From Newsarama
ADAM HUGHES ON THE SUPERMAN RETURNS PREQUEL COVERS
Two down, and two to go until Superman Returns opens.
As we've previously reported, each week of this month, leading up to the film's June 28th opening, DC Comics is releasing an issue of the four issue Superman Returns Prequel miniseries. Each issue focuses on one of the individuals in Superman's life, starting with Jor-el, then to Ma Kent, Lois Lane, and finally, Lex Luthor. The three with Ma, Lois, and Luthor show what the characters have been doing during Superman's mysterious five year absence. The first two, Jor-el and Ma Kent have been released to date, and are currently available at comic shops.
Tying the four issues together - covers by Adam Hughes. As usual, Hughes' covers are simple, yet packed with meaning. We wanted to make sure we got the full meaning of the covers, as well as how he came up with them, so we sat down with the acclaimed creator for a chat.
Newsarama: First off, how did you get the gig? Was it something where you had a market in for whenever anything related to Superman Returns came up, you want to do it, or were you requested, either by DC or Warner Bros.?
Adam Hughes: Since nobody asks me to do interiors anymore, I've become pretty much a "cover guy," and I've been delivering pretty solidly for DC for a number of years now, and was in talks with Dan Didio about a project already, and was?I don't know, maybe still on his speed dial.
NRAMA: When you did get it, how was it explained to you, both in terms of what the miniseries was, and what they were looking for in terms of covers?
AH: It was explained to me that it would be a four issue miniseries bridging the gap between the original Superman films with the new one. I'm a gigantic, colossal fan of Superman: The Movie - in my opinion, it's the best superhero movie anybody has ever made - flaws and all?or Otis notwithstanding, take your pick.
NRAMA: [Editor] Ivan Cohen did say he wanted to put "Otisville" on a map in the background of a scene?just to give some acknowledgement that Otis did in fact, exist?
AH: One of my friends suggested that I should put "Otis Wuz Here" on the wall of Luthor's cell [laughs]. But as they explained it to me, I knew, generally, what Superman Returns was going to be about, and I knew that it concerned Superman coming back after a five-year absence. I then asked Mark Chiarello, who's my art director, boss, and friend at DC Comics if he felt I should do them, he said yes, and that was pretty much it.
NRAMA: So what was the overall attraction? Was it, as you said, just your Superman jones that pulled you in?
AH: Exactly. I discovered in the rare cases where I get to draw Superman for DC - because as you know, he does not have breasts, so I don't get asked to draw him that much? But last year, I drew one of the Julie Schwartz tribute covers, Superman getting knocked over by a phantom football player, and it was a joy. Superman literally just falls off my pencil. Batman - it's like taking a hill during the Korean War, but Superman - Superman's a lot of fun, so I was in.
NRAMA: Why the difference in those two? What makes Superman so easy?
AH: I don't know. Maybe I'm one of those guys for whom the glass is always half full. For me, drawing Batman is all about how big should his ears be? How blue should his costume be? How scary should I make him? Should he be smiling? No - a smiling Batman is scarier. There're so many options with Batman, but Superman - even though there are different ways to interpret him, I see him so clearly. There's never any second guessing, so it's just all about the fun - the joy of drawing.
Of course, that said, I barely got to draw him on the four Superman Returns covers, because everybody in the miniseries is waiting for him to return.
NRAMA: Right - his only "appearance" is in Jor-el's crystal. When you approached the four covers, did you look at them as a whole, or individually, as separate pieces?
AH: It was as a whole. When I was doing the covers on Wonder Woman for example, whenever they would let me know that there was going to be a four or six issue arc, I would try to figure out how to make all those covers tie in with each other, either thematically or something as simple as coloring them all mauve. It's something that, when a fan has their comics at home and they're laying ona table, they know that they can spot that story - that there's something about those four covers that makes them look like they're of a piece.
With these, as I mentioned, I knew a little of what was going to be going on with the film, and we had a conference call with Michael Dougherty, one of the screenwriters on the film, who, together with the other screenwriter and Bryan Singer, came up with the idea for the miniseries. So, he was able to tell me that, like, the first issue would encapsulate Superman's origin, since they're not really retelling it in the film - which is kind of cool; then, it would be a Ma Kent cover, a Lois Lane cover, and a Lex Luthor cover, and the stories would all be about what they've been doing in the five years that Superman has been AWOL.
So my first thought to tie them in was, "Okay, these are all people who?Superman plays an important role in their life." So what would each of them be doing while eh was away? They'd be thinking about him. That was pretty much my design theme for the covers - everybody's thinking about Superman. It sounds pretty dull, I know, but at least it makes them of a piece.
I was going to do an iconic Superman "Ta-da!" image for the first cover and it was actually Michael Dougherty who asked if they could have Jor-el contemplating one of the Kryptonian crystals, and perhaps in the facets, seeing aspects of his son's future life.
NRAMA: That's a change from your plan?
AH: Yeah - I heard that and immediately felt my gut lower. It's one of those things that, bless his heart, a writer asks you to do, and it sounds great on paper, but it's basically a crystal the size of a carrot. How do you show Jor-el holding something smaller than a flashlight, and seeing Superman in it? But then I realized that he was holding something and thinking about Superman, so on all the covers, the subjects would then be holding something and thinking about Superman. So - in the Ma Kent cover, she's holding a Bible, a baby picture of young Clark, and a lantern. I was originally going to have her holding a candle, but I thought that was just a little bit too much. A Coleman lantern serves the purpose. But yeah - it's the mother with her figurative candle in the window, waiting for her son to come home from far away lands. It's iconic, and reminds you of all the wars that we glorify and romanticize, except she's looking straight up, rather than at the horizon. That cover is like 90% Kansas sky, and I realized later, it was going to be nearly filled with the Superman Returns logo. That logo looks great on a movie poster, but comic book cover, it's one of the most invasive things, ever. I literally had a tiny, V-shaped corridor to work with.
Over on the Luthor cover, he's holding a newspaper, and his cell walls are covered with newspaper headlines - anything related to Superman, and he's got a lot, because he's spent five years in the hoosegow thinking about the bane of his existence.
And Lois is sitting on top of the Daily Planet building, pining for her lost love, holding on to his cape.
NRAMA: Is Luthor holding on to a newspaper or a crystal?
AH: I originally drew him holding on to a crystal. I wasn't working from a copy of the screenplay, so I had only seen the first full trailer on the Internet when I started working on it, and there was a shot of Luthor holding a crystal, so I thought that would be a cool thing to show. And some of the headlines on the walls were gemological studies, so you got the idea that he was studying the crystal. But, when it got to the review phase, you know, Luthor probably shouldn't have something like that in his jail cell. So I got rid of it and put in a newspaper. Almost every cover required some sort of tweak or change. But it's a shame they didn't go for it - I don't think it blows anything in the film, and it's symbolic -and slightly sinister.
NRAMA: As you're explaining here - nothing in your covers is accidental, so you have Ma Kent, Lois, and Jor-el all looking forward, to the viewer, but Luthor is looking away, which is also outside of his jail cell. Was that just a choice in terms of the construction of the cell and his position, rather than Luthor looking away had a greater meaning?
AH: Yeah, that was dictated by the composition. My inspiration for that piece was a Norman Rockwell painting from, I believe the late 1950s called The Connoisseur - it's a man in a gray suit in an art gallery. He's older, and obviously an art enthusiast, and he's standing and looking at, so his back's toward us, a Jackson Pollock paining. For some reason, that painting popped into my mind when we started talking about showing Luthor in his jail cell. You could either show from outside of the bars and looking in, you can show inside the bars looking out. You've got two places to put your "camera."
The only thing in that piece that lets you know it's Luthor is that he's bald, so we really don't need to see his face. I thought a long, thin jail cell with the walls plastered with Superman headlines, and Lex standing there at the end. And it was important that he's holding something, because that way, he looks like a man without a care in the world. It's not a shot of him with his hands draped over the bars with "HATE" tattooed across one set of knuckles and "EVEN MORE HATE" tattooed across the other set. Everyone else can be that way - Luthor maintains his dignity. He's not concerned about it in the slightest. He has plans.
NRAMA: This is an annoyance for him, not a major setback.
AH: Exactly. I thought that casual quality shows what a schemer he is. It doesn't matter if he has a purple and green power suit - all he needs is his brain.
NRAMA: You did the four covers, but then the miniseries was originally announced, you did a piece with Superman and the flag. Was that just a promo piece for the miniseries?
AH: Well, it's funny because this project came together very, very fast. The solicitation was coming up, and there was no other art, so Mark Chiarello called me on a Friday, and asked if I could just do a Superman drawing, and they needed it by Monday morning. He said they needed anything I could get them - even just pencils would be fine. I thought - you know, this is a high profile project, and whenever you see just pencils in Previews, it lets you know that people were rushing, or didn't have something done. This project, I though, needed a bow tie and a limousine arrival. So I basically didn't sleep for three days. I remember the Oscars were on while I was working on the colors. I think the plan is to use that for the trade paperback.
NRAMA: With the characters on the covers whose faces you can see, were you going for a likeness of the actors, or a resemblance of the character?
AH: no - we had no likeness rights, and they didn't want likeness rights, so I went for the comic book iconic look. My Lois Lane doesn't look like either Margot Kidder or Kate Bosworth. My Superman doesn't look anything like Christopher Reeve or Brandon Routh. But the problem was the Jor-el cover. For the first time ever, they were using the movie designs from the Ricgard Donner 1978 Superman - the white, glowing Kryptonian suits with the chest symbol. I don't know if anybody's really had permission to do that in a regular Superman comic, but their express order was "Do not make it look like Marlon Brando." There was no agreement made with the Brando estate to use his likeness in a comic book.
So, I had to find a model, and I was so up against the gun, I looked in a mirror and said, "You'll do."
NRAMA: No checking of your resume or past history?
AH: There just wasn't time. A la George Lucas, we'd fix it in post. What was really funny was that, I've joked with my girlfriend that, yes, I do bear a striking resemblance to Marlon Brando, the fact that they rejected my first cover?
NRAMA: Because it looked too much like Marlon Brando?
AH: Yeah. Marlon Brando has these black caterpillar eyebrows and this strong, Roman nose?I've got no eyebrows. I make Whoopi Goldberg look like Groucho Marx. But the thing is, if you put that white wig, with the spitcurl on anybody?you could put that on Morgan Freeman, and you'd say, "Oh - he looks just like Brando." It was a pain because they kept wanting changes farther and farther away from what they saw as Brando. The first one was: lose the spitcurl. My reaction - why does losing the spitcurl make it look less like Marlon Brando? Thing was, it didn't look like Brando - it looked like Brando's Jor-el. By that argument though, Burt Reynolds in Striptease looked like Brando. Anybody with that white mane fo hair is going to look like Jor-el.
So first I had to lose the spitcurl. Then I blurred the face, so it looked like a shallow focus photograph. That didn't work either. Finally, the solution was to move the crystal in front of his face, so it almost completely obscures it. To me, it's like a hand holding a crystal with two ears and some white hair sticking out. Nothing like I thought, but it's where we ended up. It's the nature of the beast.
NRAMA: Just to clarify - DC and Warner Bros didn't have the likeness rights, but they own the character rights, correct? But do the likeness rights reside with the individual or Warner Bros. in this case?
AH: A popular misconception is that, because Time Warner owns both DC Comics and Warner Bros. that there are reciprocal rights that go back and forth. When I first started working for DC in the late '80s, they were working on the first Batman feature film. Everybody was in love with the movie Batmobile. All the Batman comic book artists wanted to draw the movie Batmobile, and they were being told do not draw anything that remotely resembles the movie Batmobile. The reason is - DC and Warner Bros. are different companies, even though they are owned by the same parent corporation. If DC Comics drew the movie Batmobile, they would have to pay a licensing fee to Warner Bros. Even though Warner Bros. was making a movie of a DC Comics character. And Warner Bros. paid DC for the rights to make a Batman movie.
So, Marlon Brando's estate licensed his likeness and voice for the new Superman film, but his family inherited Brando's sense for making deals, and his likeness can't be sued anywhere else - no toys, no comics, no advertising. Those would be separate deals.
It's funny - I learned a lot of things about this when they make movies about comics - there have to be enough differences so in case there's infringement after the movie comes out, the lawyers know who gets to sue. The Rocketeer's rocket pack had two engines in the movie, but only has one in the comic. See a piece of knockoff Rocketeer merchandise with two engines? The movie studio lawyers sue the manufacturers. At least that's how it was explained to me - I am, by no means, a layer.
But the Bando thing became a joke - I told them I was going to base everyone, including Ma Kent and Lois on Brando's likeness. When doing the Luthor shot, I was tempted for a minute to use a reference shot of the back of Brando's head from Apocalypse Now, but in the end, I didn't.
NRAMA: Wrapping things up, and speaking of that Luthor cover one last time - his prison jumpsuit number?you like to play with numbers on your covers, so what's the significance of Luthor's number?
AH: Yeah, I did the Lost numbers on the Catwoman cover because I needed some numbers there. But I really like to do stuff for the alert reader, so I tried to find something that someone could spot. So, his numbers, 230440 - Luthor made his first appearance in Action Comics #23 which was the April, 1940 issue.
Always nod back to the source.
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