An Interview with Pablo M. Collar

Last week I had a surprise comic drop. Aquaman: Shark Week, a twenty page Aquaman comic celebrating and highlighting this year’s Shark Week, came out on DC’s DCU Infinite digital comics platform. Written by me, drawn by the excellent Pablo M. Collar, colored by the stellar Nick Filardi, and lettered by the amazing Tom Napolitano.

Working with this whole team was a joy, but I was especially excited to work with artist Pablo M. Collar again. Years ago, I had the great fortune of writing Pablo’s first short story at DC Comics. A story starring Green Lantern John Stewart called “Escape the Dark Fortress” in DC’s Are You Afraid of Darkseid? Pablo and I had a great time collaborating on that story and it was clear he was talented.

In the last few years? He’s only gotten better with work on a great deal of comic projects most prominently My Adventures with Superman and Marvel’s Avenger’s Academy digital comics. In addition to being long overdue to work with Pablo again, I was long overdue to talk to him, so below read a wonderful conversation we had together. Pablo is already an awesome comic artist, but I’m confident you will be seeing a lot more of him in the year’s ahead, so get to know him now!

DAVE: Pablo, I’m so excited to get to talk to you. Thanks for doing this!

PABLO: Thanks to you for this opportunity! I'm really glad we can take some time to talk and exchange ideas!

DAVE: First and foremost, I wanted to congratulate you on the awesome last few years of your career. I had the great pleasure of writing your first DC comics story. “Escape the Dark Fortress,” Starring Green Lantern, John Stewart, in the pages of DC’s Are You Afraid of Darkseid.

And since you have done a lot of work for both Marvel and DC. Including a few more DC short stories, a run of stories for Marvel’s Avengers Academy Infinity Comics, and the My Adventures with Superman mini-series with writer Josie Campbell. What have the last few years been like for you since we did that first story together?

PABLO: The truth is that these last few years have been really crazy! Everything has happened very fast since I started working on American comics thanks to you. In just four years I think I've already drawn almost all my favorite characters from my childhood in an official way!

DAVE: I love that. One of my favorite characters is Superman and I am a big fan of the My Adventures with Superman animated series. When I saw that you were going to draw the comic that bridged seasons 1 and 2 of the show, I thought you were a perfect choice. Your art is so complementary to the look of the show, the character designs, and the visual world-building that the great Jake Wyatt and his team developed. Were you a fan of the show before you got offered the project, and what, if any, adjustments did you find yourself making to work when you started drawing the book?

PABLO: It's funny because I was very excited about the show since its very announcement, I was really looking forward to seeing it! But, by the time I was contacted for the project, it hadn't been released in my country yet, so it was quite a surprise. Luckily, they just released it about a month into production or so, so I was able to catch up (although I had already taken some spoilers haha).

The adaptation process to the style took a while, because the show has a very specific visuals and the first few weeks, we were doing tests to bring that to the comic.

DAVE: The tests paid off, you did an excellent job and the whole book is beautiful.

When we first worked together on the Green Lantern story, I thought you did an excellent job across the board, but one thing I thought you excelled with, and it’s something you continue to do well, is character acting. There’s a page from the Green Lantern story I’m going to include where John Stewart gets to briefly talk to his love Katma-Tui, who passed away, and the facial expressions destroy me every time I look at them. They are so good.

 What are some of your favorite parts of drawing comics, and who are your artistic influences from comics and anywhere else?

PABLO: Definitely, the acting is my favorite part and I really enjoy emotionally charged scenes. Curiously, the other part I really like is the background and scenography.

As for my references, they are almost infinite! There are too many people I admire and for very different reasons: Mignola for his composition, Momoko for her creativity, Redondo and Walta for their narrative...We could make a talk just about this!

DAVE: I know. I love talking about comic artists and how they influence other comic artists. Comics come into people’s lives at different times. When did comics become a big part of your life, and what comics made you want to draw them professionally?

PABLO: For me, comics are something I've been linked to since I was a child. My mother often read me comics instead of books before going to sleep, she did the voices and I followed the drawings. So, my passion woke up very early and I started making my own comics at a very young age. I started reading Spanish comics, then American and I finally started reading comics from Asia and the rest of Europe.

DAVE: We are talking right now because an Aquaman story we did for DC and for Discovery’s Shark Week just got released. This was a project I was very excited to be offered as a writer. Shark Week is very cool. I love Aquaman, and getting to write a comic that features Aquaman and sharks…it makes perfect sense. I did not know who was going to draw the comic as I was writing it, but when our editor, Michael McCalister, told me it was you, I was delighted. I have wanted to work with you again since we finished that Green Lantern story.

Were you excited to draw Aquaman or sharks? What appealed to you about the project when it was offered to you?

PABLO: For me it was a pleasure. Not only because (and anyone who knows me, knows it) I love sharks, but also because aquatic characters have always been my favorites (together with anti-heroes): Aquaman, Mera, Namor, Abe Sapien... I'm a person who has always lived on the coast, so I feel very connected to the sea and the ocean.

DAVE: Now I want to see you draw all of those characters too!

About the sharks. These are great white sharks that can jump out of the water to get their prey. Some of them can jump upwards of fifteen feet out of the air. Is this something you were aware of before we started working on this comic? I knew that sharks could come out of the water, but I did not know some of them were capable of leaping so high! Watching the videos where they do it was riveting.

PABLO: Exactly, same here, I was aware that they jump out of the water, but...so much? No way!

DAVE: Our subject matter was awesome, but something else I loved about this project was that we got twenty pages to play with, a full-length issue! And while I didn’t know who was going to draw the story, I wanted to take advantage of that space and make sure that we had big open pages, splash pages, double-page spreads, big beautiful shots of the environments and the characters. You delivered on all of those moments.

Without spoiling for the readers, did you have a favorite part of the story or a favorite scene that you drew?

PABLO: Each shark appearance was a pleasure and, definitely, the Shark/Aquaman combo is something I'll always be grateful for.

DAVE: Other than Aquaman and the sharks. We got to design a crew of researchers who studied the sharks leaping out of the water. Did you have fun designing them?

And…we got to use one of Aquaman’s greatest villains…Ocean Master. Who I think has an awesome look, he’s very regal, very threatening, and has a sharp helmet. Did you like drawing him?

PABLO: I have to say that, something I really enjoy whenever I can do it, is introducing real people into the stories. It's something I've had the opportunity to do a lot because (for some reason), I've drawn a lot of crowd scenes at concerts/parties throughout my career. And I've definitely ended up having a great time drawing the research team (plus, they're so cool I mean, these people need their own series!!!).

DAVE: In addition to our wonderful editor Michael, we also got to work Nick Filardi, who is a legendary colorist. I have gotten to work with Nick before, he always does awesome work, but these pages…they’re some of beautiful pages I have seen from you and him. It won’t be a surprise to tell people that a lot of the scenes take place under water and some people might think “Oh that’s not an environment with a lot of depth” you added a lot of beautiful tones to the ocean scenes that made them feel very real, and then Nick’s colors took that feeling even further.

What do you like about working with Nick? Because I will tell you, I want to work with both of you on a project again ASAP, you guys are an excellent art team!

PABLO: What I really love about his work, in addition to his awesome style, is that I've seen him working on really different projects and he always knows perfectly how to adapt to each one of them. I think that's what makes a good colorist or artist in general: understanding what the story demands.

DAVE: Were you a fan of the ocean and Sharks before drawing this story? Are there any other undersea creatures you wish we had gotten to in the story? Creatures we can feature if we ever get to work on Aquaman again!

PABLO: Well, I'll just say that I'm a huge fan of cosmic horror!

DAVE: So far in your career, you’ve drawn Aquaman, Superman, Green Lantern, Batman, Azrael, some of Marvel’s Avengers, Blue Beetle, a version of the Flash, and John Constantine. Are there characters you haven’t drawn yet that you want to, or characters you have already drawn that you want to revisit?

PABLO: And Black Canary! (I love Black Canary) Truth is that I would love to revisit Batman. It's been a while since the last time and I really enjoy drawing him!

DAVE: Black Canary, how could I forget her, I’m a huge Black Canary fan! Man, maybe we’ll get to do a Black Canary story sometime, let’s put that out in the universe.

Earlier, I asked what your favorite parts of drawing comics are. Are there any specific parts of drawing comics that you are focusing on more than others right now? For me…I love writing dialogue, but I am trying to cut down how much of it I write. There were more than a few moments in this story where you had drawn something so well, I cut text, because your art said more than enough.

PABLO: I really haven't been working in comics very long and I feel like I have a long way to go to get better, which is exciting. I love going into a comic store and looking for new ideas to learn from among all the talented authors you can find there. Definitely a topic that I'm obsessed with and want to continue to explore is composition and how to project that, not just in the panels, but on the page as a whole. It's my current goal!

Thanks to the amazing Pablo M. Collar for taking the time to do this interview. He is amazing and I want to take the time to congratulate him on the release of Avengers Academy #50 this week, a monumental achievement.

That’s it for this week, team. I’m going to go see the new Superman as soon as possible, and probably more than once before our next Newsletter post.

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz