[dramatic music] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ - Hello, and welcome to "Comic Culture."

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guest today is artist Darryl Banks.

Darryl, welcome back to "Comic Culture!"

- It's great to be back.

How are you doing today?

- Darryl, you are known, I guess, best known for your work at DC Comics in the 1990s where you co-created Kyle Rayner, Green Lantern, and you were there for the storyline where Hal Jordan, the incumbent Green Lantern, turns to the dark side and becomes the character of Parallax.

And that era was defined, I think, by your iconic costume design.

So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what goes into your process when you come up with a costume, whether it's Kyle Rayner's distinctive mask, or if it's Parallax's costume with the cape that Hal Jordan never wore.

- The key is working with a good editor that is very clear on what he wants.

My editor at the time, Kevin Dooley, he had a clear idea that he wanted certain things repeated and some things to be completely original.

Now with Kyle, obviously, we wanted to keep a similar color scheme, but that's about it.

I went through so many different sketches to arrive at the final result, and it ended up being, they would like the mask from one design and the gauntlets from another and the boots from another, et cetera, and we combined them all together to get the costume that we're familiar with.

With Parallax, I pretty much knew right out of the gate exactly what I wanted it to look like.

The only difference is, I think in my original Parallax design, he had the Green Lantern symbol on his chest, and Kevin was like, "No, that won't make any sense, "so just take that away."

The cape was added as Parallax became a bigger deal with the company, [laughs] which was pretty funny when they had the big crossover zero hour, and they wanted his role to be larger.

So I guess they felt like if he's gonna be more in the billing role, he needs a cape, good billing, big cape.

So that's why he didn't have it at first, but he gained it a little bit later.

- Now, when you are designing costumes, are you drawing inspiration from other great designers?

I'm thinking of someone like Dave Cockrum or a Neal Adams, someone who is able to come up with multiple great costumes over the course of their careers.

- My inspiration for Kyle's Mask was actually a 1970s Marvel character, called Sunfire.

I always liked Sunfire's mask, because it reminded me of no other mask I can think of.

I loved the fact that it followed his face, but it wasn't closely following the contours of his cheekbones and his nose, like let's say the Batman cowl.

And for some reason, that always stuck with me, and that's how Kyle ended up having the very unusual mask that he has.

With Parallax, it was pretty much, since it was the 90s, everything was armored at one point, so it's very similar to a classic Green Lantern uniform, but with the 90s shoulder pads and the metallic details and that sort of thing.

So, like I said, with him, I had a very strong idea what I wanted to do with him.

With Kyle, we had to keep going back to the drawing board quite a few times.

- And you mentioned the 90s, and the 90s does have a very distinctive visual look.

A lot of people refer to it as the Image style, although that could be debated, since Image had so many different styles within its house.

But, it was influential, that look of, I guess, a lot of armor, a lot of thigh pockets we hear a lot about.

So, as an artist who may not have the same aesthetic, are you kind of pushed by an editor to maybe take on some of those different things, because they think it sells well?

- Actually, kind of just the opposite.

I wanted to have all this, especially with Kyle, all this... Oh, some of the rejected designs looked like he was straight out of an Image comic.

And my editor was like, "No, no, this is not gonna work."

The one thing that really stuck with me, he said, "Darryl, you're gonna be drawing this character "for like 22 pages an issue.

"You'll thank me that we kept it simple," and he was right.

He was absolutely right.

- 22 Pages an issue, and as I recall, you were on that title for a number of years.

Do you see, from your first few issues of Green Lantern to the last few that you were working on, do you see a progression as a storyteller?

- I'd like to think so.

I feel that I've learned a lot and for me, it's an ongoing thing to continue to learn, because if I don't, it'll get boring to me.

And what keeps it exciting is what can I learn, what can I improve beyond the obvious, like getting faster, but as far as what can I learn to tell the story and not be overly influenced by artists who were really great storytellers, but trying to find my own voice.

But I feel like I'm never fully satisfied with my work to the point where I think that, okay, this is good enough, but I always feel like, okay, it's more a time factor.

It's time to move on to the next page, that sort of thing.

But as far as an evolution, as far as storytelling, that's an ongoing process, and I'd like to believe I've made some progress.

- 22 pages a month when you are in your 20s is one thing.

As you get a little bit older, do you find it hard to, I guess, to keep to a schedule that might be a lot more 18, 19, 20-hour days, trying to get to the deadline, or do you find a way to pace yourself as you get older and more experienced as a creator?

- Fortunately, I'm not doing any monthly comics anymore.

I do more projects where I have more time, because I never do just one thing.

When I was doing Green Lantern on a monthly basis, that's all I did, and I feel like that was my life, penciling pages for that book.

But now, the stories I'm doing, they're a little shorter in length with the exception of a graphic novel, but then that has a different timeframe to work with.

In recent years, I did a graphic novel with Ron Mars called, "Harken's Raiders."

It was a 1940s World War II story.

We worked on that, actually, I'm not really sure how long ago it was.

But also, working 100% digital now, I'm penciling and inking my own work, so the timeframe is a little bit different.

Some of my sensibilities as far as how I approach a project is a little bit different and that sort of thing.

- And it's interesting, because as I recall, "Harken's Raiders" was a book that was crowdfunded before it went to print.

So, as somebody who is going from essentially a studio system to working on your own independent work, what sort of adjustment is that for you to make sure that you're able to, you know, whatever else you have to do to make sure the lights stay on and still have time to work on a comic?

- Really, it comes down to finding out what's the ideal schedule from day-to-day.

I like to work those things out a week or two in advance, because I also do commercial work, conventions here and there, like Heroes Con in North Carolina.

So it's really just being realistic with a schedule and also with the schedule and what I feel like I'm capable of doing within the project.

"Harken's Raiders," at first, honestly, I wasn't really interested, because I thought it's a period piece that felt like it was gonna be a lot of referencing.

Would I be able to do it?

But then, I used to tell my students when I used to teach, I said, "You want projects that will stretch you, "that will challenge you, "because you'll never get better just playing it safe "and just staying in one particular wheelhouse, "so to speak," so "Harken's Raiders" is one of the toughest things I've ever done, and I wouldn't change a thing.

If they were to approach me again, I would do it again.

- It's gotta be, again, a shift going from super heroics to doing more, I guess, normal attire, worrying about how clothing folds, thinking about airplanes, making sure that you get the right reference for something and then being able to draw that sequentially on I don't know how many panels per page.

So, you mentioned going and doing some reference work to make sure you were keeping things correctly.

How easy is it for you to shift gears from stuff that you can imagine to stuff that has to be a little bit more based in reality?

- When I was doing Green Lantern, when I first started, I didn't own a computer, so it was going to the library and that was, wow, that was almost nightmarish.

But now, we've got Google and things of that nature.

It makes it so much easier.

So, the key is even with reference, a lot of times I like, for accuracy, because there's always that fan that's gonna be an expert on what I'm drawing.

And one of the funniest stories I ever encountered with, I was at a show with someone who I guess actually picked up "Harken's Raiders," and he made note of some insignia on a German war plane about how I had gotten it wrong, and I thought, if I got it wrong, the real plane got it wrong, 'cause I can't draw it out of my head.

It was straight from an actual reference from, what was it called, the Luftwaffe, I had all this reference from that.

So I thought, yeah, it's not, I got it wrong, Germany got it wrong, [laughs] so we kinda laughed about it.

So, I dunno the story behind that, but yeah, I would love to say I could draw any vehicle, any plane throughout history without reference, but that is not the case.

- And now, you mentioned that you are working digitally now, which is something that a lot of artists are doing.

So, was it a difficult transition for you, going from traditional pencil, pen and ink on a board to a tablet as you're drawing rather than a line on a page?

- It was hard for me at first, because I'm a creature of habit.

I was used to pen and paper and pencil for decades, but when I used to teach, whenever I'd sent my students on break, I'd hear them talking about other classes, and they would always talk about blah, blah, blah, blah, "Take it into Photoshop," something, something, something, "Take it into Photoshop."

And I remember I called a student, and I asked him, "What does 'Take it into Photoshop' mean?"

And bless his heart, he explained it from top to bottom, but not owning a computer at the time, I had no point of reference, but now I understand.

But it's just funny, I thought, I've gotta get a computer, I gotta learn this.

It's just one of those things where to be really effective as an illustrator, you have to keep up with current technology and techniques and things of that nature.

So, it was a learning curve for me, but the more I did it, the more I enjoyed it, especially when I could reap the rewards of having learned it, and now, it's my favorite way to work, honestly, even though I still work traditionally, especially with commissions and convention sketches, things of that nature.

But no, I love working digitally.

- I'm an amateur cartoonist myself, and one of the things that I've done recently is I've started working on a tablet and using Clip Studio Pro and doing some artwork there.

And where I struggle is that there are so many chances for me to undo or to try something new on the same panel, 'cause I can create another layer.

So do you find yourself tempted to maybe not trust your first instinct and try another thing until you finally decide to go back to that first one?

Or are you able to maintain that discipline of this is the design I have, and this is good and this is solid and tells a great story?

- When the clock is ticking, you don't have time to do 100 undos.

Now, I can certainly understand that being an issue, because early on it was, and you mentioned Clip Studio Paint Pro, that's my go-to.

I still use Photoshop here and there, but I've been using Clip Studio for about six, seven years now, I think.

It was a random Facebook post someone had mentioned, like, "You could try this, "it used to be called Manga Studio," but it was a $15 entry promotion.

I thought if I hate it, it was $15, and I loved it, and I upgraded to the full version, and I've been using it ever since.

- It's really an interesting piece of software, because it has everything you would need to create a comic page right down to templates and how to divide the page into panels and everything, as well as different pencils and brushes and pens that you might want to use, but it is something that I struggle with.

So, as somebody who has a career, you say, "a creature of habit," how do you get used to the line on the page is electronic, and the pressure that you might have to put on a brush or on a pencil to get the line that you wanted is now maybe just the matter of an angle?

- I think also because I still work traditionally, after a while the muscle memory is thinking similar things, especially the more I find brushes and tools in Clip Studio that can mimic what I work traditionally, it comes with plenty brushes and pencils already, but I also like to purchase comic inking sets from different artists online that I'll find that I like the results and so I'll buy it.

So, my mind is still treating it like pencil and ink, so when I'm working on it, even though I'm aware I can undo things, but since I split time with working traditionally, working digitally, I tend to combine some of the same discipline.

- I'm gonna change gears a little bit and talk about, I guess your frequent collaborator, Ron Mars, and the two of you worked together on Green Lantern, and the two of you worked together on "Harken's Raiders."

So when you have a writing partner, a creative partner that you work well with, whether it's Ron or someone else, do you look for projects to work on or do you just hope that something's going to come up and hope the phone rings one day?

- It's one of those, it's more like, it's usually an email that will come out of the blue.

I talk with Ron, but not very often.

The project, well one of the projects I'm working on right now, it's a graphic novel.

I'm doing a horror story.

The company, it's an up and coming independent company that Ron introduced me to, and we did a graphic novel called "Riot Earp."

This was also a Kickstarter crowdfunded project.

They liked how it came out, and they wanted to know if I wanted to do something else.

And I really like the company, so I am, but I'm working on that in between doing other things.

Like, I'm also doing more DC Comics work, I also do commercial illustration, that sort of thing.

So working with Ron, I've been blessed to work with a lot of talented writers throughout my career.

But with Ron, I always loved the fact that he thinks very visually, and I think it helps that he knows so many artists.

In the area that he lives, at one point, he might go out and be able to hang out with Jim Sterling and, oh, so many.

Well, at one point Bernie Wrightson, et cetera.

So I think him being around so many artists, I think it influences his writing style, so that when he's writing a script, I have a very clear idea of what he had in mind, and I think that's one of the things that really attributes to our working well together.

- And when you do get the page that's well-written, I'm assuming that he gives you the flexibility and the freedom to see something that he doesn't see and add that to the page.

So, when you do come up with something that might be a twist on his idea, do you send him that email and say, "Hey, I thought if we try this, "it'll work a little bit better," or do you just say, "Here's the page, "and I think you're gonna like it more."

- I like to do preliminary pages, just mainly because I hate having to correct things that could have been avoided had I known, got some feedback from the beginning.

So, even though it's not a requirement, I just prefer working that way.

So usually if there's a change, he'll think it's a great idea.

We improved things all the time back on Green Lantern and just the back and forth, it was just a joy, it really was.

I'll think of something, one of the things that pops into my head was one of the earlier issues where Kyle Rayner teamed up with Superman, and they were fighting the villain, Mongul, and I think the script may have called for Kyle to create a big construct and strike Mongul, and I think I turned it into a commuter train.

Instead of Amtrak I put Slam Track on it.

He was like, "Oh, I love that," so that sort of thing.

It's in the script, and he's doing something, but I'll tweak what it is, that sort of thing.

- You said you work on preliminary pages.

Is this something where you get the script, and you will do a thumbnail of the whole story before you start drawing page one?

Or is this something where your preliminaries, because you're working digitally now, you can just expand them in Clip Studio, and now they become not just the thumbnail, but they become the the underdrawing for what the page will be?

- No, I'll do a thumbnail, it's the same proportions as a final page, but I like to have just some quick ideas, and I won't do the whole thing.

I'll do several, maybe one to four pages at a time.

I used to read the whole script and then start drawing, but inker Terry Austin, good friend of mine, he suggested that it's best to draw as I'm reading, he said, because chances are the first thing that pops into my head as far as the image, the camera angle, will be the best one, and it'll save you time, and I've been doing that ever since.

That's my favorite way to work.

So I'll do the preliminary sketch and then once I'm happy with that, then I'll blow it up, enlarge it to the full size, then put it on a layer, et cetera.

- Now you mentioned Terry Austin, who's one of the great inkers in the history of comics.

You also worked with another great inker, Romeo Tanghal on Green Lantern.

So when you are a young artist, and you're paired up with an experienced professional inker, how do they help you get better?

- The first thing is I get over being starstruck with being able to work with people like Romeo and Terry.

It's just one of those things where I would never believe that I would be able to do that even though that was a goal.

But just when it actually happens, it's one of those things where to this day, I never take that for granted that I've been able to work with people like them.

They will add their, not just experience, but just if something needs to be corrected, which has happened, I'll go, "Oh yeah, yeah, that is," I mean, they add something to it, and it makes me a better penciler.

Although now, I pencil and ink myself, but during that time, it was definitely a learning process for me.

And it was one of those things where I tried to make sure that they never had to redraw something from the very beginning.

That would cut into their schedule, but from time to time, they'd have to make some corrections or that sort of thing, or just adding their inking style onto my pencils, and it was just such a good combination.

- Now, as you are doing your inking on your own, I'm just wondering, as a penciler, your goal is to come up with as finished a pencil page as possible and allow the inker to go in and add their touch, whether it's line weight or texture or something like that.

But, as you are moving into inks, are you keeping your under drawings, your pencil phase a little bit looser, because you can maybe capture a little bit more magic through the inks, or are you going as polished as you can with one and as polished as you can with the other?

- Digitally, it's definitely not a whole lot of polish on the, I guess you could say, the pencil step, because I know, especially, I have the safety of working on a layer, it's quicker to keep it simpler on earlier layers.

Now with comics, [laughs] it's kind of funny, I was always complimented on my pencils being very detailed, and that's because when I was trying to get in the business, I had no idea what pencil pages even looked like.

At first, Marvel had a book called the "Try-Out Book," and the artwork was provided by John Romita Jr. And they were very loose and I thought, okay, that's what pencils were supposed to look like.

But then when I'd get critiques, I'd be like, "Oh, this will be good, "but you need to tighten up your pencils."

Well then after that, the first pencils I would see would be George Pérez.

I had the art, well his art book, and it was from some unused "Avengers Meets the JLA," and if you up the contrast, it looked inked, and I thought, okay, so pencils have to be super specific.

They didn't, but that's just how George worked.

But it was too late, that was how the cement had dried, pencils have to be super specific, and inkers loved me for it.

It's like, "Oh, you spell everything out, "so we could just focus on line weight," and things of that nature again.

But digitally, no, I don't do it that way.

- Yeah, I know personally for me, if I'm working on something, if I spend too much time in the pencil phase, I might end up losing that spontaneity, and when I go to ink, it becomes a little flat, and I just don't capture that same sort of magic.

And I'm just wondering if that's something that as you moved into inking your own work, whether it's at a convention where you're doing a commission or if it is at the computer with a tablet, if you find that you sometimes can snuff the life out of it by maybe thinking too much.

- I used to, but I have a portable light table I bring with me to conventions, and at one point, before I had that, I would do a small thumbnail of the sketch of the character I was gonna do and then do a larger one in pencil and ink, and it would always, like you said, it would lose something.

And I thought, if I could work at conventions the way I work at home with a light table where I could do a rough sketch, where it's got the energy and the gesture the way I like it, and then work on top of that to maintain it, that would be great.

So when I found that, shout out to Arvell Jones, he's the artist that had one at a convention I saw that I'm like, "Oh, where'd you get that?

"I need to get one of those."

So, I've been using that ever since in order to maintain that energy from the original concept to the final execution.

- We do get to meet every year at Heroes Con.

It's always a joy to see you there.

First off, you're always in a good mood, which three days at a convention can be a little tiring.

But the one thing is you are prolific, you're putting out a lot of sketches.

I'm wondering, when you are at a con, how many hours are you actually drawing?

Are you going back to the hotel room and continuing to work on commissions, or are you just at your table working, and you're so good at this point in your career that you can figure out how long to spend on each piece?

- That is a good question.

Once in a while, at a larger show, like a Heroes, I might draw a little bit in my hotel room, and that's more because when I go to Heroes, I go with a friend of mine, Uko Smith, who's also a great artist and a friend of mine here in the Ohio area, and he is a machine.

He'll work to the wee hours.

Me, I'm a little older, so I'm ready to cut it off, but then I'll see him over there working.

I'm like, "Okay, maybe I'll knock out just a couple more."

For the most part, yeah, most of the drawings I like to do at the show.

And you've gotta pace yourself, because it's never just one thing, I'm signing books, or maybe if I have a moment, I'll look at an upcoming artist, their artwork, and give 'em a quick critique and that sort of thing.

As far as the hours of drawing, it was a goal of mine.

Before I did it professionally, I would go to conventions.

I would say, "One of these days, "I'm gonna be the guy on the other side of the table, "signing books and doing sketches," and it finally happen.

So, I really enjoy doing it.

It's a lot of work, but it's work that I enjoy.

They say, "If you love your work, "you'll never work a day in your life."

It is work, but I get the point of that expression.

- When you are at a convention, you're probably hearing a lot of the same requests, "Oh, could I get a Green Lantern doing this?"

Or a Parallax or, "Can you recreate that cover, "but instead of Hal Jordan with all those rings, "could it be Mickey Mouse?"

When someone comes up to you with a unique idea, does that give you a little bit more energy than maybe yet, one more Green Lantern?

- I don't mind Green Lantern.

As far as the one with 49 of the rings, I don't do that as a con sketch.

My very first time at Heroes, I did two of them, and it burnt me up.

I don't know why, even though the rings are small, that's one of the toughest things to draw, so the only time I do those is mail order commissions back when I used to do that a a lot more often.

But I've actually had people who wanted a Green Lantern and they were like, "Well, I guess I'll pick somebody else.

"You're probably tired of doing Green Lantern."

No, that's almost on automatic.

In many ways I prefer it, because I don't have to stop and think what pose to use and that sort of thing, so no, I don't mind that at all.

But it's just funny, once in a while I'll get someone thinking, I know you're probably tired of doing Parallax, so maybe I'll pick a Captain America.

I'm like, no, I'll do a Parallax, that's fine.

[laughs] - I guess it's kinda like Paul McCartney not minding playing, "Let It Be" at the end of a concert.

It's still "Let It Be."

- Right, right, that's a good analogy.

- If the folks at home wanted to see more of your work online, where can they find you?

- I'm on Instagram @REAL, wait, wait, let's see.

Twitter, I'm @REALBANKSTER, and on Instagram, I'm @GLPRIME.

- I guess the final question I'll ask you in the minute or so that we have left, upcoming projects, when can we expect to see something hitting the newsstand?

- I'm working on an icon story for Milestone.

I would imagine that's gonna be out in maybe just a couple months or so.

I recently worked on "DC Power: A Celebration."

I didn't do this cover, but I have an eight-page story with Amazing Man in that, and that's actually available right now.

So look for more of my DC work and also the graphic novel that I mentioned earlier, that should be out probably toward the end of the year, I would imagine.

- All right, well, Darryl, thank you so much for taking time out of the day to talk with me today.

It's been a great conversation.

- Thanks Terence, I really appreciate every time you have me on here.

I have a great time, I really appreciate it.

- Well thank you, and thanks everyone at home for watching "Comic Culture."

We will see you again soon.

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