Anthony Marques is fairly busy nowadays. Not solely is the artist operating The Kubert Faculty, however he’s additionally penciling DC’s all-ages e-book Batman: The Audio Adventures, a seven-issue companion sequence to the HBO Max scripted podcast.
Marques chatted with The Beat about drawing the Darkish Knight and what’s occurring inside The Kubert Faculty nowadays.
Deanna Destito: So what’s occurring with Batman: The Audio Adventures?
Anthony Marques: Batman is numerous enjoyable. I’m having a extremely nice time doing it proper now. We’re actually proud of the way in which that’s popping out. So many cool characters, huge characters. All the principle villains are on this. And also you get to attract Batman and Robin preventing them. It’s actually a dream come true type of a job.
It’s seven points written by Dennis McNicholas, and it has art work on my own on pencils and J. Bone doing the inks and Dave Stewart doing colours. So it’s actually a fairly unbelievable crew placing all of it collectively from editorial all the way in which right down to letters [by Ferran Delgado].
It’s based mostly off of the audio journey present, which is up on HBO Max, and from there you possibly can see all of the completely different character designs that I did. And season two simply launched, I consider. So we’re actually excited with the place that is going, and this bridges the hole between seasons one and two. It’s actually stunning and unhappy and heroic and the whole lot that you really want within the Batman story.
Destito: So this sequence is principally in canon between the 2 seasons for the present? The place does that match within the general canon of Batman?
Marques: That’s what’s actually enjoyable about this story; it type of pulls from all of the completely different features of Batman all through time. We type of joke about that. That is type of Batman ‘66 meets Quentin Tarantino as a result of it’s not campy, but it surely’s additionally not excessive critical, which I believe generally it may be nowadays.
It is a actually type of a normal Batman for everyone, the place for those who’re not likely updated with what’s occurring, you possibly can choose this up and actually simply take pleasure in. You possibly can learn it along with your children, you can provide it to anyone, and you’ve got a extremely good expertise. Dennis, like I mentioned, is writing a extremely nice tackle the character. Batman and Robin are actually Batman and Robin the way in which that you’d anticipate their voices to be, and all of the characters are true to who they’re, and it’s simply actually enjoyable.
Destito: Has the podcast been picked up for one more season?
Marques: Nicely, season two simply got here out, so I’m hoping. I believe it’s an incredible present. In the event you haven’t checked it out, I’d say give it a hear. It’s actually enjoyable. Similar to what I’m speaking about with the comedian. It goes from being type of humorous and critical to being actually scary at instances. Their takes on the Penguin and the Joker are fairly scary, so it’s excellent. I hope it simply retains on going. It expands. I’d like to see a complete universe of those sort of reveals.
Destito: Any plans for different heroes to get a podcast like this one and in the identical universe?
Marques: I positive hope so, and I hope that I get to be the man that pulls all of it.
Destito: Favourite Batvillain?
Marques: Okay, I’m going to do two. Killer Croc for the e-book that we’re doing proper now. Killer Croc is so good. Such a tragic character. He’s actually enjoyable to attract. I ought to by no means learn opinions, however I learn a overview, and certainly one of them mentioned that he appears to be like like a muppet, and I type of love that.
I don’t wish to be generic and be like, oh, the Joker, however I suppose Mr. Freeze. However then, that’s The Animated Collection model. That’s why once we’re speaking about this sequence specifically, we get to drag from the whole lot and do their variations of the characters that we actually love.
Destito: There are so many incarnations of his rogue’s gallery, too. Do you’ve a least favourite model of a villain?
Marques: You realize, I believe they’re all fairly good. Everyone has their very own type of tackle issues, and I suppose it is determined by the story that’s being instructed. And so long as it really works inside that story, then I’m okay with it. I do know that’s such a cop-out reply! That’s not juicy in any respect. It’s like, “This man has some actual lame materials, he likes Nilla wafers in all probability.”
Destito: Nillas are scrumptious, by the way in which.
Marques: They’re scrumptious. These are certainly one of my favourite cookies. Right here’s your headline, speaking Batman and Nilla Wafers.
Destito: What else is on deck for you in comics?
Marques: We’re additionally engaged on the Stan Lee Simply Think about universe. There’s a giant one-shot popping out in December so I’m engaged on one of many tales for that. I simply acquired requested to work on one other secret venture over at Dynamite, and I’m actually enthusiastic about that as properly, however all the time trying to hopefully get to work on Superman sooner or later as a result of that’s the dream. That’s the objective. As soon as I get there, then I’ll sit down, eat my Nilla wafers, and cease drawing without end.
[The Dynamite series is] fairly tremendous secret, however I believe for those who’re listening to what they’ve been doing just lately, you’ll determine it out.
Destito: Like Disney just lately?!
Marques: I imply, that’s a fairly good route to go. I really like going to Florida.
Destito: So what’s occurring over on the college?
Marques: We have now so many nice new packages occurring. We have now our full-time program, which has been open for 47 years, and we now have a bunch of various choices for college kids. To allow them to do it in individual or they’ll do it on-line.
We have now our on-line research, that are going to be kicking off for the autumn, the week of November 7. So these are open and obtainable for registration on our web site. We have now our Saturday morning children courses that kick off each single month, and people are a good way to get younger artists on the market utilizing their creativeness and enjoying round with designing completely different characters and studying about narrative artwork.
After which we even have a model new program which we haven’t talked about anyplace but, which goes to be our grownup skilled program, and that’s going to be three days per week and have some actually unbelievable instructors. And it’s going to run from January till Might.
Destito: Taylor Esposito works for you continue to, proper? He has numerous lettering courses. And Amy Chu?
Marques: Taylor continues to be there. Amy too. Maria Sanapo and Marco Santucci really simply got here out from Italy, and so they really taught an in-person and on-line workshop on the college. We additionally get to have a bunch of various visitor audio system all year long. Andy Kubert got here out. Brittany Holzherr from DC. After which Karen Berger was on the college yesterday from Berger Books over at Darkish Horse.
We have now Mike Marts, who’s going to be educating for our on-line research programs within the fall. He’s educating a category referred to as Editorial Methods. So I believe that that’s a extremely unbelievable new class that individuals can choose up and study the right way to get your sequence entering into the correct route and guaranteeing that you simply’re placing out a high quality e-book. Suzannah Rowntree, who’s an animator from California, she’s going to be educating our fundamentals of animation class for on-line research. After which we even have some returning favorites like Abe Audish who’s a director for Cartoon Community. He’s educating storyboarding. Fernando Ruiz, he’s going to be educating Primary Drawing. And Emma Kubert, who teaches narratives for on-line research as properly.
It’s a industrial artwork college. So now some individuals would possibly even say, properly, what’s industrial artwork? What we do is train you alternative ways of stepping into artwork that pays. So once you go right into a grocery store and also you go searching, all of these various things that you simply see had been completed by designers and artists. Each package deal, the whole lot that you simply see all over the place has an artist concerned. And so we train you all these kind of jobs. We train you graphic design, we train you advertising, we train you promoting. We train you storyboarding, narrative artwork, sequential storytelling, which is utilizing your art work to inform a narrative.
We would like you to be hireable. That’s so vital to us on the college. We additionally created an artwork company to start out getting our college students working as quickly as they graduate, and even when they’re college students.
Destito: What else ought to individuals learn about The Kubert Faculty?
Marques: I’d say that one of many different issues that individuals neglect concerning the college is that we even have an unbelievable artwork retailer. The Kubert Artwork Retailer has been round nearly so long as the college itself, and we’ve got a few of the most top-notch provides that you possibly can get which are on the market.
We even have our personal comedian store situated on the facility as properly. Dewey’s Comedian Metropolis. And that’s one other nice useful resource for our college students not solely simply to go down and choose up comics–and we do that for our college and for the scholars–to really choose up comics and put them out as a result of we would like the scholars to know what’s occurring within the business, see what the newest traits are, concentrate on who’s engaged on what, know the editors which are working on the market. So we really incorporate that into our enterprise class to verify to convey the scholars down there and take note of what’s occurring within the business.
Batman: Audio Adventures #2 is out this week!
