Interview by Armand Zoroa
of NORMA Editorial Magazine
2000
(Note: This is the material that my quotes in Wings of Twilight was culled from.)
NORMA Editorial:
Tell us about your beginnings and your first work as a Professional.
Michael Wm. Kaluta:
I first started drawing, as a child, by watching "Learn to Draw with Jon Gnagy" on television. I believe I learned proper perspective drawing from his show, a tool that would be of immeasurable help when I came to draw the cities in The Shadow Comic Book and while illustrating Metropolis, as well as helping with all the work I did where the landscape had to look real.
The next big step was seeing and copying the Roy Krenkel black and white interior illustrations in the Ace Books Edgar Rice Burroughs' paperbacks. I'd never seen any images so fantastic, and Krenkel's sense of design and atmosphere spoke to my heart.
I did drawings for Junior and Senior High School classes: scenes from Colonial America, Halloween murals and some illustrations for the High School's literary magazine, the Penman.
When I got to College (1966) I began drawing my own comic strips, in the Sunday Page format and the work was noticed by Mike Cody who showed it to a local fan publisher, Tom Long. The strips were entirely re-drawn for inclusion in the magazine Graphic Showcase, a fanzine that was shown to Al Williamson. It was through Al that I got my first ever professional work.
At the same time I had moved to New York City and began helping Bernie Wrightson with his comic book, Nightmaster for DC Comics. I did layouts and background work. When, a few months later I began work on my own strips, I had the benefit of Bernie being right there to encourage me. It would be two years before I would work alone in my own studio. Those early years were filled with companionship and art discussion. Bernie, Jeffrey Jones, Bruce Jones, Roy Krenkel, Steve Harper, Steve Hickman and many other artists shared their time and talent, meeting at least once per month to exchange insights and lend each other assistance.
NORMA:
Broadly speaking, what has your professional career been like?
MWK:
I have had a very lucky career. In school I never thought I'd have the opportunity to draw scenes and characters from my favorite fiction. But almost my first professional job was drawing Edgar Rice Burroughs' Carson of Venus science-fantasy series for DC Comics. In the first several years of working I was drawing Tarzan, Conan, Flash Gordon, The Batman and other fantasy icons, as well as illustrating Metropolis and scenes from JRR Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings. The only character that I'm associated with I'd never thought to draw was The Shadow. Three years into my career The Shadow Comic Book made my work known throughout the world.
I've had the good fortune to work with many brilliant artists and writers and have had some of my personal visions accepted as important works.
This is the best career possible!
NORMA:
Which Work do you feel most proud of?
MWK:
This is easy: All of my work! The Posters, the Illustrations, the Comic Books and Comic Book Covers... the Album and CD Covers. The Film and TV design... I am an artist who enjoys his own work! It would be a much easier task to list the few pieces I am NOT proud of...
NORMA:
What are you currently working on and what projects do you have for the future?
MWK:
The most recent piece of art is the cover for this book... a long-term idea, I started working on it three years ago. Most of the work in 2000 has been a series of Private Commissions. Taking requests for art has allowed me to create in a wide field of imagery, the challenges have strengthened my abilities and sharpened my skills.
I have recently been drawing monsters for the Dungeons and Dragons folks and hope to continue working on that game and others that Wizards of the Coast encompass. Not long ago I helped design a 70 foot Yacht-- dressing it, I'd say. If it ever gets built, it will look quite fantastic... perhaps I should make a model of it, just to keep the idea fresh. It isn't often my fantasy skills are put to such a test, but, as time goes by, I'm hoping for more and more "real world" work... maybe someone will ask me to design the interior of their home someday!
I've several friends working on Film and Theatre projects and the phone rings with requests for my input. Designing for the allied arts has always delighted me, even if little of the work sees the light of day. Taking an Idea and breathing life into it is a thing I've had such fun with. I am open to any and all such endeavors.
I've been able to lend my thin computer skills to some projects, designing business cards, flyers and resumes, as well as developing my own pictures using the strengths of Photoshop to add a twist to the finished pictures.
I am committed to painting the covers for the ongoing Time Travel game, Continuum... the third cover is on the board now...
I've a new cover for Christopher Golden's new book Straight On 'Til Morning due out in January of 2001.
As always, I am hoping some version of the Starstruck Comic Book will make its way to TV or Film, at the same time keeping an ear open for the phone to ring from Hollywood on a number of possible design jobs. If all the jobs come at once, I'll explode!
Most recently, I have put a great amount of energy toward becoming involved with the new art of the On-Line Comic Book. Coming back to Comics on the Web should be a lot of fun!
NORMA:
You have worked both with Comic Books and Illustration. Do you have a preference?
MWK:
Each field has its attractions. Comic Book Drawing allows one to create an entire world, to add the characters, the lighting, the "camera angles", the pacing that will involve the reader for hours on end. Doing that right brings great satisfaction, though it does take an great amount of time to accomplish.
Illustration must augment whatever it is illustrating-- at best it shouldn't over-power its subject. But doing illustration gives the artist such a huge canvas to devote their vision to, along with certain approaches and techniques that only work when presenting a single image.
To make the standard analogy: Doing Comics is like making a film, Doing Illustration is like shooting a photograph. Where a film producer must bring all the disparate arts into play to create a story, the photographer brings only his eye and sense of art to a scene and sometimes with luck, sometimes with intent, captures a defining moment.
NORMA:
Do you think illustration is more difficult than doing comics?
MWK:
Not at all. Comic Book Drawing is much more difficult. The technique of Comic Book Storytelling can only be learned through doing... and its rules have to be absorbed while working. That means artists will go through a lot of hits and misses before finding their natural pacing. As artists learn this elusive technique, they must also draw a wide variety of imagery, including a very good command of the human figure, make it all believable, plus do it quickly.
A good illustration must tell a story in one picture but a Comic Book must sustain a reality for page after page.
NORMA:
What authors, in any field, have influenced your work?
MWK:
In art: all the artists I've ever seen, even if I hated their pictures... but, in specific chronology for the forming of my style: Aubrey Beardsley, Roy Krenkel, Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Will Eisner (both in art and story), Alphonse Mucha and all my close artist friends. (As an example of an artist whose work I hated having influenced me, take Hans Memling... I'd rather have eaten nails than study his work, but, in studying it, I absorbed it and I can still see the influence to this day!)
In writing, everything I've ever read, but the early influences that set me on my road: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, L. Frank Baum, Johnny Gruelle (In both story and art), Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, Harry Harrison, Manly Wade Wellman, Phillip K. Dick, A. Bertram Chandler, Edmond Hamilton, E.E. "Doc" Smith, A.E. van Vogt, Thea von Harbou, Andre Norton and J.R.R. Tolkien.
In music my early dreams had as a soundtrack: Much symphonic music by the likes of Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, von Gluck, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner. Add to that Bob Dylan, Donovan, The Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Joni Mitchell and The Beatles and Rolling Stones.
I've lived my life like a sponge, absorbing everything, letting it percolate, meld and cross-pollinate until it resurfaces in my work.
NORMA:
How do you treat Magic and Occultism in your work?
MWK:
I use the trappings of Magic and Occultism as graphic imagery to fuel the "otherness" of my pictures. I was raised Catholic and find much of the ritual and panoply of Catholicism, along with similar attributes from the other Religions, leads a picture into fascinating realms of interest. I add to that objects and symbols of the older religions and the look and feel of the picture gains an authenticity that projects it into the realm of Iconography. The magic, as portrayed, feels real. However, the magic ornament and occult imagery must serve the picture, not the opposite. The engineer that designs the workings of an automobile must focus on how the car works, hoping the mechanical truth meshes with the beauty of the body design. The car advertisement illustrator must take the reality of the machine and transform it into the dream of beauty, power and satisfaction. I do the same with magic. My job is not to describe Magic, but to create Magic.
NORMA:
Are you specifically interested in Fantasy as a Genre?
MWK:
Only as far as I can sense a reality to the Fantasy. I read very little Fantasy Literature but I look at a lot of Fantasy Art and Sculpture. My mind is bent toward fantasy: I've not been able to figure out why a mermaid on a rock pleases me so much more than a seagull on a rock, but it does... it makes me feel more alive inside thinking of the dark as personified, that clouds hide castles in the air, that dragons live in sea caves, that the land is alive with wonder even beyond the wonder of true nature.
I believe that fantasy serves to redefine and outline reality, that a sense of play in sensing other worlds gives extra pleasure to this real one.
NORMA:
Do you think there are still innovations to be made in the field of Fantasy Art?
MWK:
Absolutely. Every new day brings new visions to the fore, like a never-ending retelling of what delights the dreaming mind.
NORMA:
Tell us about your vision of the mysterious nature and its fantastic creatures.
MWK:
I find these creatures in my mind, put there by by all my childhood reading and dreams/nightmares. When I work the images float to the surface, or are delved for by my imagination, then set down on the page. When I find myself surprised by a particular demon, fairy or monster, I know I've hit on a good creation. Often a description in the commission will spark an image. When I attempt to capture it, it may run away, leading me further into my imagination where all the objects of my consciousness and unconsciousness abide. Once there, I'll pick and choose among the ranked phantoms.
I also study nature, taking what it gives and adapting it into fantasy: I do believe the closer to "reality" a supernatural being is portrayed, the more likely that being will appear "real."
NORMA:
You mix machines and mechanical devices with the human figure. Tell us about your personal view of the future.
MWK:
My personal Idea of what the future will bring has never been reflected in my art. When I draw The Future, I am often illustrating someone else's vision, trying to include my feeling for their ideas. My job is to make whatever the material presents as believable as possible, while blending in the "otherness" that makes a great Sci-Fi Illustration.
I agree with something Roy Krenkel said: "The future is commonplace to the people living in it." I use that statement as a benchmark to judge my own and other's future thoughts.
NORMA:
What do you think is the key element that makes an illustration successful?
MWK:
In speaking of book illustration, I believe an illustration must define a moment in the narrative, but also leave a lot of area for the viewer to interpret the scene. Too much definition may stop the viewer in their tracks, interrupting the flow of the story. Ideally, the illustration should augment the text, give deeper meaning or atmosphere to the book, yet leave the author's Idea intact.
NORMA:
What is your working system when creating an image?
MWK:
If the image is a commission, I read the text, or the overview from the editor/client then discuss my early ideas with the client. Then I go to a coffee shop, order a double espresso and draw out all the possible permutations of my ideas. Generally I use a ball-point pen during this phase. If the sketches are "tight" enough, I will fax or email them to the client for approval. Once approved, I enlarge the sketches on the Xerox machine then trace the image on to good drawing paper. Next I tighten up the pencil drawing, then ink it with pen and brush. I will watercolor this line drawing if that is the required end. Once done, I scan or photograph the art and send the original, the transparency or the scan to the client.
NORMA:
Which techniques do you use when working?
MWK:
Most of my finished color work is done in line and watercolor. The coloring process is very straightforward. After the linework is done, I tape the original to a piece of foam-core and begin coloring with a grey or blue-grey under tone to define the lighting and volume of the picture elements. In a detailed piece, I do some pre-color work on a reduced Xerox, just so I don't commit to a color combination that will do the piece an injustice.
From this point on, color is mixed on trays and applied to the paper using very good watercolor brushes. If there is a large, complex area to fill with blended color, I will use a solution of water and glycerine as a medium. The addition of glycerine extends the drying time so I'm able to push the color into all the areas without leaving brush strokes.
Sometimes, after the watercolor is dry, I spray the original with a workable fixative to bring the ink line into sharper relief... this must be done carefully as any spray can change the subtle coloring one has achieved. If I don't use spray, I must be cautious with the original, as any dampness can ruin the color.
NORMA:
What importance does the Human Figure have in your work?
MWK:
I have been taught since High School the Human Figure is the key to Art. Even when no figure is present in the piece it still must relate to the viewer in human terms. Most of my work has the figure as the central element, and my best work redefines the human in the context of the picture. In my early work, I concentrated on the world I was drawing, then added the figures in, as if they were tourists. For the past 20 years, the figure begins the art process and the world grows around it.
NORMA:
Tell us about the Metropolis Illustrations.
MWK:
I first read Metropolis in 1962, in an Ace Science Fiction paperback, and fell in love with the language and scope of the story. It became a book I would reread many times, often reading chapters aloud to my friends. I never thought to try to illustrate it until a fanzine editor asked if I would try to visualize "Freder's Dream," a fevered vision of The Whore of Babylon telling Death and the 7 Deadly Sins to march into the giant metropolis, destroying it. I got as far as a sketch, then choked.
Years later i was able to suggest illustrating Metropolis to a new book company and spent the best part of a year delving into the imagery... I still believe I could add twice as many illustrations to that book and not satisfy my need to honor it.
NORMA:
What is your relation to the universe created by Tolkien?
MWK:
I first read The Lord of the Rings about a year after I first read Metropolis. It, too, became a book that I would read over and over, and, like Metropolis, I never thought to illustrate it. I'd done some crabbed little drawings on a letter I sent to J.R.R. Tolkien, but the world and the characters were beyond my 1964 talents.
Fourteen years later I did a series of pencil drawings and offered them to Ballantine books, with an equal amount of art from my close friend Steve Hickman, in an attempt to acquire the commission for the 1979 JRR Tolkien calendar. The calendar went to others and my art was put away for some years. Then Steve Smith, a publisher friend, wanting to do a series of Tolkien-inspired prints, sent copies of the work to Jane Johnston, the Tolkien Representative in the UK. He was denied the print deal, but years later, Jane contacted him to see if I'd be interested in doing the 1994 calendar. As overwhelming as the task seemed, I said "yes" immediately. Using the drawings from 1978, I drew and painted 11 of the 12 pictures from September '92 to February '93. To this day, the illustrations are the best series of pictures I've ever made.
I still read The Lord of the Rings about once a year.