AMBr: Joe, you drew the first Supreme stories that Alan Moore wrote. How do you appraise the work you did back then?
Joe Bennett: I wish I could go back in time and redo it all. [But] the ‘Image Era’ limited my style. I could have done something much better like for instance the issue I did recently for SUPERMAN; that should have been my draughtsmanship for SUPREME.
But Extreme - the Liefeld's studio inside Image (then Maximum Press and then Awesome Comics) - was known to impose a specific art mould, the "Liefeld school", correct?
JB: Yes, back then it was like that, only those who kept to that prevailing style could draw for Image and I never liked that, but I needed to work. I have always been a fan of the classic in comics: Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, John Buscema, Garcia Lopez. It was a pain for me to draw in that Image style because I have always had a good narrative, but there was no room for good storytelling, it had to be just the visual and the thrashing. It was hard, but I adapted fast and soon enough I went back to my original style.
And how was it, to work with Alan Moore scripts? Was his level of detailing very high?
JB: Yes, it was enormous. And I always say that I feared changing anything, because if he asks you that a dog crosses the road in the background, you get scared not to draw it… Who knows if that dog is going to become a cosmic entity in the future of the script? [laughs] But it was very good, it was a lesson on how to do scripts.
You were already on it before Alan Moore got on board. How was this change of scriptwriter?
JB: I even thought I would be out… But no, I stayed. And it caused me diarrhoea for three days, seriously… I was nervous.
Did drawing for Alan Moore demand more time? How long did it take you to make a single issue?
JB: No, what took me time was to read the script. There were four sheets for each page, or even more. But as usual, I finished an issue in twenty days.
You were one of the few Brazilian artists to have worked with Alan Moore. How important is it to your career, in your opinion?
JB: I think I was the only one to have done a script directly from him, because if I remember well, Avatar launched something, but it was a text adapted to script and the illustrator was Brazilian.
It was very good for my career, gave me an enviable CV, and for the fan in me, it’s a dream that came true, imagine a guitar player that plays at the local bar, playing alongside John Lennon? It was more or less like that.
Joe also made the art below (I believe for Alan Moore World) that shows what his Supreme #41 cover could have looked like.
Cool interview! Joe Bennett really did a wonderful job considering how extraordinary the circumstances must have been. It's a shame he had to limit his style to the "image school" style at the time. I can only imagine the conversation...
ReplyDeleteRob Liefeld: "Okay, Supreme #40 looks good, Joe. But guess what, Alan Moore is writing the title from now on! Here's a 100 page script for issue #41, featuring countless versions of Supreme riffing on the many classic versions of Superman - and don't forget to draw it in the 'Liefeld house' style!"
Yeah, Joe Bennett was certainly fine for the modern story, and he seemed to do a good job on all the different era Supremes in the Supremacy pages. I read somewhere how it made sense to have someone doing Supreme in the Liefeld/Image style, to really contrast with the flashback stories to come. The problem is the modern art wasn't consistent, with so many different artists cycling through.
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