Thread by @SavageSmallwood

Lots of questions about what inspired my work on Human Target. Here's a thread on the creative genealogy of the book. Hope it helps.

It all starts with Fantastic Four. In 2019, I attempted to draw an FF one-shot (written by Gerry Duggan) in the style of 101 Dalmatians and Darwyn Cooke. Wasn't clicking (and I ran out of time) so I abandoned the approach and redrew what I could of the issue. Still liked it, tho.

Not long after that, Alex Ross asked me to be a part of his MARVEL anthology. I pitched him a Steranko Nick Fury story and he hit me back with a ton of reference to inspire me. He encouraged me to explore bright poppy colors and day-glo coloring.

This was at the beginning of the pandemic when the industry was grinding to a halt so I had MONTHS to work out the kinks for my approach to the story. Some of the techniques I had been struggling with for years finally clicked into place during this time.

Flash forward to Human Target. The term "superhero noir" was thrown around a lot so I had SLEEPER by Brubaker and Phillips in my head when I started. Here are some early roughs for the book. Lots of shadows and muted colors.

Soon after starting issue one, Tom's scripts for the rest of the series started rolling in and I quickly realized that my approach was all wrong. The tone was wrong, the inking style was wrong, my Christopher Chance was wrong...all of it clashed with Tom's words.

I needed a different take. First place I looked was neon noir. JLI, neon 80s...felt like a good match.

Hotel Artemis by Drew Pearce combined different aesthetics in a way that clicked with me. Neon 80s, mid century modern, 40s noir, 60s hardboiled, 70s crime...it was all there in one package. That got me thinking back to my Nick Fury story and my original FF pages.

I took everything and mashed it together. 101 Dalmatians, Steranko, neon noir, mid century illustration....all of it went in the blender.

Moral of the story - steal from one artist and you look like a copycat; steal from several artists and you start to look original.

And because you made it to the end, here's a sneak peak of issue 6 of Human Target. The cover and two of my favorite panels from the issue.