Posts Tagged Eric Nolen-Weathington
Eric Nolen-Weathington on Lee Weeks (Part II) & Nick Cardy
Posted by admin in Film, art, comics, pop culture, sequential art on March 26, 2009
Yesterday I featured the first part of an interview regarding the Lee Weeks installment of TwoMorrows’ Modern Masters series. The first part was with Tom Field. This second part focuses on Eric Nolen-Weathington, the co-author of the Weeks book, as well as the designer and editor behind the entire Modern Masters’ series. It’s always a pleasure to interview Nolen-Weathington, so I was game to also discuss another book that Nolen-Weathington co-authored: Nick Cardy: Behind The Art, a work that goes beyond Cardy’s comics work and into his commercial illustration career.
Tim O’Shea: Do you think you could have been able to do the Weeks book without Tom Field’s involvement? Were you afraid that because Weeks and Field were such old and close friends it might make it harder for Field to ask tough questions in the process? Or due to the nature of these books (which intend to honor modern masters) is there ever a need to ask tough questions, per se? (feel free to tweek this question if need be).
Eric Nolen-Weathington: Yes, I do think I could have gotten Lee without Tom’s involvement, as I know several artists who are friends with Lee. And Lee was already on my list of guys I wanted to cover at some point. What Tom’ pitch really did was move Lee off the “sooner or later” list and onto the actual schedule.
Tom had already done a book for TwoMorrows on Gene Colan, Secrets in the Shadows: The Art and Life of Gene Colan, which I feel is one of the best books TwoMorrows has published. That was all I needed to know that he would do a good job with the interview. And having known Lee since childhood, I think Tom knew exactly where that line was of what he could ask and what he shouldn’t. The result is one of the most honest, open interviews of the series thus far.
Tom Field on Lee Weeks (Modern Masters Vol. 17)
Lee Weeks is an artist that you don’t see a great many articles about. While he’s an incredibly talented artist, the way he has conducted his career–on his own terms and in a modest manner–has kept him out of the spotlight (as compared to many of his contemporaries. So months ago when I found out that Tom Field and Eric Nolen-Weathington had devoted a volume of the Modern Master series to Weeks, I was eager to interview them. And then…my disorganized nature misplaced this interview. My apologies to Field and Nolen-Weathington for the delay. (This interview was conducted in early December 2008, well before I joined Robot 6 and that’s why I am running a comics interview here for the first time in awhile.) To make it up to these fine fellows, I will be splitting this interview into two parts. Part one will be with Field and the second part, which will run tomorrow, will be with Nolen-Weathington and will delve into other projects of his.
But before jumping into this first part, in case you don’t know Weeks’ work, here is some info courtesy of TwoMorrows: “Weeks is the consummate storyteller. Over the course of his twenty-five-year-plus career, he has proven this again and again. His ability to create dynamic, interesting layouts, plus his strong draftsmanship, and wonderful sense of lighting made his runs on Daredevil, Captain America, Spider-Man: Death and Destiny (which he also wrote) and The Incredible Hulk fan favorites, and his artwork for Batman Chronicles: The Gauntlet is among the most finely crafted in the character’s history.”
Tim O’Shea: Given that you and Lee Weeks are old friends, were you afraid you were too close to him to be able to create a good book?
Tom Field: Actually, I looked at it just the opposite way — that because I *did* know him well, I could do a better book because I’d know the best topics to ask him about. I could get a little deeper than ‘Which character have you always wanted to draw?,’ y’know? We did speak upfront about what we wanted to stress in the interviews — topics we did/did not want to pay much attention to — but our friendship was never a challenge. Quite the opposite. I think it was a major strength.