An Interview with Joey Vazquez

When you are writing a comic book script, it’s always nice to know who is going to draw it. If the person who is drawing it is someone you have collaborated with previously, you already have a short hand and have a pretty good idea of how they’re going to execute things. If it’s someone you have not worked with before you can take the time to read their most recent work and study what they do and at least imagine what you think they would do well. When you have no idea who is going to draw it? You are flying blind to a degree and that’s intimidating.

When I wrote “Who Do You Belong to?” the Superboy (Conner Kent) and Superman (Jon Kent) team-up story for Kal-El-Fornia Love, on sale 7/30/25 with a Final Order Cut-Off of this Monday, I did not know who was going to draw it. My editor Andrew Marino, who I have talked about many times in this Newsletter, has never let me down when it comes to pairing me up with great artists, but I was still a little nervous. I was writing Superboy, Conner Kent, a character I have loved since I was a little guy starting to read comics. And I was writing Jon Kent for the first time, a character I watched flourish while I was an editor at DC, who I know people have a very strong and rich connection to.

Then Andrew told me that I would be working with comic artist Joey Vazquez on this project. I didn’t know Joey at all, we had not worked together, but I knew his work very well. Incredibly high-energy, wonderfully designed, dynamic, fluid, an excellent super hero comic artist. Now I was nervous that my script wouldn’t be up to his standards! But over the next few weeks Joey and I connected over email, he was incredibly collaborative and friendly, a very hard worker, and someone who cared a great deal about the characters in the story like I did. We hit it off, and I’m very happy with the end results.

So of course, I had to get Joey on the Weekly Up-Dave to talk to him about the story, his process, drawing comics, designing characters, his past work, the Superman family, his love of Spider-Man, and more. Please enjoy!

DAVE: Joey, thanks so much for doing this interview, it’s great to get to talk to you! 

JOEY: Happy to do it Dave! 

DAVE:  I came on board Kal-El-Fornia Love very early in the process of the book being put together, so early that the book did not have a title yet. Our wonderful editor, Andrew Marino, reached out to me and asked me to pitch stories about Superboy (Conner Kent) and Superman (Jon Kent) teaming up in California during the summertime, which is as specific a prompt as I’ve ever been given, and I went to work. What details were you given when the project was offered to you? 

JOEY: Big thank you to Andrew as he gave me my first ever DC work.  Hoping to do more. Love the title of the book btw. All the details I was given was a Superboys team-up story, and I was sold.  I’ve always been a Conner Kent Fan, so that’s pretty much all I needed to hear to be excited about it.  

DAVE: I came on board a big Conner Kent fan too, and became a big Jon Kent fan as we worked on the story and I saw you bring him to life with your awesome art.

When you came on board to draw the story, I was very excited. I have seen your art a lot over the last number of years and enjoyed what I have seen, and I became an even bigger fan after we worked together. There’s so much you did well in this story but the first I want to talk about is our two protagonists. 

Conner is a clone of the original Superman, Clark Kent. And Jon Kent is Clark Kent’s son, they have different costumes, but they’re also both young men with dark hair and a striking resemblance to Clark. I remember being worried they might look too similar on the page. But when you started turning in pages, that fear evaporated; you gave them both such distinct identities while making them feel related. Were you mindful of that when you were drawing the two, or did you just work off of your instincts? 

JOEY: That really means a lot to hear! I really appreciate the kind words.  I try my best to make every page fun and exciting. I’m glad that there deferences showed well, as I very continuously wanted to make certain that while they looked similar, they were also distinct from one another. Conner has a lot more attitude to his expressions and Jon has a lot more of the stoic nature of his father in his look.  I tried my best to capture that in their faces and body language. 

DAVE: That’s a fantastic observation turned into a wonderful artistic decision! There’s another artistic trick you pulled off here that blew me away. Not to spoil the story, but we do flashback to Superboy’s days at Cadmus. A throwback to the early Karl Kesel/ Tom Grummett era of the character. You channeled that era well and brought out the energy of that character in that era, even making Superboy a little younger on those pages, but you didn’t start drawing like Grummett you were always drawing like yourself. Did you treat that page any differently than the others?

JOEY: That page I was very sure to make it feel like those older books without departing from my own style.  So I’m glad it showed through. Every project I take on I try my best to gather reference and make sure to pay respect to what was done before while also adding my own flair to it.  

DAVE: You definitely knocked it out of the park here. Readers are going to meet a new character when they read the story, Arnie, who is another creation of Cadmus. I described Arnie as a combination between a Pokémon and one of the alien’s from Ben 10, and you ran with that description and created something really cool. 

I know in addition to being a comic artist, you have also done a lot of design work. I was wondering what some of the first thoughts you have when designing something new, whether it’s a human superhero or a more alien kind of creature?

JOEY: Things I try to think of when I’m designing something, is graphic shapes, is this going to be fun to draw over and over, and also making the design clear as to what was being described.  

Designing stuff is always a fun challenge, and when someone is very clear in what they want, it makes my job designing it much easier. Sometimes you work with people who aren’t quite sure what they want till they see it, which leads to lots of iterations of a thing, but when someone knows what they want, nailing it the first go is always what I try to aim for.   

DAVE: Before you came on board to draw this story, you recently did some work on JSA with writer Jeff Lemire. The JSA is my favorite DC super hero team, they are the one that I read that made me fall in love with the deeper lore of the universe, and one thing I love about them is they are a very diverse roster in terms of age, size, ethnicity, every single character feels like they come from a different walk of life. I thought you drew the whole team, and their enemies, for that matter, really well. Was it cool to draw an issue of a team book, and did you walk away wanting to revisit any of the characters in the future?

JOEY:  Really glad you liked how the book turned out!  The JSA book was a very fun one to work on. It was my first work ever at DC, and so I wanted to make a good impression. I think drawing Obsidian was my favorite not only because of his look, but his powers were really fun to draw with all the shadowy shapes. Grundy was for sure another I had a bunch of fun drawing.  

DAVE: Grundy is one of my favorites of all-time, and Obsidian is a really fun answer, that’s a great character and I can see how you made the most of his design and shadow powers.

DAVE: One thing I know from following your career and art online is that you are a big Spider-Man fan, and you draw the character phenomenally. 

Since I left DC as an editor, I have been rereading a lot of my favorite Marvel Comics, and that includes rereading almost three hundred Spider-Man comics between Amazing Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man’s Tangled Web, and Untold Tales of Spider-Man. The character never left my life; he’s literally everywhere, but returning to all those comics has been such a delight. 

I was wondering what you really like about the character, drawing the character, and if you have favorite Spider-Man artists and a favorite Spider-Man Villain. 

For me, I have really found myself falling in love again with artistic renditions of the character by John Romita JR, David Lafuente, Chris Bachalo, and Marcos Martin, among others. Villain-wise, there’s a lot to choose from, but I’ve always really liked The Scorpion. 

JOEY: Oh man, now you’re gonna have me talking forever. Spider-Man has been my favorite since I could pick up a pencil. Not only does he have one of the coolest costumes in all of comics, but his character is that of someone who embodies never giving up.  He’s a hero despite his circumstances. He chooses to do what is right, even though it costs him. Even though people might hate him for it. He still fights on. He’s symbol of self sacrifice. He’s got some of the coolest powers and the way he moves just is tailor-made for cool visuals every time you see him. I will have to say my all time favorite Spider-man artist ever is Mark Bagley.  I also love John Romita Jr, Angel Medina, Joe Mad, Todd McFarlane, Humberto Ramos, Stuart Immonen, and more recently Pepe Larraz. 

DAVE: You and I are very aligned on what makes Spider-Man one of the best characters in all of comics and maybe fiction. And that’s a stellar list of artists who have brought the character to life.

Working with someone new can always be a cause for nerves, but…I am so happy with the results of what we did, and I think readers will also really dig it. It was awesome getting to work with you, Joey, and it’s something I would do again in a heartbeat. I also want to give a shout-out to the great Luis Guerrero, who colored the story excellently. 

What else do you have coming up that readers can look forward to, and is there anything you would love for them to go back and look at that you’ve done?

JOEY: Was a pleasure working with you too Dave!  Also Luis hit it out of the park for sure. Loved working with you both!  As far as what I have coming up next, I’ve been doing lots of cards for Fantasy flight games Marvel Champions Card game. So be on the look out for those when they drop.   For those who want to check out my previous works, you can check out Amazing Spider-Man Gang War: First Strike.  Also Fantastic Four: Venom War, and Black Cat Annual #1 to name a few. 

DAVE: Thanks, Joey, I look forward to talking to you again, working with you again, and hearing people’s response to your terrific work on Kal-El-Fornia Love! 

Huge thanks to Joey Vazquez for doing this interview. Do us both a favor and get your orders in for DC’s Kal-El-Fornia Love by this Monday June 30th and then go buy it when it’s in stores on Wednesday July 30th. The book is going to be full of awesome stories, ours being one of them! Do you need a reminder of the three awesome covers? The main cover by Bernard Chang and the variant covers by Mahmud Asrar and Marcio Takara respectively? Okay.

Podcast For Fun

This week I was on the aweosme podcast, Podcast for Fun, I met the host Sofia at Emerald City Comic Con, she came to Chris Robinson’s and I’s table and asked us about making comics. Sofia is a comic creator on top of being a podcaster and filmmaker. Sofia then asked if we would each guest on the show she hosts Podcast For Fun, my episode is up first and I am happy with how it turned out. Give it a listen, or watch because it’s also a Youtube video!

If you follow me on social media you have seen that I announced two new comics I have coming up in the last week. Well, tomorrow I am announcing one more. Come back next week and I am going to talk about all three, in addition to showing off a preview of my story with Riley Rossmo in Hello Darkness #12, which comes out soon on July 9th, 2025.

There is a lot ahead!

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz