This interview by Andrea Speed was completed by me on 2/19/03 and posted on 3/12/03 at the Comixtreme web-site. However, the info was lost at the site so I have copied all of the text as it was printed from my original correspondence in order that there be a record of it. Unfortunately, the art thumbnail images that originally accompanied the on-line interview will not be availble here. They were, in order (in color unless stated otherwise): JSA ALL STARS # 1, pp. 8&9/ BP#13, cover/ BP#32, cover/ BP#43, cover/ the Gladiator & Oracle unpublished b&w pin-up/ the Panini BP 2nd Monster Edition cover (b&w)/ the Imperial Guard unpublished b&w pin-up (b&w)/ BP#49, cover/ the Poison Ivy b&w commission/ and the cover to BP#41. 1/22/04 (c) 2004 Bob Almond
1) What is the most common false assumption about what an inker does? There's a tie for 3 assumptions: #1 is that I trace ( this takes the first spot thanks to "Chasing Amy") #2 is 'fill in the blacks' #3 is that I 'color it all in'. I wonder what they think that the colorist does:-) 2) I would assume a good rapport with your penciler makes your job easier. Or does it matter? It matters to me but it's not universal among inkers in general. Some inkers prefer to tackle the pencils on their own without dealing with the other artist for whatever reason. Probably because things can get hairy and it may be best to let the editor know if you have a problem or question and they can contact the penciller if deemed necessary. But not all pencillers care for this practice either, believe it or not. Some would rather that the inker do their own thing without bugging them (at least that's the impression I've gotten once or twice). And some will tell me to just 'faithfully ink what's there and don't change anything'. I tend to naturally be an incredibly 'faithful' inker but this type of rapport doesn't really do me any good. My job as an inker is to enhance the work as much as possible, not trace it. I don't need that kind of pressure and lack of confidence in my skills. But many pencillers do prefer this correspondance. Sal Velluto encourages me to call/email him anytime in case I have any questions about what he's doing with the artwork. He knows I'll be faithful and not alter his work but at the same time he trusts my judgement enough to let me do what I need to do. And his respect and confidence motivates me all the time to boost his work with as many ideas from my inking bag of tricks as I can muster. But if I get a truly 'ambitious' brainstorm I tend to run the idea by him first to play it safe. 3) Do you think inkers are the most overlooked people in comics? If not, who is, or, if so, why? Inkers are overlooked, sure. Readers often don't know what it is that we do and, sometimes, editors don't either. Inkers almost never get that 'headline' status that writers & pencillers get and are rarely a 'selling point' to a product like the other two creators even though a good inker choice can 'make' the art and a poor inker choice can ruin it. But lower on the 'totem pole' are the poor letterers who get almost no recognition whatsoever at times. In the silver-age letterers were credited after the writer and artist(s) but the colorist was not credited until years later. Due to all the advances in the field in computer color the color artist has justifiably been recognized over the years to almost equal status as the illustrators. But the letterers are in the same 'silver-age' status. Probably the most overlooked of all are the artists who do all the post-production work like art corrections, paste-up, design, etc. since they get NO credit at all. 4) Tell me about working with Sal again on JSA and Aquaman. How cool is that! We go from Marvel classics like BLACK PANTHER to these DC icons! Sal and I are just having a ball with it. We've worked almost exclusively now for 5+ years and we've been blessed to assigned to such great projects. 5) You're actually married to Sal, aren't you? No, kidding. But can I start that rumor? I think Rich Johnston already may have:-) 6) Any stories you'd like to tell about Sal that would embarrass the hell out of him if you aired them in a public forum, such as this? Not if I want to reach year six with him:-) 7) What is the difference between what you did on the JSA issues and the JSA All Stars. Just assume I'm a moron. ( What a stretch.) The difference between the two assignments was time. We were hired for JSA ALL STARS right after BLACK PANTHER and we had a comfortable deadline to complete it with (you take 'em when you can get 'em:-)). This allowed us to throw everything into the work. The JSA issue, number 46, which kicked off Johns & Goyer's epic "Princes of Darkness" saga, was a 'fill-in' and the usual nature of fill-ins is that outside artists are needed to put a boost in a late schedule so deadlines can be shorter. Even so, we were allowed reasonable time to get the job done, in fact compareable to our BLACK PANTHER deadlines. No rush jobs from us, no siree! 8) Take out food of choice - Chinese or pizza? Ooh, tough decision. I love 'em both. But Chinese edges out. I could eat pizza every day but would get bored after a few weeks. But Chinese food would probably satisfy me every day ad infinitum:-) 9) Is there any hope at all that the Black Panther Monster Edition TPB,Vol. 1, released in France, will ever get a Stateside release, or equivalent thereof? Would threatening someone help? That would be a dream for me. I believe the 2 Steranko SHIELD trades were originally produced this way oveerseas by Panino Comics and later reformatted in english. So anything is possible. But I think the question would be "can these BP collections by Priest, Sal & Bob sell well enough or like the Steranko ones to warrant it?". I hope it happens one day since this work is the work I'm most proud of in my career to date since the 3 of us had just the right creative chemistry and synergy to make, IMHO, work to be remembered, but none of it, post Marvel Knights, has been collected Stateside to date. Especially since the first volume was a sales success overseas and a second French volume collecting issues 26-37 is in the works and there's a chance they might actually print our remaining issues up to issue 49 in a third volume if all goes well. 10) Who haven't you worked with that you'd love to work with tomorrow? Putting you on the spot here - penciler and writer. And you can only pick one of each. One penciller is easy. My hero George Perez. I did part of a cover over him but I don't think that counts (I hope not since I there's no way I could nail down another SINGLE artist; just read my site's BIO page for my inspirations). One writer is problematic since there are so many I'd love to work with (Nicieza, Stern, Busiek, David,etc.) so I'll just cop out and say Stan the man! (Who wouldn't want to do something with Stan?) 11) What do you think has changed the most in the business -for good or for ill - in the eleven years you've been working in comics? The technology and production quality has advanced so much in that time and the work is probably more sophisticated than ever but the customer/fan base is smaller than it's ever been so even less people are noticing us. 12) What advice would you give to someone who would like to break into the business? Most will probably break in if they have the 3 P's: Patience, Perseverance and Passion. Well, talent helps too but that doesn't fit the 3P's rule:-) Even so, not everyone with this skill and drive will break in because the market is just so competitive. I used to think that the hardest thing was breaking in and then everything would be fine. But I later realized later that the hardest thing wasn't breaking in....it was STAYING in. 13) Any parting thoughts? I'll be attending at least 3 upcoming conventions in the next 6 months at Boston, New York and Charlotte. You can access this info and so much more at my regularly updated website "The Bob Almond Inkwell" at http://www.almondink.com or you can drop by and talk to my at my Comixtreme forum "From the Inkwell". Thanks for your time. :) Thanks, Andrea.