Today as part of my on-going series focused on the writers, artists, and publishers who will be appearing at Pulpfest this week, I chat with artist Mark Wheatley.
Mark Wheatley holds the Eisner, Inkpot, Golden Lion, Mucker, Gem and Speakeasy awards and nominations for the Harvey award and the Ignatz award. He is also an inductee to the Overstreet Hall of Fame. His work has often been included in the annual Spectrum selection of fantastic art and has appeared in private gallery shows, The Norman Rockwell Museum, Toledo Museum of Art, Huntington Art Museum, Fitchburg Art Museum, James A. Michener Art Museum, the Rice Gallery and the Library of Congress where several of his originals are in the LoC permanent collection. He has designed for Lady Gaga, created set pieces for The Black Eyed Peas, contributed designs for ABC’s Beauty and the Beast, and Square Roots, as well as Super Clyde, The Millers and 2 Broke Girls on CBS. Several of his original graphic novels have been optioned for motion pictures and television. His most recent print projects include the Edgar Rice Burroughs Visions of Adventure portfolio, Songs of Giants, Doctor Cthulittle, Tarzan and the Dark Heart of Time, Swords Against the Moon Men, The Philip Jose Farmer Centennial Collection, Mine! and Wild Stars. Past creations include Return Of The Human, Ez Street, Lone Justice, Mars, Breathtaker, Black Hood, Prince Nightmare, Hammer Of The Gods, Blood Of The Innocent, Frankenstein Mobster, Miles The Monster, Skultar and Titanic Tales. His interpretations of established characters such as Tarzan, Dick Tracy, The Green Hornet, The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, Jonny Quest, Dr. Strange, The Flash, Captain Action, Argus, The Spider, Stargate Atlantis, The Three Stooges, Doctor Who and Torchwood have brought them to life for a new generation of readers. He has written for TV, illustrated books, designed cutting-edge role-playing games, hosted a weekly radio program, and was an early innovator of the on-line daily comic strip form.
Your cult classic mini-series Breathtaker, co-created with Marc Hempel, is being remastered and released in trade paperback this fall, including some new material. I’d love to hear about the process of bringing it back, and of creating the new material.
It is hard to believe it has been 35 years since Breathtaker first saw print! Breathtaker was one of the very first creator-owned books to come out under the DC Comics banner—though it took some heavy lifting to make that possible. Our attorney, Richard Theibert, spent more than a year in negotiations with DC’s Lillian Laserson to hammer out a new kind of publishing agreement. What came out of those talks would eventually become the blueprint for creator-owned contracts at DC, opening the door for many others after us.
The series launched as a four-issue Prestige Format run and took off quickly, going into multiple reprints and even earning a Harvey Award nomination. It helped shine a light on both Marc Hempel’s work and mine—we were each honored with Inkpot Awards, thanks in large part to Breathtaker's success. When DC decided to collect the series, that edition made history as the first book to carry the new Vertigo imprint. Over the next ten years, it would go through seven printings.
We had big plans for a sequel—but after our editor, Mike Gold, moved on from DC, those plans stalled. Eventually, Marc and I got the rights back. For a moment, it looked like Breathtaker was headed to the big screen: Sony optioned the property, with Kate Hudson lined up to star. But as happens in Hollywood, a change in leadership at the studio sent the project into limbo.
Then something remarkable happened. In 2008, the Norman Rockwell Museum added Breathtaker to their touring LitGraphic exhibition, showcasing the book alongside work by Eisner, Crumb, and Ditko. That exhibit turned out to be their most attended show ever. Later, the Rockwell created a full-scale solo exhibition devoted to Breathtaker, which—after pandemic delays—finally opened at McDaniel College in 2022.
Back in 2014, Marc and I turned to Indiegogo to support a full remaster of the book. Titan Comics came on board as publisher, and we were ready to roll—until a series of curveballs hit: shifting distributors, a global pandemic, and multiple industry slowdowns. We even had the book on press in 2020 when the world came to a halt.
Ironically, every delay gave us time to go further and deeper with the material. What we’ve finally produced is not just a reissue but a definitive edition—a fully remastered Breathtaker with nearly 80 pages of bonus material. That includes a brand-new story, rare behind-the-scenes content, and an introduction by the legendary Walter Simonson.
Marc Hempel and I are good friends and we get to hang out and catch dinner on an irregular schedule. But we have not had any real opportunity or inclination to collaborate in decades. But this new edition of Breathtaker got us thinking about a cool new story featuring THE MAN.
MAKE WAY FOR THE MAN #138 is the in-universe comic book from Breathtaker brought to life. In the original story, The Man isn’t just a government super-agent—he’s also a full-blown media franchise. He’s got a TV show, video games, toys, branded apparel… and, yes, even his own long-running comic book. In one scene, a fan even asks him to sign a copy of MAKE WAY FOR THE MAN #137.
So to mark Breathtaker's 35th anniversary, Marc and I teamed up again—our first real collaboration in decades—to finally create issue #138. We thought: why not make it real? It’s our chance to explore the absurdity of The Man’s mythos from inside his own over-the-top world.
It’s a wild mix of slick spy action and tongue-in-cheek commentary—very James Bond, and very meta. We leaned into the fun, even spoofing those old Hostess snack cake ads with a custom parody strip starring The Man. This is a full comic, not just a throwaway extra.
And to top it off, we brought in the amazing Mike Oeming to create a special variant cover—his take on The Man is fantastic and adds another layer of cool to the project.
The book is already out in Germany and Spain. We’ve had the chance to hold the hardback Breathtaker in our hands! And having seen those editions, I can say with confidence: this is the version we always dreamed of making.
BREATHTAKER: Love, Death, Sex, Power will be on sale in the US on September 3rd.
Blood of the Innocent was my first exposure to your work and Marc Hempel’s. Is there any chance that we’ll get a nice trade paperback collected edition?
No current plans. But it is something that Marc, Rickey Shanklin and I would love to make happen.
What drew you to art? Who were your earliest artistic influences? And who inspires you currently?
Comic books introduced me to art. The earliest artist I could identify was Steve Ditko on Spider-Man. Then one day I discovered the Flash Gordon comics Al Williamson was drawing. Those comics had ads for the Nostalgia Press Flash Gordon collection by Alex Raymond. I got that for Christmas. Once I discovered Raymond, I was on track to discover all the classic Golden Age illustrators, starting with NC Wyeth! To this day, Wyeth is still my favorite artist. But I am inspired by everything! From impressionism to modern installations, music, film, audio recordings, all of it bubbles away in my head. And hey, the current Flash Gordon creator, Dan Schkade is a new inspiration! Maybe I owe it all to Flash?
You’ve worked in many different mediums over the years. Do you have a favorite, a “go-to”? And has that changed over the course of your career?
For real media painting, my medium of choice is watercolor and gouache. I’ve been getting an increasing number of gigs for my line art. For that I use Japanese pens and brushes and ink. Zebra brush pens, Kuretake water brushes, and Sumi ink. For ink work, I prefer a hot press surface. Pencil works better for me if the surface has a tooth. But most of my painting now is digital, if only for schedules and to satisfy my clients who always want changes! But I’ve come to enjoy working digitally. And as my eyes get older, it is a real advantage to be able to enlarge area of a painting as I work! For digital, I have a Cintiq and I work in Photoshop, using my own custom brushes. To get the kind of detail, texture, and color subtlety I expect, most of my digital paintings are about 10’ tall at 300dpi. I offer museum quality giclee prints at conventions and signings, and you can easily see just how “real” my paintings actually are.
I absolutely love your painted work (the Doctor Who covers, the book covers for Meteor House and Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc, Doctor Cthulittle, the book of poetry by pulp-era writers (Songs of Giants), and so much more). I’d be interested to hear about your process of taking them from original concept to finished project.
I keep a sketch book. I generate ideas there. But often, too often, clients come to me with little lead time on the deadline. So, I take as much time as I can to research the piece. This means I spend, sometimes, days scouring the internet, searching for photos, videos, anything that gives me some accurate reference for what I am expected to create. Then, depending on the budget, if there is money for roughs, I come up with some basic ideas, compositions. If approved, I move to working up the final piece. If there is time (there never is) I will sketch some figures. Not a full composition, but some of the pieces of the image. Working out emotions, impressions. When I have something that I’m happy with, I will turn that into a full drawing, maybe taking it to an inked piece. I’ll scan that and start painting. But more often than not, there is no time or budget. And I go from making a few sketches to drawing on the Cintiq, right in Photoshop and the image forms in the fastest way I can manage. Gradually drifting from sloppy, chunky bits, pieces I’m cutting and pasting and distorting until it starts to work for me.
Usually, when I begin a new painting, there is a moment when I think, “Hey this time I think I finally have an amazing piece developing!” Then a few hours later I think, “I can’t draw. I can’t paint! Why do I even try?” But I keep at it, getting rid of anything that offends me, until I finally think, “Maybe I can make this work. It won’t be too bad.” I work on it longer, and finally a moment comes after I’ve been staring at the painting for a long time and have not seen anything I can do to it. And it is done.
This is going to be weird to say, but I’m always sort of happy when I hear that even the professionals whose work I love have those moments of doubt during the process of creation. Thanks for sharing that.
Finally, do you have anything in the works you’d like folks to know about?
I’ve got a couple of major projects underway that I can’t talk about just yet—NDAs and all that—but what I can say is that I’m especially excited for people to finally get their hands on the new edition of Breathtaker. It’s been a long time coming, and this is the most complete version we’ve ever done. There are some fantastic events tied to the release, especially at Baltimore Comic-Con this October.
Before that, we’re kicking things off with a launch party on September 6th at Beyond Comics in Frederick, Maryland. It’s a great space, and we’re expecting a big crowd—so if you’re anywhere nearby, definitely come by. Marc Hempel and I will be there, and it’s shaping up to be a really fun celebration.
In the studio, I’ve been deep into work on The Land That Time Forgot for ERB Books. I’ve painted the cover for the first volume and I’m working on a number of interior illustrations now. I’m also illustrating a new book by my Doctor Cthulittle collaborator, G. D. Falksen—it’s been a fantastic collaboration. And I’m continuing to contribute covers for the Robert E. Howard Foundation’s Ultimate series, which has been a real honor.
Next on the calendar is PulpFest, where I’ll be giving a presentation with Doug Klauba on the “Masters of Tarzan Illustration.” I’m really looking forward to it—it’s always a great chance to connect with people who love this material as much as I do.
Thanks again for taking the time to chat, Mark! See you in just a few days at Pulpfest! And readers, don’t forget you can see more of Mark’s work on the Mark Wheatley Gallery website!
Readers, it is not too late to register for and attend Pulpfest 2025 (THE pulp magazine-focused convention in the Northeast) and the other three conventions it hosts: FarmerCon (dedicated to the works of Philip Jose Farmer), ERBFest (dedicated to the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs) and DocCon (dedicated to all things Doc Savage related). Check out the Pulpfest website for registration and hotel information!