INTERVIEW: John Romita Jr. Says He Was Intimidated by Drawing "Superman"

[CBR News]

The legendary artist tells CBR News about his initial worries over the gig and how Lois finding out Clark's secret makes her a better character.


Full article here.

[LGBoex]

... "Holy shit! I can do this." [Laughs]

Yeeh - about that, John. Not really.
Did you read any comments about your drawing, recently?
And not just Superman?

[Charles J. Baserap]

Is that why half the drawings look unfinished with anatomical proportions that make Liefeld look like a Renaissance painter?

[manofsteel1979]

I'm glad they are reigning him in. His one issue he did was goofy fun,but I could not handle an whole run written by him. He just doesn't get Superman as a character. That's fine, as long as you can draw well and not let your personal lack of affinity affect your professionalism in what comes out in pencils on the page. I felt the same way with Rags Morales, distain for Superman in relation to the work he did on ACTION with Morrison, (although he always drew Superman too much like a boy during his ACTION run, which I disliked immensely).

On the other hand, he comes off not as combative and provocative as the previous interviews, in fact his fairly well spoken (compared to the recent past).

Art wise...yes he struggled with the run with Johns for sure, however from issue #39 on hes gotten better. #42, in spite of it's script issues was the best work he's done on the title yet, and dare I say it, he's almost back to the JrJr we had on his Spider-Man hey day.

I would love to see him tackle Batman on a regular basis once he leaves Superman. In fact, I liked how he wrote Batman in SUPERMAN #40 enough I'd be willing to see him take a swing with him writing wise. He wrote Bruce with a wry sense of humor, something I wouldn't mind seeing injected into him for a change.

[Actor4ever]

I am not sure that John really gets the character or exactly how important Lois is to Clark and visa versa, but at least his comments this time were not as near arrogant as they have been in the past. I am not a fan of his artwork...at least no Superman, always have an unfinished, unpolished look to them. He did better at marvel actually, IMO, than he has done at DC. Maybe another character would suit him better. I do hope the powerless Superman line comes to an end soon. We get him out of his jeans and back to the cape. And yes I am most certainly interested in seeing the love relationship (vital to both characters) grow and develop. The swifter we end Clark and Diana the better.

[Tayswift]

I'm glad they are reigning him in. His one issue he did was goofy fun,but I could not handle an whole run written by him. He just doesn't get Superman as a character. That's fine, as long as you can draw well and not let your personal lack of affinity affect your professionalism in what comes out in pencils on the page. I felt the same way with Rags Morales, distain for Superman in relation to the work he did on ACTION with Morrison, (although he always drew Superman too much like a boy during his ACTION run, which I disliked immensely).

On the other hand, he comes off not as combative and provocative as the previous interviews, in fact his fairly well spoken (compared to the recent past).

Art wise...yes he struggled with the run with Johns for sure, however from issue #39 on hes gotten better. #42, in spite of it's script issues was the best work he's done on the title yet, and dare I say it, he's almost back to the JrJr we had on his Spider-Man hey day.

I would love to see him tackle Batman on a regular basis once he leaves Superman. In fact, I liked how he wrote Batman in SUPERMAN #40 enough I'd be willing to see him take a swing with him writing wise. He wrote Bruce with a wry sense of humor, something I wouldn't mind seeing injected into him for a change.

sense of humor is one thing, written like a clown is another. JRJR should get a limited series parody

... "Holy shit! I can do this." [Laughs]

Yeeh - about that, John. Not really.
Did you read any comments about your drawing, recently?
And not just Superman?

well his work is not really great ultimately. colorists seems to be doing a lot of work on his lines work. his work got better after laura martin got out.

That's a good question. The way the story is ending up is less than what I would have wanted. I personally don't think that she should just fall in love with the guy or swoon over him the way that everyone wants her to do. And that may or may not happen. I'll leave that to be a surprise. But I think that as a modern everyday female -- especially a strong woman like Lois Lane and a beautiful woman at that -- she shouldn't just fawn over him. Especially after this New 52 setup and now with this, discovering what he is and that he basically has been lying to her. She doesn't just have to fawn over him. It works out being a really well done way of handling it. She maintains her strength and the explanation as to why she does what she does is very well done. But I would have gone in a different direction emotionally with the two of them.

Listen, my wife is a stunningly beautiful woman and has been around a lot of better looking men than me and wasn't interested. Just because they're both good looking people doesn't mean anything. The fact that he was Superman and the fact that he was lying to her, I think that she might have even felt hostile towards him. It's the old adage of a spy like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "True Lies" where when the wife finds out, she's pissed at him. But they [editorial] didn't take my advice. But it did work well. I would have gone off in a further, more extreme direction because this is the chance to do something that hasn't been done with Superman before. And that's the idea of this. It should be like Jerry said to George Constanza: "If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right."

But it worked out nicely. It's a nice combination of what I thought of and what the brains thought of and Gene did a nice job of working toward it. And it all made Lois Lane a better character in my eyes because we got to mess with the scenes and expressions on faces and how she handles this almost pathetic character. After he loses his powers, Superman is just a regular guy. And she can handle him on a one-to-one basis whereas this guy was nearly a god. And they realize that. In the little vignettes between the two of them when they look at each other and the swooning that you would normally get in "People" magazine, I think she should slap him. [Laughs] And call him "a dummy."


While Romita wrote "Superman" #40, he's content to keep working on becoming a better artist before he works more on his writing
And because of this power surge, the instances that we can show Clark as a human instead of doing the easy stuff, let's do the exact same stuff that would happen to a guy that suddenly realized that he's something that's he not. How awkward would that be? And we tried. But again, they had to harness me.

again JRJR just because he know one woman he thinks he knows all women. again patronizing lois zzzzzzz

[Sacred Knight]

Sounds like if he had his way Lois would have hauled off and punched him like Jamie Lee Curtis does in True Lies, lol. But yeah, good on editorial for reigning in his more extreme ideas here. I get where he's coming from in wanting emotionally charged moments, but honestly her reaction is quite emotional enough. She's clearly upset and while still helping and caring, is obviously not even close to over it by issue's end.

[Lord of Narrative]

I am not sure that John really gets the character or exactly how important Lois is to Clark and visa versa, but at least his comments this time were not as near arrogant as they have been in the past. I am not a fan of his artwork...at least no Superman, always have an unfinished, unpolished look to them. He did better at marvel actually, IMO, than he has done at DC. Maybe another character would suit him better. I do hope the powerless Superman line comes to an end soon. We get him out of his jeans and back to the cape. And yes I am most certainly interested in seeing the love relationship (vital to both characters) grow and develop. The swifter we end Clark and Diana the better.

Are they ending Cliana and switching to Clois?

Also, how did editorial reign him in?

And what is this about Rags "I draw camel faces" Morales disliking Superman?

[Auguste Dupin]

Are they ending Cliana and switching to Clois?

Also, how did editorial reign him in?

And what is this about Rags "I draw camel faces" Morales disliking Superman?

Basically, back when the first arc of Morrison came out, Morales said in interviews that he loved how that young Superman was weaker like he was in the early days of Siegel and Shuster (his answer was actually more elaborate than just "he's not invincible anymore and that's cool" but I'm giving you the short version) and that he had a hard time drawing a good Superman before because the character didn't "click" with him.

[Chazro]

JRJR's either getting old or he simply doesn't care as much as he used to. Compare his work on World War Hulk to what he's doing now, hell, The Sentry looked more Superman-ish than big blue nowadays. Comic book art gets infinitely harder as you get older, just ask Neal Adams, John Byrne, or just about any of the 'old-timers'. I don't know how old JRJR is, I'd always thought him to be part of the younger generation of artists, but his work looks tired and half-hearted. It may be that, much like Jack Kirby, or even his dad; John Romita, his style is more suited for Marvel. Whatever the problem, I was expecting to see World War Hulk JRJR drawing Superman, it may have made me interested in the book again!

[Sacred Knight]

Are they ending Cliana and switching to Clois?

Also, how did editorial reign him in?

No and no. People can get a Clois fix from the Convergence characters, but its not happening here anytime soon. And to Actor4ever, no, a romantic love relationship is not vital to either character. Especially Superman. It means a little more to Lois but even she can easily be of vital importance without that element with effort put forth. Which admittedly was not happening until recently.

As for JRJR, he was reigned in because he wanted to the tension when Lois found out to be much more confrontational and heated than it turned out to be. He flat out said he didn't get his way there, so someone shot the idea down, be it Yang himself if he has that control, or editorial.

[friendly-fire-press]

Interesting interview. It's a shame we probably won't see John doing more writing on Superman for a while (if ever). I thought he did a great job on #40 handling both writing and drawing tasks ... oh well.

And despite what the cynics say I think JR Jr does get the character, he just gets him in a different, more unique way (similar to that of Rags Morales). That being a much-needed shot of adrenaline and grittiness; also I think he looks at Superman from a more progressive POV (exploring new territory and suchlike) unlike many artists and writers who only tend to view him in a more conservative way. It is this newer, fresher approach that makes Superman cooler and more interesting IMO ... so hopefully, this approach will continue.

However, there was one thing in the interview (tho I think it was stated by Gene Yang) that I strongly disagree with:

"The way the story is ending up is less than what I would have wanted. I personally don't think that she should just fall in love with the guy or swoon over him the way that everyone wants her to do. "

No. Not "everyone" wants to see that, dude. Far from it in fact.

[misslane]

Interesting interview. It's a shame we probably won't see John doing more writing on Superman for a while (if ever). I thought he did a great job on #40 handling both writing and drawing tasks ... oh well.

And despite what the cynics say I think JR Jr does get the character, he just gets him in a different, more unique way (similar to that of Rags Morales). That being a much-needed shot of adrenaline and grittiness; also I think he looks at Superman from a more progressive POV (exploring new territory and suchlike) unlike many artists and writers who only tend to view him in a more conservative way. It is this newer, fresher approach that makes Superman cooler and more interesting IMO ... so hopefully, this approach will continue.

However, there was one thing in the interview (tho I think it was stated by Gene Yang) that I strongly disagree with:

"The way the story is ending up is less than what I would have wanted. I personally don't think that she should just fall in love with the guy or swoon over him the way that everyone wants her to do. "

No. Not "everyone" wants to see that, dude. Far from it in fact.

The truth is there is no "everyone" both in the group that doesn't want Lois to "swoon" and the group that supposedly does. Indeed, the truth is that Lois hasn't always swooned, especially in the situation that JRJR is discussing: when Lois discovers that Clark is Superman. In fact, she's been angry and hurt in the majority of stories which have taken on this particular story beat. Does she forgive him? Yes. But it's a journey, not a lightswitch. More generally speaking, what's wrong with a woman falling in love with Superman when he's a gorgeous, heroic, kind man who pays extra special attention to her?

[dangleo61288]

No and no. People can get a Clois fix from the Convergence characters, but its not happening here anytime soon. And to Actor4ever, no, a romantic love relationship is not vital to either character. Especially Superman. It means a little more to Lois but even she can easily be of vital importance without that element with effort put forth. Which admittedly was not happening until recently.

As for JRJR, he was reigned in because he wanted to the tension when Lois found out to be much more confrontational and heated than it turned out to be. He flat out said he didn't get his way there, so someone shot the idea down, be it Yang himself if he has that control, or editorial.

This is Gene yang's interview on Comicbook.com. It seems to hint that Lois and Clark might get back together. Here is the link http://comicbook.com/2015/07/29/gene...-and-jimmys-i/

When I write Lois, I don’t necessarily think of her as indicative of all of humanity. I write her as a friend of Clark’s and I try to think of how friends would react in relationship to secrets. Usually I think when a friend reveals something big to you, there’s a complexity of emotion that will come out. That complexity of emotion is something that we’re hoping to draw out as this storyline plays through.

It starts off as anger and then it moves to support and then maybe it’s going to move to something else.
It seems like it might lead to Clois.

[Sacred Knight]

That's incredibly vague. All it states for certainty is that her feelings over the situation is going to evolve as the story goes on. Now, I'm not in Yang's head so I don't know if he'll want to reintroduce a romantic tension, at least on Lois's part, or flat out make her fall for him again. Maybe it is. I would doubt even that, but its possible. But even so, that doesn't mean he gets to put them together. Its clearly something TPTB don't want, so that's that. Why do you think they gave the pre-Flashpoint characters a title? Its to give something to that section of the fanbase because they have absolutely no intention to go there anytime soon with the the main Earth characters.