https://aiptcomics.com/2024/04/08/x-...cchio-magneto/
AIPT: Welcome back to X-Men Monday, Luciano! Let’s kick things off with X-Fan Christopher Fokken, who wanted to know what your creative process was for tackling Resurrection of Magneto. Countless design attempts? Creating a mood with music? Walk us through your experience with this amazing book you brought to life.
Luciano: I can safely say it was one of my most fulfilling creative experiences to date, and it was pretty seamless. There wasn’t a lot of design involved, I did some Storm costume trials as a warm-up before even reading the script, but it made more sense to keep the X-Men Red outfit. Magneto gets a tweaked design in the last issue, and I did my personal take on Ashake and the Shadow King, but otherwise, the fun was in drawing designs from across the X-ages in my style.
As for the process, the writing and drawing was done pretty much simultaneously, so I’d focus on a bunch of pages at a time while Al wrote the following, and so on. My favorite moment is getting a new batch of script, that’s when I go to a coffee shop or a park with my notebook to read and doodle first impressions and thumbnails, and then I do layouts for everyone to approve.
And finally, my regular routine is drawing one page a day (I’m a daytime working person), but not necessarily in the right order. I’ll jump each day to the page that fits my mood better so I can inject as much emotion into it as I can. Maybe it’s a quiet one, maybe it’s an action one, or an iconic shot I can’t wait to draw. And in my free time, I took the chance to read and revisit much of the referred material and Al’s previous work like Defenders Beyond.
This was also a chance to really spread my wings and show everything I can do as an artist, and I made a conscious effort to level up my game.
AIPT: Well, mission accomplished! I think it’s fair to say Magneto and Storm have transcended comics and become pop culture icons. Throughout Resurrection of Magneto, their stature and strength are on full display. As an artist, are there any specific traits you made a point to get across when illustrating the two of them?
Luciano: This book is in a way an essay on the two characters, at fiction, meta, and even neo-mythical levels. I see Storm as the Goddess Archetype of the Marvel Universe, while Magneto is the ultimate Anti-Hero Journey. It is important to me to study and reflect on everything that made them icons across the decades and also everything that makes them human. Also, paying attention to details like Storm’s hair texture and facial features, or Magneto’s range of emotions expressing his honest contradictions while honoring the iconography created by Jack Kirby, Dave Cockrum, and everyone in between.
AIPT: Finally, for X-Fans blown away by your artwork in Resurrection of Magneto, what other work of yours would you recommend they check out?
Luciano: In terms of X-related content, you’ll see me next in the last issue of Rise of Powers of X, which was a huge responsibility and an awesome chance to display some EPIC event-level craziness, you’ll see. And I’m drawing a sequence in X-Men #35/Uncanny X-Men #700. Before that, I’ve been in last year’s X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023, and I’ve written, drawn, and colored the Marvel Voices: Iceman arc on Marvel Unlimited (which is now available to read for free as part of Marvel’s Start Scrolling initiative).
This week's eXclusive preview images!