for Realms of Fantasy Magazine
April 2003
RoF:
What was the strangest commission you ever took on?
Michael Wm. Kaluta:
Much easier to describe the strangest commissions I didn't take on: One: A T-shirt idea/visual pun on Hard Rock Cafe with a rooster in the center. Not "Hard Rooster Cafe". Also: ghosting for an artist who was ghosting for Harold Grey on the Little Orphan Annie dailies. I couldn't QUITE justify the anonimity. Then there was designing a logo for a web organization that promoted "conservative family values", with a vengeance! But here's some of the more unusual commissions I HAVE done: designed a clothing label: those tags that hang on sweaters in the department stores; designed a logo for a restaurant based on the owner's German Shepherd, eventually to appear on the restaurant's matchbooks and all the ads in the local newspapers. Designed a small storybook for a friend's wedding based on a story the groom wrote, and borrowing freely from the Russian Artist Bilibin when I did it; designed an in-house product flyer for Singer Sewing Machines, with Charlie Vess, for their Christmas employee's bargain shopping. Another, similar commission: drawing "superhero"-type characters for a trade journal aimed at MBA's -- one a Superman-like flying businessman and the other a huge Monsterman crashing through a wall, representing all the worst stuff that could happen to a salary man. All pretty tame stuff.
RoF:
What was your favorite commission and why?
MWK:
Favorite commission recently: the 2002 Celtic Calendar -- because it was such a freeing assignment. The only "rules" were the size constraints and that the images have some relation to the Celtic world. Elaine Lee helped immensely, doing the research on the Celtic Myths and Legends. She's quite knowlegable in that area. Add to that the 1994 Tolkien Calendar, just because I was so successful nailing down scenes I thought I'd never be able to do. What happens with nearly every commission: once I get "into" it: I have a great time. Sometimes the most fun in the doing commissions become the "worst thing I was ever involved with", when the clients either flake on the project or change their minds on what they want after the job is done.
RoF:
Why do you think that fantasy art has such great appeal? Is it the color? The form? The promise of escape?
MWK:
When I was growing up, in the 50's, the only allowed fantasy art was what Walt Disney was doing with his animated films. Comic books were under a cloud and all the fantasy and fairy tale books one remembered were from the 30's and 40's, read as a child. Then, on the one hand, Dover Books started reprinting terrific art from the turn of the century, and Ace Books started re-publishing the fantasy works from the teens and 20's, starting with Edgar Rice Burroughs and then, in '63, Tolkien. The writing engendered art -- at first, dull, misapplied modern covers (with the noted exception of Roy Krenkel and Frank Frazetta), then eventually letting the works inspire cover art that revived the Golden Age of Illustration. Aubrey Beardsley and Mucha and Doré were at the forefront of the rediscovered artists whose creations found a resonance in the 1960's public -- it has grown and grown since then.
RoF:
What's more satisfying to you as an artist, working with pattern and detail or with color? Why? It is challenging to integrate both?
MWK:
The most satisfying thing for me is nailing down the concept -- getting "sense" onto the page. Sometimes it is content but most times it is design that gives me the real jolt. The textures and colors come later for me.
RoF:
Sometimes your work seems to be so filled with detail that the viewers may wonder if you are challenging yourself -- and them -- to see how much you can fill the picture plane while still making the image "readable." Is that your intent?
MWK:
Nope -- if you look at my images in comparison with, say, Durer, you'll see that I've used a shorthand to imply detail, not drawn everything. In my drawings/paintings there's most often a solid shape to hold the picture on the page, then I involve myself with adding the details. Often the detailing is included as a tone, as opposed to an object, to add a sense of depth or implied meaning to the art. Most all of the detail is very thought-out, as opposed to detail for its own sake.
RoF:
Why are both pattern and color so compelling to us?
MWK:
Both pattern and color are sensual experiences. Like cats, human eyes see shape first, along with motion -- then the details. That is why one can recognize a friend from 100 yards distance. Color, like smell, has a number of levels of impact, but, like smell, our reactions to color are often described as "mood" reactions.
RoF:
What's your favorite medium?
MWK:
Pencil -- and ballpoint pen. Then pen and ink.
RoF:
Your favorite color? (No, this is not an old Monty Python routine!)
MWK:
Red, all by itself, a warm red. Least favorite, if you'd like to know, is green. But that is color as color. In Nature, color has context beyond the palette.
RoF:
Your favorite character(s)?
MWK:
In comics? The Spirit; Hopey and friends from Mechanics/Love and Rockets, and all of Gilbert Hernandez's characters; The Rocketeer and characters from that comic book. The characters in Starstruck are particular favorites, of course. I also like Dennis the Menace, naturally, Gary Larson's characters, Astroboy, Daffy Duck, Popeye and Sweet Pea, the entire cast of King of the Hill, 7 of 9 and the Doctor from Voyager, all the characters on Farscape, Magnum PI, the Iron Giant and Hogarth and his mom and the cool sculptor -- shall I go on?
RoF:
What makes a character appealing to you in a way that enables you to capture him or her on canvas?
MWK:
It's that implied depth that comes either from "spending time" with the character, or having that feeling that the character's creator spent time with the character.
RoF:
How does the creative process differ for you when doing album covers as compared to doing comic or book covers? Is there any difference in concept or composition?
MWK:
Oh sure. The CD covers rarely have a "character" central to the product, so the image I do is often symbolic of the energy and intent of the tunes on the CD. Composition is easier on the CD's as the title will almost always be small and at the top of the art. I know the art is basically square and can work within those limits. The comic book cover needs to present the character inside in a way that the reader will recognize them -- or be surprised at how they are represented. The more covers for a comic book series, the easier and more creative the art becomes. That also, of course, depends on the editor. Same same with the CD's.
RoF:
What is it about Metropolis (the book by Thea von Harbeau and silent film by Fritz Lang) that is so fascinating? Specifically, why does that female robot have such iconic power -- over so many decades (nearly a century)??
MWK:
The female robot has all sorts of resonances. Can it be that a re-designed woman, created by man and unable to reproduce herself somehow answers the deep awe men have toward biological women? And if so, what happens when the robot controls the man? In the book, Futura was to be a mechanical man, to replace the human workers under Metropolis. It is the inventor/designer Rotwang who makes the robot in the shape of a woman -- to assuage the loss of the woman both he and Fredersen loved when they were young men. It was the vision and memory of loss that controlled his hands. Add to that that the son of Joh Fredersen falls in love with a woman who looks exactly the same as his mother, that the inventor, at Joh Fredersen's insistence, puts her face and body on the robot, in effect re-creating a lost love and the creatrix of all the men concerned, then using the robot/woman to destroy everything they've created, including Joh Fredersen's son -- well, how could that image not resonate through the ages?
RoF:
What is it about Art Nouveau and Art Deco that continues to fascinate us? What fascinates you as an artist about these different stylistic approaches? Do they require color to make an impact or can line carry them?
MWK:
Color is incidental to both styles, in the abstract, but one can evoke both styles with just color -- mauve, pink, peach and yellow and you have Art Nouveau. Silver and black and you have Deco. Nouveau and Deco -- both were reactionary in their time: Nouveau as a reaction against the new machine age, Deco a reaction against the over-indulgence of Nouveau and a refining of "beauty is the promise of function." Pure Nouveau is a bit much for most people these days, as is "pure" Deco. Both have been adjusted so we feel pleased when we note a nuance of either. They have been digested.