An Interview With George Pratt

George Pratt is a world-renowned painter and illustrator. He first achieved acclaim for his 1990 graphic novel Enemy Ace: War Idyll, published by DC Comics. War Idyll featured Hans von Hammer, the World War I flying ace created by Robert Kaniger & Joe Kubert. In his twilight years, von Hammer is interviewed by journalist Edward Mannock. A Vietnam veteran, Mannock is seeking to deal with his traumatic memories of war. And he hopes the to gain insight from von Hammer’s experiences.

After War Idyll, George Pratt wrote and painted a second graphic novel for DC Comics, Batman: Harvest Breed. Pratt’s work has also appeared in such publications as Heavy Metal and Epic Illustrated. He most recent project is Wolverine: Netsuke, a four issue miniseries due to be released later in 2002.

In addition to his work in the comic industry, George Pratt is involved in fine art painting. An entry on Pratt appeared in the Society of Illustrators’ volume The Illustrator In America: 1960-2000. Pratt has also done work as a documentary filmmaker.

The following interview was conducted via e-mail by Ben Herman of Negative Pop in June 2002. George Pratt was kind enough to respond to the various questions put forth, answering them in great detail.

Negative Pop: First off, could you briefly tell us about your background in art? How did your interest in becoming an artist develop?

George Pratt: I've wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember. Comic books were the main impetus. As a child I had two open heart surgeries. The second one was when I was five years old. This was 1965 or 66 and the Batman television series had just hit, the Adam West series, and as I was confined to a bed I became hooked on the show. My relatives saw how enamored I was of the show they started bringing in Batman comic books for me to enjoy. That's all it took. I collected comics from that point on.

I read everything I could get my hands on that was four-color, with panels and balloons and on newsprint. My parents didn't really understand it, though my dad read Batman as a kid in the '30's, and all the pulp heroes. They were more into the Impressionist painters and dad was always showing me Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, all of them. And he was big on Rembrandt as well and I definitely got that bug early on too.

My father's brother was an accomplished artist, though only did it for fun. He would come over during Christmas and we'd sit in front of the fire and he'd draw me Sherlock Holmes and other literary characters. I was transfixed. He worked in oil and pastels. Really great stuff. His son, my cousin Jake, was also a good draughtsman and he would sketch and show me a few things. More importantly he turned me on to the Underground comix guys, Crumb, Shelton, Sheridan, Spain, all that stuff, as well as Creepy and Eerie comics. What a guilty pleasure all that stuff was. Forbidden fruit!

I was lucky, too, in that when we'd visit my father's parents in Amarillo I'd get to dig through a lot of his old books. Terry and the Pirates nailed me as a kid and I got to enjoy the Caniff material then. Talk about lucky. I'm still loving that work.

So I was surrounded by all this great stuff and would just struggle to copy the work.

Negative Pop: Where did you attend school? What types of learning experiences did you have there?

George Pratt: I went one year in a regular University and had a good time. I took no art classes at all, though I did lots of art for myself. Mostly it was all academic studies and creative writing. It was disappointing really because all my life I'd been told to get ready for college. And there I was in college and most of the people couldn't read or write and it drove me nuts. It was basically high school camp!

Then I transferred to Pratt Institute. That was the turning point.

Negative Pop: Are their any particular influences on your artistic style? Which specific artists, both within comic books and outside the medium, had a significant impact upon you and your work?

George Pratt: The lists are long, and are artists work I've admired for many, many years. In painting, drawing, comics, illustration, though not in any particular order: Monet, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Kathe Kollwitz, Degas, Rembrandt, Pierre Bonnard, Sargent, Homer, Munch, Jules Pascin, Burt Silverman, N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth, Howard Pyle, Harvey Dunn, Heinrich Kley, Norman Lindsay, Roy Krenkel, Al Williamson, Angelo Torres, Frank Frazetta, Dean Cornwell, Maxfield Parrish, Odd Nerdrum, Eduard Thony, Bruno Paul, George Grosz, Feliks Topolski, Norman Rockwell, Will Eisner, Joe Kubert, Mort Walker, Bernie Krigstein, Bernie Wrightson, Barry Windsor-Smith, Michael Kaluta, Jeff Jones, George Herriman, Neal Adams, Alex Nino, Alex Toth, Bill Mauldin, Milton Caniff, Noel Sickles, Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, Stan Drake, Winsor McCay, Jack Levine, Raphael Soyer, Jack Davis, Frank Robbins, Alberto Breccia, Jose Munoz, Dino Battaglia, Attilio Micheluzzi, Hugo Pratt, Jacques Tardi, Sam Glanzman, Russ Heath, Lionel Feininger, E. A. Abbey, A. B. Frost, Frank Brangwyn, Whistler, Daniel Vierge, Joseph Clement Coll, Franklin Booth, Daumier, Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha, Mariano Fortuny, Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, William Heath Robinson, Goya, Olaf Gulbransson, Bastien LePage, E.J. Sullivan, Robert Blum, Hokusai, Hiroshige, Yoshitoshi, Barron Storey, on and on.

There's tons that I'm leaving out! And each was inspirational in various ways. Some for their paintings, others for their line, others still for their storytelling abilities within comics.

If I had to name a couple whose work was most influential, again, in no order of importance: Howard Pyle, N. C. Wyeth, Rembrandt, Sargent, Whistler, Klimt, Schiele, Jeff Jones. These are all painters and are influential mostly in that area of my growth and work.

Negative Pop: You have a very detailed, fine art quality that is dramatically different from most "typical" comic artwork. Even in the case of painters who do work in comic-related projects, such as Alex Ross, Joe Jusko, and Ray Lago, there is a rather photo-realistic element to their work. But your art possesses very unique, stylistic characteristics. Bearing this in mind, what were your particular reasons for deciding to pursue comic book projects?

George Pratt: I love drawing and painting. I love stories. I love comics. Here's a chance to put them all together. But many of my influences do not come from comics. A large part of my training was in painting and drawing. Comics were sneered at in school and were considered the bastard son of Illustration. But I'm constantly looking outside of comics for inspiration. Too much of any one thing is not good. I think bringing experiences in from outside of comics is key to the growth of comics.

Negative Pop: Please explain the background of the Enemy Ace: War Idyll graphic novel, both in terms of how the project came to be published by DC Comics, and your own personal reasons for wanting to produce the book.

George Pratt: The first work I received as an illustrator was for Eagle Magazine. This was basically a "Soldier of Fortune" magazine that was published by Harris Publications. I had heard that Harris had acquired the rights to the Creepy and Eerie comics and so went in to show my work to the editor. I didn't get any work there, but upon looking at a couple of Vietnam war pieces, the editor asked if I'd like to do work for their war magazine. I said sure and he introduced me to Jim Morris, the editor of Eagle.

As a kid in the 60's Vietnam was an ongoing thing, ever-present. Until I was 15 years old there was always a Vietnam war going on. I was haunted by the thing because I thought I'd have to go. No one ever thought to tell me that I would have been disqualified because of my heart. So I had nightmares about the thing all the time, all the while playing guns in the yard like every other kid I knew.

After graduating art school I started to read various accounts about the Vietnam war. This was before the glut of movies that came out. I wanted to learn more about the thing, try to understand it better for myself. The Eagle jobs were a great way to explore that strange world. Jim Morris, who's now on the History Channel as an advisor, was a three tour Green Beret in Vietnam. He was an accomplished writer and a wonderful editor to work with. He kept me in rent money. The magazine was published every other month, but Jim gave me work each month. So I got to illustrate these heavy duty stories about soldiers experiences in Vietnam, Rhodesia, etc. Wild stuff. And Jim allowed me to call some of these writers and pick their brains about their experiences. It was a great learning experience for me.

The magazine finally folded, and I was left wanting to say something of my own about the Vietnam war. But how? That's when Enemy Ace popped back into my head. I'd read Enemy Ace as a kid, in fact religiously followed all of the DC war titles. Joe Kubert was one of the gods, along with Alex Toth, John Severin, Russ Heath, on down the line. But Ace intrigued me because I saw so many similarities between the First World War and Vietnam, along with points of great contrast. Ace was of the air, and my main character was a tunnel rat, underground; two different faces of war. Of course there's also the great feeling of nostalgia for me to be able to play with a character that had a great impact on me as a kid. A KUBERT character!

So I started working up the story and messing with various ways of handling the art. At this time, too, I was helping [Jon] J Muth out on Moonshadow and later Kent Williams on Blood. Kent and I had gone through Pratt Institute together and had struggled through learning to draw and paint together. Incidentally, that's how me met J Muth. Kent and I had met Jeff Jones and he'd taken us under his wing, inviting us up to landscape paint with him. At that time he and J shared a trailer together. Each had a separate bedroom and a common painting studio. Anyway, working on Moonshadow gave me the wherewithal to know that I could do a painted book. The longest sequential story I'd done until then was an 8-pager in pen and ink for Heavy Metal Magazine. At around this time I was supporting myself with my gallery work, supplying paintings (oils, watercolors, pastels) to various galleries in New York and Texas. Each aspect was feeding the other, all of it pushing my drawing and painting skills further.

Scott Hampton had been visiting me through the years and kept scoping out the Enemy Ace material and trying to push me into taking it into DC. I was still too scared to take the stuff in. One day Scott was up and we were at Rick Bryant's studio in Manhattan. Scott had me bring in the Ace work and when I arrived he picked it all up and walked out the door with it. He said, "I'm going into DC with this stuff. If you want to be there when they see the work you better follow me." Something along those lines. So I followed him to DC where he introduced me to Andy Helfer and showed the work. Andy flipped over the samples and all the work I'd done on the thing and got things hopping. It was scary. Here was this pet project of mine that I'd been working on for several years as a kind of dream thing, and all of the sudden it's for real. 128-page book! I was reeling. I was in heaven. I was in hell. I didn't know what to make of it all.

I was very lucky then, too, to have Joe Kubert get behind the book and support it. He wrote the introduction.

And that's how the book finally got to be made. It took three years to produce the art and the story. To this day I'm amazed that DC took a chance on that thing. I was a total unknown at the time, with only a few scattered bits in Heavy Metal and Eclipse magazines. But DC really got behind that book and pushed it. It was amazing.

Negative Pop: An "idyll" is a short poetic verse relating to a peaceful, romantic, or rural setting. Obviously the phrase War Idyll is a deliberate oxymoron on your part. How did you arrive at that particular title for the graphic novel?

George Pratt: It was indeed a deliberate oxymoron. The definition I read was a short poetic interlude, or something like that. Contrasted with the word war, which is anything but Idyllic. Also a play on Idol, as Von Hammer is Mannock's idol. War Idol. And a way to finally get to use the word Idyll after Jeff Jones' incredible Idyll strip for Lampoon.

Negative Pop: What sort of reactions did War Idyll receive? Were you pleased with the graphic novel's reception by the public and the industry?

George Pratt: I received some incredible letters from War Idyll. What hit me most was that the majority of the people responding to the book were not comic readers at all. That was a shocker for me. I was getting letters from doctors and lawyers, old war vets, you name it. They all professed having never read comics, but were moved to tears by the story. One letter in particular was from a survivor of the USS Illinois explosion. He told me that the book helped him come to grips with the deaths of all his friends. We carried on a correspondence for awhile.

The book came out shortly before the Gulf War ignited and so I got a lot of letters hoping that others would read the book and understand just how horrible war is in light of the events in the Gulf. I did a signing tour through Germany with Scott Hampton at that time and was approached by a young lady who was doing her Master's Thesis on the book. That was weird. She was asking me all kinds of political questions about WWI and Vietnam. I had to tell her that I was less interested in the political and more interested in the emotional and human trials of the soldiers. Of course the human aspect is political, yet it never really crossed my mind in that way. I always felt that the soldiers from Vietnam got shafted. So many of those guys were drafted and didn't have a choice, many were doing what they believed was right for the country, from a sense of patriotic duty. They got screwed.

Also WWI is almost totally forgotten in America, while it was still a fresh memory for the Europeans. Vietnam was our recent memory and it still can become fairly inflammatory.

But the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. The book saw four American editions, was translated into something like 8 or 9 foreign languages, and was on the required reading list at West Point at one time. I think it's just now going into a Dutch translation in Belgium. It was nominated for the Harvey and Eisner awards, and nominated in Angouleme for Best Foreign Graphic Novel, and was awarded the French Info award for best Foreign Graphic Novel, and the Speakeasy award for Best Foreign Graphic Novel in England.

Negative Pop: Back in 1993, you drew a number of Wolverine and Ghost Rider covers for the anthology title Marvel Comics Presents. As I had not yet branched out from the superhero genre in my reading interest at that point, this was my first exposure to your work. I remember thinking that those covers were decidedly unconventional (I probably used the term "very weird" back then). How did those cover assignments come about? What was your opinion of the finished results? I know that MCP often had rather lackluster coloring work, and it seemed to me that your covers were one of numerous elements that suffered as a result. Any thoughts on that?

George Pratt: That was, until recently, a large percentage of my work for Marvel. I enjoyed doing those covers. Richard Ashford was the editor on those and he gave me carte blanche to have fun. I liked the drawings that I did, and my color guides were very particular. This was when they were just going over to some computer coloring and whomever they gave those to just totally blew them off. They were horribly colored and to this day I'm embarrassed by the coloring on those. I wish they had followed my guides. If you've seen my Batman covers that's the type of coloring I had done on those. I spent a long, long time on my coloring guides. They were really little paintings, and I spent tons of time numbering those things. There was no reason for the shift, other than someone just not caring about the damn things.

Negative Pop: How did the upcoming Wolverine miniseries come about? Was it a proposal of your own, or did Marvel approach you at first?

George Pratt: Wolverine: Netsuke basically came from a chance meeting with Chris Claremont on the street. We lived in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn and Chris hit me up to come work for Marvel. I was working on Batman: Harvest Breed at the time and getting ready to move from New York, so was looking to line up the next job. Chris said I could choose any character I wanted to play with, so I asked him if Wolverine was available. He said yes, and I went home to try and come up with something that would fly.

The idea of tying up some of the loose ends of the Mariko love interest was appealing to me. It had a supernatural element to it and I would get to play with all that fun Japanese material. I love Japanese prints and those influenced the work a great deal. Specifically the work of Yoshitoshi.

Negative Pop: Wolverine is probably one of the most frequently utilized characters at Marvel. What specifically attracted you to writing & drawing a character who had already been interpreted countless times by numerous other creators? Did you have a particular perspective you wanted to approach Logan with, a specific direction or idea you hoped to apply to the long-standing mythos surrounding the character?
George Pratt: Wolverine is, in my mind, Marvel's Batman. He can work on a lot of different levels. I've never really kept up with Wolverine so I have no idea what's really been done with him. I told Chris that I didn't know a thing about his continuity and he said that was a breath of fresh air. I did read Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith, and the Chris Claremont and Frank Miller thing, which I both enjoyed. I liked what Kent [Williams] had done with him (I did a couple of panels in the Wolverine/Havok books) too, and definitely used the scraggly hair style from that series in my approach to Logan in Netsuke.

I wanted to play with Logan's emotional side a bit more, try and get him to acknowledge a less violent aspect to his character. I wanted him to have to accept his good and bad sides, his dual nature. I like the idea of Logan being lead around by a power he maybe never reckoned with, the strength of love. I don't think he ever came to grips with losing Mariko. So that's what this is all about.

Negative Pop: How do you approach drawing a stand-alone painting versus a sequentially illustrated project? Is the creative process similar, or is there a vast difference between the two?

George Pratt: They're similar in some ways. But comics demands a different set of skills. I think comics are the most difficult medium to work in. Good painting skills alone will not be sufficient. It's about the story. Everything should be in service to the story.

I would love to spend hours and hours on some of the paintings, but that's anathema to what comics are all about. The reader should not be lingering over the art. If they are, then they've been thrown from the story. Not good.

The thing I struggle with all the time is letting the panels have just enough information to tell the story, then move on. I'm not always successful because the artist in me sometimes takes over and I get carried away with a certain image or two. I'm getting better, though, at choosing my moment.

On this particular series I've had a blast just getting back to enjoying drawing. I'm doing all the art in this thing as separate panels. I do my layouts very crudely, using a thick colored pencil so that I can't get anal and try and noodle the things to death. It forces me to be blunt — tell the story.

Next I'll shoot my reference, whatever, and go straight to finishes. On a large majority of the work I didn't even pencil the material, just dipped the pen and drew right into the pads of paper. I'm using cheap pads of drawing paper and dip pens. Throw the drawing down quickly, gesturally. It's more about the life of the thing, less about the details. I treat my reference like a live model, as if they're going to walk away in a minute or two. I find if I pencil something I fall back on lots of erasures and fail to be very committed to the lines I'm making. I can always erase. But dipping the pen and going I'm on the spot. It'll sink or swim. And I like the seat of the pants quality to it. It forces me to "be" there, making instantaneous choices. Spontaneity rules here. This forces me to live with the lines I'm making, rolling with the happy accidents and all. Also, I've not spent a lot of time trying to make a "perfect" drawing.

I also find that when I pencil something and then go to ink it, I'm just tracing lines down. It's another case of not taking any chances. I feel like I've already been there, that the ink is just rehash. I want to have fun doing the work. I don't want to know what the end result is going to be. I want to be as surprised as the viewer.

Once I've got the ink drawing down I then hit it with the watercolor. This is pretty direct application of color and value, harmony. Then I'll zap the thing with a few tones of charcoal to give the work some grit, to push the value range a bit.

After the panels have been done I scan them in and place them into pages according to my layouts. At this point, too, things can still be very fluid. I've been finding that when I bring the scans in they're invariably larger than I figured, but the arbitrary crop is intriguing and I'll sometimes keep that instead of what I planned for. That's exciting, and I think it's livening up the work.

So, long story short, I think they're vastly different abilities, easel painting and sequential storytelling. In painting I only have to satisfy myself, and I'm only dealing with one image. I still work very seat of the pants when painting, but I don't have to consider the image I did before, or an image that comes after. It's by itself, separate. One thing only. Each panel in a comic is a part of the whole. The book, or series, is the piece of art, not the various elements that comprise it.

Negative Pop: I once heard a story about a very large, unique printing press that you owned and used in your work. Supposedly, this thing was so huge, that every time you moved from one studio to another, it had to be disassembled and reassembled, piece by piece. Could you tell us more about this printing press, and what it is used for? How did you originally acquire it? Do you still have it?

George Pratt: The etching press is still around and I'm still using it to do all kinds of printmaking. Mostly I do monotypes on the press. Though I also do etchings, drypoints, rubberstamp printing, linoleum cuts, woodcuts, all types of intaglio printmaking.

I was able to purchase that thing thanks to Kevin Eastman. He bought a number of Enemy Ace pages years ago and that was tops on my list of things I wanted to own. Before, when I wanted to produce an etching or a monotype, I'd have to run over to Pratt Institute, deeper in Brooklyn, in fact Bed-Stuy, not a nice area, at that time. You could conceivably spend an hour or two on the trains each way, and get mugged in the process. I would make the trek and spend a full day there, many times stretching into the early morning hours. This was when Pratt allowed the print lab to remain open twenty-four hours a day. I'd have to lug all my plates and inks, paper, brushes, turpentine, you name it. It was a real chore. But I had been bitten by the printmaking bug.

So I finally ordered one of these things, visions of Rembrandt and Whistler pulling prints dancing through my head. Weeks later, maybe months, this huge truck pulls up and the driver refuses to remove the crate from the back. I called over several buddies and we manhandled this thing off the truck and placed it outside my door. There was no way that was going to fit through the door. So we borrowed a crowbar and ripped the crate apart, then had to dismantle the press. I was a nervous wreck. Here was this precise piece of machinery that had cost a few thousand dollars, and I was going to take it apart and lug it all up several flights of stairs, and hope it would go back together again! The thing was so heavy I was always amazed that it didn't rip through the old wooden floors of my studio and kill someone on the lower floors.

But it did go back together and I was able to pull prints at my leisure. Heaven. Only when I moved I had to take it apart again!

I want to offer a big "thank you" to George Pratt for not only agreeing to this interview, but also for taking the time to write up such incredible detailed responses.

For further information on George Pratt, and numerous scans of his work, please check out his website, http://www.georgepratt.com.