posted in: Comics | Tagged: alex link, Comics, drumhellar, image, riley rossmo

Looking Backwards And Forwards With Riley Rossmo

Dirk Manning writes;

For the last several years Canadian artist Riley Rossmo has been turning heads with both his distinct art style and diverse catalog of comics he has illustrated and/or co-created primarily for Image Comics, including Proof, Cowboy Ninja Viking, Green Wake, and Dia de Los Muertos. With this trend of exciting and invigorating books already under his belt and his latest Image/Shadowline series Drumhellar hitting the shelves in November, now presented itself as the perfect time to talk to Rossmo about his past projects as well as what readers can expect from the upcoming "rural fantasy" Drumhellar.

Dirk Manning: You have a new series called Drumhellar (formerly announced as Strangeways) debuting from Image Comics/Shadowline soon, but before we get to that, let's start at the very beginning. When did you first decide that you wanted to be a professional comic artist?

Riley Rossmo: I've always been a pretty tightly strung person, so creating comics is a meditative act for me. I think that at some point when I was about 18, I realized I needed to do something for a living that would help expend nervous energy. My hands work better with a pen than a hammer, for example, so I started making mini-comics and doing regular submissions to Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse. I would do a submission every month or so while I was working at various jobs, and later I kept doing sample pages while I attended Art College. So I guess I decided to pursue a career as a comic artist when I was 18 and had my first book published when I was 26.

DM: Your first "big" comic was Proof from Image Comics with Alex Grecian. How did you hook-up with Grecian, and can you tell us a little bit about how Proof went from concept to fully-realized comic?

RR: I met Alex Grecian in San Diego in 2005 when we were both waiting in a line to have our stuff reviewed by Dark Horse. Both of our wives were with us and they exchanged our information. Alex emailed me a few weeks later and pitched me a few ideas, one was a prison story and one was a zombie story, but we ended up adapting a folk tale called Seven Sons that we did at AIT.

It was a great experience, so we decided to try something else. While we were spending a day at the AIT booth at the SDCC talking about different concepts, Alex mentioned the idea of a Bigfoot in a suit. I went back to my room and drew John Prufrock for the first time. We did an eight page short for Negative Burn, and from there moved on to the ongoing series. For both Seven Sons and Proof our philosophy was to do the work first then worry about a publisher. We ended up doing 40 pages of Seven Sons before AIT gave us a definitive green light. For Proof we did a full lettered issue before we sent it to Image.

DM: I know it's been a while, but I need to ask, man. Proof is still fondly looked-upon as a "cult classic" by a lot of readers. Is there any chance we'll ever see you return to those characters now that your star is rising a bit more in the industry?

RR: Alex is doing really well writing novels now. We've considered it – so maybe sometime in the next five or six years once Alex is all caught up on his novels and I have some room in my schedule. We both love the cast of Proof, and after doing 34 issues I can draw all the main characters in my sleep.

DM: After Proof you went on to work on two more back-to-back fan-favorite comics in Cowboy Ninja Viking and then Green Wake. What do you like drawing more: The crazy action sequences as seen in Cowboy Ninja Viking or the creepy atmospheric stuff like what you got to do in Green Wake? And how much influence did you have on the overall look and "feel" of both books?

RR: I drew and colored both so I had a lot of control over the look of both books.
I think Cowboy Ninja Viking was an interesting book and the challenge was drawing and designing 18 triplets and all their personalities, so the cast was 60 or so characters. Cowboy Ninja Viking taught me a lot about drawing action. Proof had some action but not big elaborate action sequences. I looked at John Busema's Avengersand John Byrne's X-Men to figure out how to draw large-scale action sequences and fight choreography.
Green Wake was a pleasure to draw – I feel right at home there. Green Wake was hugely inspired by Twin Peaks and City of Lost Children. I love drawing creepy stuff. It was the first time I really considered color as a story telling element. In Cowboy Ninja Viking I'd used color to show scene changes, and I tried to push color as a story telling device further in Green Wake.

DM: You're one of those rare artists that, despite receiving a lot of critical acclaim – including being named USA Today's "Comic Artist of the Year" in 2012 – tends to stick mainly to creator-owned books. Is it a conscious decision on your part to stick to creator-owned work, or are there other factors involved as well?

RR: I have a hard time saying no to interesting scripts, and I love building narratives. That's a huge part of why I make creator-owned comics. It's amazing building a narrative from the ground-up.

I've had positive experiences working for Marvel, DC, IDW, and Valiant, and if the right project came up, say Hellblazer or Doctor Strange, I would do it. I do have one Wolverine story I'd like to do should the opportunity ever arise, too.

DM: Speaking of working on corporately-owned properties, you recently got a chance to draw Superman – and Bizarro! – for DC's Adventures of Superman. How did that gig come about? Did they approach you or did you express an interest to them?

RR: A DC editor emailed me one day and asked if I'd be interested in doing a digital first story at DC. For some reason I assumed it was going to be a Batman story so I did a bunch of Batman drawings that night. The next day DC emailed me and said they were starting an Adventures of Superman book. Superman is one of the most challenging characters for me to draw, but who would turn down the opportunity? More importantly though, I got to draw Bizarro!

DM: The beginning of this year you launched your own creator-owned mini-series Dia De Los Muertos through Image Comics/Shadowline, in which you recruited nine writers (for the sake of full-disclosure, I was one of them) to write you nine stories centered around the Mexican "Day of the Dead" that you would then go on to illustrated in different styles. What was the experience of working with nine different writers on one project like for you? Was it what you expected? And how do you feel about the experience now that you've gotten some distance from it and the collected edition is about to hit the shelves?

RR: I loved it. All the writers on the project were very gracious in helping me on Dia De Los Muertos (thanks Dirk!). If I had the time I would have liked to do more. I went to Mexico about halfway throughout the project that was great inspiration. If I did more, I'd do them in Mexico. Finding a different style/voice for each story was a great exercise artistically. If I can find the time I'd like to do a Halloween one as a follow up.

DM: All of this brings us to your newest series Drumhellar, which was originally announced under the title Strangeways. Why the name change?

RR: We were aware of a pre-existing title called Strangeways which we thought was defunct.  The creator told us it was becoming active again, reprinting old and new material, and even though you can't copyright a word, because it's also a place-name, he asked us to change it.  We wanted to do the right thing so we changed it.

DM: I heard you recently describe Drumhellar as a story about a pacifist botanist who travels through rural America with a ghost cat… or at least I think that's what you said? Did I hear that description right? [laughs]

RR: Yup that's about right. Drum has eclectic interests and his good friend is "post-corporeal." They meet interesting people and help folks with their problems, whether it's stealing sheep, communing with the dead or making pruno.

DM: It sounds like you're going to be touching on a lot of genres with Drumhellar, but people like to categorize stories (especially in comics)… so what genre would you say Drumhellar is? Comedy? Psychedelic? Horror? Romance? What?

RR: Labels are tough. I'd like to call it horror or dark fantasy but there's a lot of whimsy in there. Maybe rural fantasy?

Drum attracts strange circumstances in all aspects of his life. Self-discovery is a major theme in Drumhellar, and all the challenges Drum faces reveal something about who he is. A friend of mine described it as "The Big Lebowski meets The X-Files."

DM: For those who haven't met you yet, you have quite a few tattoos. How many are you up to as of this writing, and what's the story behind your favorite one?

RR: I currently have around 8 in total. Most of my tattoos are reminders of where I've come from or where I was at during a certain time in my life – they act as a chronicle some of my work in comics.

As for an important one, I have a tattoo of an ant that's pretty important to me. I got it for a sixth anniversary gift from my wife. Our first apartment had an ant infestation that try as we might we couldn't stop.

DM : Finally, are you going to be on the comic convention circuit at all in 2014?

RR: I'd like to try to do San Diego, Seattle, and Chicago in 2014.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!