Michael W. Kaluta: AN Interview with the Comic Book Artist

1. You've experienced a rich and long career - what would you consider to be missed opportunities? What regrets do you have creatively?

As years go by, the missed opportunities are many: the most disappointment came when projects I'd set my mind toward in anticipation of having a fun, challenging and lucrative experience evaporated, generally with little or no explanation and certainly no recompense for time and trouble. I'm citing the "large" projects that would have been career-shaping. For example: being asked to pre-package an entire catalog of occult books: new covers and ad art, possibly interior work for some books. Dozens of titles, all to have my brand of design, drawing and color · Poof! Other examples: designing a theme park · Poof! Designing a miniature golf course with a high fantasy theme · Poof! Then there were the various film and game jobs that months of work went into for no visible result. Of course, every artist has their own set of such disappointments. It's the "world that could have been and never will" that I regret.

2. Do you photo-reference when doing your work?

Not as a general rule, but "research elements" nearly always play a big part, especially if the job has anything to do with "the real world". Those elements can be photos, art, written word descriptions, film/TV or even sketching on the street. But as for using a photo as the subject of a picture, copied directly to the art, no, not really.

3. What size canvas or board do you use when producing your cover work?

My comic book cover work is generally done on 11" x 17" paper. Sometimes the image is boxed, say 10 x 15 (close to the comic book cover dimension) and sometimes the entire page is used, right to the edges. If oil paint is involved (rare for me these days), the canvas is generally 16" x 20" or larger. To this date the largest picture I've done in the India ink and watercolor approach is 40" x 60". It was a bear· nearly broke my back leaning over the board. (one of the Very Good Reasons for working at about 12 x 17 inches is the ease of scanning the original· a larger piece would need to be photographed or scanned at a Service Bureau)