Comic Artists Grin as Hollywood Turns Kids’ Stuff Green

Comic books and the movies are in vogue, what with front-page Wall Street Journal stories and features in American Film magazine and other publications.

And, if a few San Diego comic artists have anything to say about it, they’ll be right in the middle of the action.

Hollywood and the comics have been using each other at least since the days of Buck Rogers, but Warner Brothers’ $30-million “Batman,” starring Michael Keaton, is kicking off a spate of new adventure films based on comic book characters. Local artists are hoping some of the big Hollywood bucks and new respectability will be flowing south.

The two comic book giants, Marvel and DC, have headquarters in New York, but the miracles of fax and Federal Express allow artists to live almost anywhere. San Diego’s weather and the annual ComicCon, one of the nation’s largest comic conventions, have attracted a small but growing comic community.

Cashing In on the Craze

Brent Anderson, 34, is one of the first of San Diego’s artists to cash in directly. Anderson has worked on such projects as an X-Men graphic novel (sort of a deluxe comic book), Somerset Holmes (a femme fatale private eye), the Punisher and, yes, The Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters.

Last winter, he was picked to create the art for the comic adaptation of a $10-million screen version of the Punisher, starring Dolph Lundgren.

This kind of work can turn what many think is kid stuff into very adult dollars. Payment schemes in the comic industry vary, but usually combine a page rate with incentives like royalties. The more a book sells, the more an artist can make.

“I picked up on the Punisher job because it’s a very popular comic right now,” Anderson said in a recent interview. “If you work regularly for Marvel, you can make $2,500 per issue, and you figure a book comes out monthly, and that’s how much you can make in a year. It’s not unfeasible for some artists to do two or three a month. Some can make up to $100,000 a year.”

“I wish I was able to get that when I was drawing,” said Marvel Comics founding father Stan Lee, reached at a hotel in Boston. According to Lee and Anderson, today’s comic artists also benefit from changes in comic rights.

Thanks partly to the policies of San Diego’s now-defunct Pacific Comics, which pioneered the trend, some artists can claim ownership of new characters. To option the rights to make a movie based on one of these characters can run anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000. And that’s before the movie makes a penny.

Artist Not Holding Breath

That’s not bad for a self-trained artist like Anderson, who dreamed of drawing comic books since age 12. But, even with the Punisher adaptation, Anderson isn’t holding his breath for great things to come out of the dozens of comic-hero films.

“To be perfectly honest, I heard that movie tie-ins never help the sale of comics. When the Superman movies came out, I don’t think they expanded the base of comic book customers. It doesn’t really spill over. I wish it did.”

Oceanside artist Jerry Bingham, 35, would seem to be in the best position to capitalize on the marriage between movies and comics, having produced a best-selling Batman graphic novel , Son of the Demon , among his dozens of other books. (Graphic novels are printed on better paper than comics and include more pages.) Bingham agrees with Anderson.

“It won’t be a revolution of any sort,” he said. “But it may have an effect for a while.”

Fabian Nicieza of Marvel’s New York office, hopes Anderson and Bingham are wrong about the tie-in effect.

“We’re trying to tag into it and ride it,” said Nicieza in a telephone interview. “We would love to tag the movie audience into the comic book stores and feed off the interest of the movie to turn them into comic book readers.”

But Marvel’s Lee doesn’t think films have much effect on the comic book audience either way. He thought a live-action Spiderman television series was “pretty bad,” but he didn’t notice a drop in comic book sales.

“Comic book readers are an unusual and wonderful breed,” said Lee. “Nothing can shake their loyalties.”

Chances for a Boom

Lee said the chances for a comic book boom are better when the process is reversed and heroes start out in the movies.

“Now, we have the opportunity to create new ideas, super-heroes and concepts for movies. There are so many projects, we can create brand new ones and start them out in the movies or networks, then put out the comic book based on that concept.”

“Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” are two films that have spawned their own comic books.

Scott Williams and Whilce Portacio, both 29, are two San Diego artists who have worked on the Punisher books. They think “Batman” could be a double-edged sword.

“If it does poorly,” Williams said, “it will kill a lot of other projects.”

“In my opinion, a lot of the things that have come out in the past have not quite matched what we try to do in the comics,” Portacio said. “As a little kid, I would go see the movies, and I was disappointed. They weren’t the same super-heroes.”

Ironically, Portacio, who has also worked on Power Pack (a group of child mutants fighting for justice), is now working on a book written by Steve Gerber, the creator of Howard the Duck, probably the biggest bomb of any comic book character on the silver screen.

Comic Book Liaison

Warner Brothers is doing everything it can to make sure “Batman” succeeds, not the least of which is communicating with the comic book world. The studio has assigned a special liaison, Jeff Walker, to merchandise Batman goods to comic book stores and to attend comic and science-fiction conventions, such as ComicCon, partly to reassure fans that Batman will not be a wimpy imitation of the fearsome comic book character.

The tactic seems to have worked.

“We have gotten so much stuff (merchandise) we don’t know what to do with it,” said Jack Dickens, owner of Comic Castle in Hillcrest. Dickens sold more than $1,000 worth of Batman T-shirts in March, and his overall sales are up by 25%. He credits the new films for at least some of that rise.

Jackie Estrada, a board member of ComicCon, sees a danger of overkill.

“The way this Batman stuff is being hyped now, people are going to be Batmanned-out by the time the movie comes.”

That has happened before, and it hurt comic book sales. “I was told by Warner Books that five out of the six Superman comics (based on the movie) did not sell,” said Charles Lippincott, a producer preparing a film featuring comic hero Judge Dredd.

Eric Shanower, 25, an Ocean Beach artist, isn’t counting on a windfall, either. Instead, he hopes the films will bring increased acceptance of comics.

Shanower both writes and creates the art for some of his books. He has worked on DC and Marvel super-heroes, but is best known for his Wizard of Oz books for First Comics of Chicago. He is about to begin work on a six-part “sword and sorcery” miniseries plotted by the renowned French comic artist Moebius.

“The fact that the movies are mainly based on violent super-hero types makes me think they will reenforce stereotypes of comic books as juvenile violent fantasies,” Shanower said. He hopes the movies will draw attention to his craft and the fact that there is more going on in comics than POW!, BLAM! and SMACK!

That may be a lot to ask since comic book heroes, like Punisher and Wolverine of the X-Men, owe their appeal to their status as psychotic killers.

The real benefits for local artists might not be in more comic book work. Increasing numbers of comic book writers and artists are finding their way to Los Angeles and the movie business. Portacio is trying to break into film, and Bingham, who moved to San Diego to pursue film work between honing his fine-art skills, “would like to hear from Warner Brothers.”

Works of Art

Lippincott, a longtime comic book fan, sees increased acceptance of such artists in Hollywood. His film, “Comic Book Confidential,” which showed at the American Film Institute’s AFI-Fest, introduces Americans to comics as art, they way many are looked upon in Europe and Japan.

Already, former artists like Mike Ploog are successful storyboardists, artists’ whose drawings provide a blueprint for a movie.

Frank Miller, creator of The Dark Knight Returns, the best-selling Batman graphic novel, is writing a “Robocop” sequel. Another comic artist, Jim Starenko, did production designs for “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

According to Lee, the more that comic artists can be used in film, the more true the characters in the movies will be.

“Whenever a producer would like to work with our people, I would like for that to happen,” he said. “I have suggested it, but it hasn’t really caught fire. On ‘Captain America’ with (producer) Menachem Golan, I’m trying to get Jim Starenko to do storyboards.”

Marvel’s Nicieza said, “If the Punisher movie adaptation sells 200,000 copies it will affect Brent Anderson in a very positive way. New people might be looking at that. . . . Next year, Brent Anderson could be storyboarding Lucas’ next movie.”

Maybe, maybe not.

“I’ve been asked on several occasions to do storyboards since my work is fairly cinematic,” Anderson said. “But I refuse to live in L.A. Being in charge of writing my own comics is like being a mini-movie director. I get to be the whole thing.”

Even if hopes for more money or new careers fade, the local artists seem assured of one thing.

“It’s a more exciting time to be a comic artist,” said Portacio. “Some of the creators who drew the comics I grew up on made up a story to hide the fact they drew comics. Now, you have a 50-50 chance of someone saying ‘Oh, that’s really interesting.’ ”