Avsnitt 215 intervju med Michael Lark

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

So you're gonna hear hear me better. And you have your own microphone. Okay. And uh we we don't have any rules, uh, but the microphone is almost like you could uh touch the mustache if you want to. If it's too loud, you just tell me and I can lower it down a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 0:15

Uh this is uh the superhero club podcast, and you have uh Erasmus at the far end, uh the the very beautiful one. Uh then you have you one uh next to beside him, then you have Simon beside you. On the other side, you have Per. This is Marcus, and I'm Rasmus too. So you have Rasmus here and Rasmus over there. You get Rasmus in stereo. Yeah. Uh so I'm the old one, he's the gorgeous one. Stop saying that. Uh so we do it like this: we just uh press play and then we go.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 0:48

So is there anything that you don't want to talk about, or is it free for all?

SPEAKER_02 0:53

It's free for all. Can I can I use swear words? Yeah, that's no dish. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

We we encourage it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Okay, good. I I have a foul mouth.

SPEAKER_04 1:01

Now that's no problem, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Then you get right in.

SPEAKER_04 1:04

Much appreciated. Yeah. Uh so uh I press the button and we hear the the intro and then we take it from there. Okay. And we we're gonna try to to get you to see who's talking so you just see who which mouth is moving. Okay. Yep, so here we go. That phone's yours.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Yes, hello and welcome to the superhero club or Sophia Club and as it's called in Sweden. Uh we are at Comic Con AWA again, and we sit here with a dear guest. Uh would you please like to introduce yourself to the crowd? I'm Michael Lark. And you are a comic book artist, right? I am. Yes. Among other things. Great seeing you here. Great having you at the table. It's great to be here. Nice, very good.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

This is my first time in Sweden. It is. Very happy to be here, yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Okay. Then we gotta ask, how's your first time in Sweden?

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Well, so far it's just been this.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Right, right. Yeah. Not the usual Swedish experience. We usually get the you know, the meatballs part, IKEA part. But that's tomorrow, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Well, I mean, you know, we have that in the in the States and in the UK too.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

So have we sold out in Sweden? If you want the Swedish experience, you can go to IKEA or any day of the way.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

The whole country has been assembled from flat packs, correct? Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Correct, absolutely right. This entire convention was just flat when it got here. So yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Uh I wanted to ask you, uh Michael, uh I was I watched a few interviews with you um uh th th from throughout the years, and you said uh you say um repeatedly that you were a bit late into comic books, and and you started reading in college, right? Yes. Uh what was it that got you into the comic book? What sort of comic got you uh your interest peaked, so to say?

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Um there were a lot of you know black and white titles that were being published, at least in the States, um, in the in the mid-80s when I was in college. Um my favorite was a book by Ted McKeever called Eddie Current. Yeah. Uh I just loved his art. Um, you know, things like Love and Rockets. Um I was a big fan of Guy Davis's work on Baker Street. Uh this is, you know, obviously before Sandman Mystery Theater and BPRD. This was one of the first things he did. Um that was just the first time I saw art by artists who weren't working in like a superhero house style. Yeah. Uh which I obviously don't do and can't do. Um and so that was the first time I saw that there was the possibility of doing comics that didn't look like that.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

No, exactly. It's something different. Yes, yes. And that is something that I I feel like it does. Uh that that is um where your work comes in. It is a very noir, of course. It is uh a darker style uh to it.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Yeah, I mean it's just I think I'm more influenced by um old adventure comic strip art, but like Noel Sickles and Milk Kaniff, who were really using heavy blacks to communicate because of the the medium of working in the newspaper strips. Yeah, it was m much more effective than working with a lot of lines. Right. Which that was a heavy influence on me. I I I still tend to think more in terms of light and shadow than in line.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yeah. I wanted to get into that a bit because um I wouldn't say it's a condition, but I have a hard time uh visualizing things, uh hence why I usually read the comics instead of just books. But I figured when uh I read through nine lives, Batman Nine Lives, uh I went through the first pages and I thought this is so well done, and the style is so uh substantial and special in a way that it like it was like a movie for me, and I've never felt that with any other comic. Like it painted the picture itself. Oh, that's that's nice to hear. Do you have a certain process when you get into that? Like, when do you know that this is this is has the lark seal of approval?

SPEAKER_02 5:19

I don't know if any of my stuff ever has my seal of approval. Um it's it never looks as good on the page as it looked in my head. Really? Um What's missing in that case? What's what's what's left in your head that's not on the page? Oh, so much. So much. So much. I mean, everything in my head is moving. You know, I I tell I read the script and I don't like it if a writer tells me, okay, this draw this picture, then draw this picture, then draw this picture. I want the writer to just tell me what's happening. Right. Because I picture it like a like a movie, and then I just pick out frames from the movie, you know, that's playing in my head.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

That's exactly what I felt as well, because uh I remember when I was talking to my other friends here in the pod that I looked at certain frames and certain expressions on the characters' faces were like so natural that it once again I haven't seen before done that way.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

That's just the way I draw and the way I think. Um, you know, Greg Rucca, who I've worked with for a long, long time, he describes my art as documentarian. Yeah. Um, I think that I'm just I'm more interested in that natural, natural behavior than you know, people, you know, gritting their teeth and snarling and jumping around punching each other. I'm not really interested in that.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

It feels more human in a way, I would guess, because a lot of uh comics are exaggerated, of course, like super godlike creatures.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

But it it feels more human, you said, and you kind of feel closer to the characters, well, I'm I'm more interested in what's in the characters' interior lives than than anything else. I think that that's um that's something that we can we can all generally relate to better. And that's that's I I'm more interested in that. I I I want to relate to the character emotionally when I draw them. And so that's why I'm thinking that way. I'm sorry, I keep turning my head away from the city. No, yeah, I understand. I forget I need to move my microphone with my head.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

No, but I was thinking then Batman is kind of the perfect uh or a really good example of that because there's so much brooding, there's so much inside of the characters that's going on. How was it working with like Batman in that way?

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Well, it I think it really just depends on the writer. Different writers are gonna approach different characters different ways, and I've been lucky that I've worked with people like Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucca, Brian Bendis, you know, writers who who know that there's gotta be more to a story than just jumping around and punching and yelling and gritting teeth. That's to me, that's not an interesting story. Um, you know, that's that's just an action sequence inside of a story. And that that action sequence, the only reason it's gonna be interesting is because of the emotional content. It's like, you know, the first John Wick movie, you know, isn't it isn't a very good story unless you have the dog.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Yeah, there needs to be motivation for the character.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yeah, exactly. There needs to be a reason for you to invest in that story. And and that's what I'm interested in. I mean, I mean I'm interested in trying to get the reader to make that investment.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

Right. So I I have a question when it comes to like, of course, we adore your art, but have have you have you gotten your like uh like your moment that you feel that this is the best that I can do? Or do you have like your dream left? Do you know what I mean? Like have you have you created anything that you feel like this is perfect?

SPEAKER_02 8:46

No. No, no, not that. You have that left. Okay. Yeah, nothing's ever perfect. I mean, that's you know, I tell students when I talk to them that if you've decided to pursue this, you've decided to embark on a journey that you'll never reach the destination.

SPEAKER_04 9:00

Perfect. That's that's what what I'm going for.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

You know, there's there's if you think you've got it perfect, then might as well stop. Exactly. You know, I mean it's it's a it's a constant learning and growing process. You know, every day when I draw, it's like, well, how can I draw a lamp better today than I drew it yesterday? You know, how can I draw this facial expression better today than I drew it yesterday?

SPEAKER_01 9:22

I guess you you feel like you're still chasing that sort of you're still chasing it. Always. Always improving. Yeah. Never done.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Well that's why when you ask, like, you know, what's different from what's in my head than what's on the page, it's because, you know, I'm I'm human, I can't get it perfect. No, that's I'll never get it perfect.

SPEAKER_04 9:39

That's the perfect answer, actually. That's the perfect answer to because we are always like when we talk to you to you guys that come here and like you have built the worlds that we live in. Uh like we read your material all from we had uh Howard Shaken a couple years ago and uh and Jim Stalin and and uh those guys. You you all we feel like we know you guys because we have read your material and looked at your pictures for years, and it's so good to hear to hear that nothing is perfect because nobody's perfect.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

No, you you can't, I mean, if you expect it to be perfect, you're just gonna spend all the time revising and fixing, and you know, I'm I'm I'm a fan of American baseball. And um, you know, a good baseball player only succeeds 30% of the time. Um that's that's considered, you know, the best Hall of Fame material is, you know, if you go up to bat, you're gonna you're gonna fail 70% of the time.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

And so I um I try to remember that when I'm working on a page, that if I've got six panels on there, if two of them, if I if I'm happy with the way two of them come out, I'm Hall of Fame material.

SPEAKER_04 10:53

That's that's that's that's yeah. So do you do you have you been I don't know how to phrase it, but like do you have have any like characters that you haven't worked on yet that you would like to work on or create or something?

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Um I was sort of having a similar question, so we can if you want to answer him first, but I am on the same track.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

I you know, I'm I'm no longer interested in working on other people's characters. I've done that and um I I like I like creating and owning my own characters. Um there's you know, it some of that's financial, some of that's just you know, creative satisfaction, but I'm no longer interested in, you know, I'm not like, oh, I've always wanted to do an Iron Man book, you know. Now I will I will make the exception that you know I grew up, you know, when I was 10 years old, the first Star Wars movie came out, and that changed everything for me. And I grew up not wanting to draw comics since I came late to comics. I grew up wanting to design spaceships for Star Wars. Okay, yeah. So I would I would probably jump at the chance to do a Star Wars comic, depending on how much creative freedom they gave me to do it. From what I understand, they don't give you much creative freedom.

SPEAKER_04 12:11

So we haven't talked with a couple of guys who's been working on them, and no, it's not that much of a wiggle room.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yeah, you know, we talked to Chris Brous. Uh sorry, yeah, we talked to Chris Brouse uh exactly a year ago, uh this event, I think. And he talked about exactly that. That there are so many limitations when it comes to the characters. They need to look a certain way to sort of uh make it through.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Yeah, I'd want to do something in that universe, but not something with those with the established characters if I did something, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Would you want to make it a noir sort of tale then?

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Um I really like westerns, and I've always thought like a Star Wars Western would be good, and not the kind of lame, crappy, you know, Anakin Skywalker attacking the sand people western that they did in that movie in the prequels. I you know, I I could see a good Western style Star Wars story. I've always thought that would be great. Kind of a combination of Western and maybe samurai. Did you watch the Mandalorian? I have not watched all of it, no.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

There is one episode, I think in the first season, there is an episode where it feels very western. There's the show.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

There's a lot of elements of Westerns in in the Star Wars movies, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yeah. But my follow-up to Erasmus question was sort of uh not which character you would like to work on, but since you do a lot of noir, and uh right now the Spider-Man noir series is coming out on uh Prime, I think. Yes. And with all of these, this sort of um rise in popularity for the style, uh, are there heroes or characters that you see around you or in comic books which you would like to see um a noir take on?

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Not really, no. I mean, I've always wanted to do, you know, my first professional comic book work was an adaptation of a novel by Raymond Chandler, a detective novel. Um, and I've always wanted to do something else like that again. Um, but as far as like something being adapted into that style, I you know, I did that with Batman with Nine Lives, and um yeah, there's not really anything else now.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

But speaking about Nine Lives again, and uh I read through uh Lazarus, and uh one thing that really stood out to me was that I felt like the blood in the series was kind of another character almost in a way. It it's a pretty violent series, yeah. It's a pretty violent series. I I I read a couple of violent series, but what I thought stood out in Lazarus was that it was much more of a dramatic effect. Like the blood was actually horrible to see when much of the other blood in other series sorry, here's gore, please feel something. And I felt like that was special.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

How do you handle uh like gore and violence in um well again it's there's gotta be a a a reason for it and a point to it and and a connection to the humanity of the characters. So it is gonna be horrible, it is gonna be violent. When there's violence in our comic, it's it's not a good thing. No, exactly. It's not it's not heroic. It's not um, you know, it's not like Punisher or even John Wick. It's you know, and I as much as I love those, you know, those both those properties, um, it's more like this is a this is a bad consequence of things going wrong when it happens. So that's I think that's my thinking on it.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah, it sort of becomes a necessary evil to uh take care of the situation in those situations.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

I don't know how necessary it is, but yeah, it's it's it's not a good thing. It's not a it's not a great heroic thing when violence happens.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

No, it should be the last resort. When it comes too quickly, it's like we've already hit the extreme already, like, and then when we hit a story beat, how should we make it worse than it is way too excessive, like Punisher and Yon Wick, for example? Yeah, right. Yeah. But you've talked about Westerners, you've talked about I'm thinking outside of comics, do you watch any movies or do you watch listen to music or what's your other side of the thing?

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Um well I'm uh I'm a I'm an amateur musician, part-time musician as well. Um instrument. I play guitar and bass. Really? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 16:39

Then you're at the right table because we are one, two, with you, three, four. Guitarists. Guitar players. Oh. We really like music. So what's your favorite music? What's your go-to music when you put it on Spotify or something? He buys music, of course. Of course. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Um well, I'm wearing an Angine de Poitrine shirt right now. Uh the new internet darlings. Um really love them. Um I I tend to go for uh I'm kind of lean towards like post punk mostly. That's you know, music that was coming out, like probably when I was in college, a lot of it.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

Um the the most more important question uh at this podcast uh from now on is what kind of guitar do you have?

SPEAKER_02 17:26

I've got a few. I right now I'm playing bass mostly. Okay. Um I'm actually a big fan, and I'm I'm gonna sound like a total dork for saying this, but I don't buy expensive musical equipment because I'm not I'm not super proficient at it. You know, I could buy the most expensive guitar in the world and I'd still suck. So what's the point of spending all that money? Um so I look for affordable gear, and I'm a big fan of Harley Benton stuff right now. They make really quality, low-cost instruments. Yeah, I I have a couple. Yeah, I just I've I I only discovered them since I moved to the UK two years ago because they're not they're not a big thing in the States. Um and I've got I've got a jazz master that I really like that's made by them, and I just got a um a short scale bass from them that I really, really like a lot.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

So I like your take on it because it's like the same. I'm a music teacher by trade, uh, and I work with kids, and I work with music for I don't know, 20 20 years with kids. And that's like the first thing that I I try to tell them that you don't need the expensive guitars. I I of course it's fine to look at an SG and think I want that, but that should be a goal to uh learn how to play a crappy guitar and hear that okay, now I can do better, I need a better guitar and and level up a little bit every time, instead of like going to the guitar shop and and buy a guitar for 20,000. And it doesn't matter if you have if it's cost $200 or $20,000 because it sounds the same.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Well, I've got you know, I have have guitars that I had to leave behind in the States when I moved to the UK that you know I've got a Fender a Fender Squire Jazz Master, um, that you know the the Harley Benton costs much less and it's a much better jazz master.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

I like it. I like it much, much more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

I I love this discussion. Um but our time is running out. Yeah, sorry. Uh we're going to have to return you back to your table.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Hey, I'm just following your lead.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yeah. Yeah. I understand. I have a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

I told my devil, it would kill me if we were late, so um we're gonna have to bring you back to the uh a question like like to end on it because we we started to asking if you've done anything in Sweden yet. Do you have anything on like plan that you want to do before you go?

SPEAKER_02 19:42

No, just this. You know, uh my wife and I are gonna head back as soon as this is over uh Monday morning. Okay. Um we're gonna go back to the UK and go back to life there.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

That sounds good.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

Awesome, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Uh one last thing. Uh would you uh uh like to appear in a photo with us for the episode as we release it? Of course. Okay. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

It's been a huge honor to have you here. Absolutely. Thank you so much for everything.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Thanks, guys. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Love your work.