Interview: Mark Wheatley

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!

PRIDE 2020 INTERVIEWS: Steve Cummings

Today’s PRIDE 2020 Interview is with artist Steve Cummings.

Hi Steve! Hope you’re staying well during the current pandemic lockdown. What are you doing to stay creatively motivated during these unusual times? 

There are definitely pros to social distancing during this pandemic if you are a creative person.  I am immersing myself in several TV shows that have been on my radar to check out, most notably ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,’ whose period decor and Beatnik bar inspired my newest art piece. Lately I’ve been drawn to watching classic or ‘cult’ melodramas from the 1950s-1970s that were aimed primarily for women (or gay men), as well as 1970s horror films with an occult slant. For music I’ve been listening to a lot of West Coast Jazz, 1960s Bossa Nova and lounge music.  Curiously, as usual, the work of current exhibiting fine artists has had no influence.  Recently I’ve been drawn to some of David Hockney’s paintings, and Edward Hopper always inspires me, yet music and films have sparked ideas and themes more than the work of other visual artists.

Since June is Pride Month, I have to ask: how does being gay influence or inform your work?

Being gay has definitely informed my work over the years in several ways.  In addition to identifying as gay I also identify as ‘two-spirit’ and ‘Queer.’  As a two-spirit I believe you can look at all of the characters I’ve portrayed in my images and you’ll see me in all of them, both the males and the females - my complicated sexuality, my repressed desires, and my identification with being (at times) victimized, misunderstood, oppressed or liberated through rebellion. People say that the eyes of my characters say so much, and I agree.  There are equal amounts of vulnerability, fragility and perseverance in those eyes.  I believe that having a Queer sensibility ultimately gives you an enormous capacity for empathy and identification with the journeys of marginalized people (either due to race, class or sexual orientation).  In my art my characters are repeatedly in the process of being ‘caught’ in a moment - and that moment is often one of self-reflection or enlightenment.

I’m always interested in hearing about creative people’s processes. Can you walk us through the inspiration and process for your latest work?

Most of my inspiration for my images come from the journeys and experiences of individuals I refer to as ‘The Other,’ people who exist on the margins or fringes of conventional society. Many of my creations will show one or two characters in their perceived feelings of isolation or panic amid their surroundings.  Many of my environments evoke the past.  I’m drawn to Bohemian culture (and counter-culture), Mid-Century modern America in the 1950s through the 1970s, the hedonistic Disco era, carnival life, the Occult and the Great Depression. I also love vintage photos showing LGBT couples pre-1970s, when their lives were closeted from general society.  Over the past two years, I’ve been much more interested in portraying what I call ‘women on the verge’ - ladies (or transgender individuals) who are either heading toward a nervous breakdown, a psychic transformation, or a personal liberation.  I usually get a preliminary image in my head as to what the finished artwork will look like, and of course, this visual model will be tweaked and reworked and changed when I actually do the creating.  I’m primarily inspired by books, music, and films - especially those with a prevalent and bold visual language and a dynamic sense of color. In my latest piece, ‘Bossa Nova Beatnik,’ I married two passions of mine - Brazilian jazz and rebellious women from mid-century America - into a personal ‘snapshot’ of a gal (either alone in her house or hosting a party) dancing to one of her Stan Getz samba records.  Her eyes express vulnerability and a wide open hunger to seize her life on her own terms; her dress and body language express a defiance and possibly a future LGBT / Women’s Rights advocate.

Do you work on multiple projects at a time, or do you concentrate on one piece to completion?

Usually I concentrate on one piece to completion.  I work digitally now, on my Apple iPad, using the Procreate APP with my Apple Pencil.  It normally take me several weeks to complete a new work.

Where can interested people find your work online/what are your social media accounts? 

My artwork can be seen on my website: www.s-cummingsart.com, on Facebook under Stevie Artiste or Art For the Wild At Heart, and on Instagram under auteur4489 or stevecummingsart.

Steve Cummings was born in Orange, NJ in 1968 and raised in West Orange.  In 2001 he moved to Keyport, NJ where he currently resides. He’s been drawing and painting since Kindergarten and studied art throughout high school, attended college at Montclair State College and received a BA in Fine Arts in 1992.  Two years later he returned to Montclair State (University) and earned a Post BA degree in Art Education. Since the early 1990s Steve has exhibited in various galleries throughout NJ, including (most recently) La Vie Galerie in Livingston, the QSpot LGBT Center in Ocean Grove, Kiss My Art Gallery in Asbury Park, Gallery U in Westfield, Trinity in Keyport, Rockpaperscissors in Asbury Park, and various exhibits at the Mitchell Sanborn Gallery in Keyport, and Lena DiGangi Gallery and Studio in Totowa.

MEGAN LAVEY-HEATON and ISABELLE MELANCON OF NAMESAKE - Interview

It’s a week for welcoming back previous interviewees! Today, I’m catching up with Megan Lavey-Heaton and Isabelle Melancon, creators of the webcomic NAMESAKE. It’s been a while since my last interview with them; we’d meant to do one during their second Kickstarter project, but that sort of fell through. So here they are to talk to us about how that went and what’s upcoming:

ANTHONY: You successfully funded the print version of Namesake Book Two not so long ago. How is the production process coming, and when will the book be available to the general public?

ISA: Production is pretty much over. I re-colored a couple of the pages, polished it up, added an extra story… and then Megan did all the book putting-together part. The toughest part for me is always to design the covers. And I had to design 3 this time. Whew! Since we had the hardcover version coming out with this Kickstarter too. But they turned out great too. The books should be available in August/September if all goes well, but we might open pre-orders before then.

ANTHONY: Are there plans already afoot for collecting book three in print form?

ISA: Book three is almost fully posted online, so as soon as that’s done, plans for the next Kickstarter will probably start.

ANTHONY: What’s your process been like for transferring from web content to the printed page? Did it change at all between books one and two?

ISA: Well, the pages have a pretty standard format, so making the jump from digital to print wasn’t that hard. I perfected my drawing techniques and scanning techniques, and Megan started doing allt he lettering in indesign to make the whole process go more smoothly. Our processes kinda changed about half-way into book one, so book 2 went considerably better.

ANTHONY: Where do we find the characters at the start of book two?

MEG: Emma is still entrenched in Oz at the beginning of book 2. We take a slight detour to check in on Alice and Lewis in the 1800s, then Ben, Elaine, Fred and the Calliope staff in the modern era, along with the introduction of some new cast members who will be very important in the future. For now though, most of this book tells the bulk of Emma’s adventure in Oz.

ISA: And Warrick’s backstory is revealed in book 2. Everyone loves a good tragic backstory.

ANTHONY: How much material will be in the print edition of book two versus the online edition? Any new special extras?

MEG: Book 2 contains Intermission 1 and chapters 6-10. We are about to start chapter 13 in the online edition. We have a book bonus story with Warrick and a Kickstarter-only story with Chiseri and Adora.

ANTHONY: Has your collaborative process changed at all since you started Namesake?

MEG: Not off the top of our head. The machine isn’t broken!

ISA: Nope, if anything, we just have MORE fun. Because the story is gradually becoming more engaging and creative.

ANTHONY: How about your individual creative processes?

MEG: I know for me, I have switched to doing the lettering of the pages in InDesign. Makes it vastly easier when it comes to creating the books!

ISA: I started doing more storyboarding and I have a notebook listing important visual details for all characters… to make sure I don’t forget anything! I plan to make character turnarounds too. It’s more of a process used in animation, but it helps not to draw someone off-model.

ANTHONY: Has the story continued to play out according to your original master plan, or has it taken any interesting side turns?

MEG: It’s definitely taking interesting side turns. For example, Selva has become one of the main cast when originally she wasn’t supposed to have much of a role beyond chapter 1. Nose is another unexpected developed character. We still have the master plan, but we’re letting the different stories develop organically and adjust as needed.

ISA: Characters change a lot, but the main plot stays stable. I think it’s nice that characters are kinda “telling” us who they want to be.

ANTHONY: What other projects are you both working on?

MEG: I’ll let Isa answer that one!

ISA: We have a couple of things we wish to start. I have a few ideas for graphic novels for kids and pre-teens, because it’s an age group I love to write for. Mostly fantasy stuff. Megan has a few ideas that are really exciting too, but she tends to write more for adults, with police mysteries and diabolical curses. I guess we’ll flip a coin and see who gets to choose first. On the short term, we plan to do a couple of short comics to try different things as a team.

ANTHONY: A slight tweak on my usual closing question: If you could only recommend one of the books your characters are based on/connected to, which one would it be?

ISA: Probably a complete book of Andersen’s works. I love his fairy tales. They are my favorites.