The following is an interview with three-time Eisner Award-winning artist Bruno Redondo regarding the recent Kickstarter campaign launch for The DC Art of Bruno Redondo in collaboration with Clover Press. In this interview, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief Barbra Dillon chats with Redondo about revisiting his catalog of DC artwork for the collection, what drew him specifically to the sequential art medium, and more!
Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief: You recently launched a Kickstarter campaign in conjunction with Clover Press for The DC Art of Bruno Redondo, a coffee table book collecting your extensive work with DC Comics. As you look ahead to the combined collection, what has been your experience in revisiting your body of work?
Bruno Redondo: Looking at my career with DC since 2009, I tried to reflect my development through the years. Every artist will tell you how much they don’t like their early stages. But as someone who loves artists’ art books, I know it’s interesting to see how the mature style builds from the beginning, so I tried to be fair reflecting this while also saving the bigger part of the book for what I think are more interesting stages of development. Then, aside from just showing the finished art pieces, I’m trying to show the stages of making them.
BD: Your work has spanned the DC universe, tackling its most beloved characters, including Batman, Nightwing, and Harley Quinn. Was there anything in particular about the sequential art medium that attracted you more than other artistic media?
BR: I enjoy literature, music, TV, and movies the most, but comics are the best for me. One could think of comics as a poor brother of cinematography or literature with images (I actually dislike the term, “graphic novel.”), but comics are not a subsidiary consequence of another medium; it’s a storytelling medium itself with resources that you can’t apply in the others. No other medium can play with time and physical space as comics do, where readers are at the same time completely guided and in complete control of the flow of reading experience. Comics are a unique form of expression.
BD: In revisiting some of your earlier work, was there anything new or intriguing that you took away from the imagery that you hadn’t anticipated when originally creating it?
BR: I’m very self-aware of my stuff and sins, as I’m probably an overthinker (Surprise!), so I haven’t been too surprised… Something I guess this book makes obvious is my journey from trying to fight to dominate the same style that some of my most popular colleagues reign in, to doing my own stuff—not necessarily inventing a thing but just finding my place in the middle of different known places. (See? Overthinking.)
BD: What can you tell us about your shared creative process in working with Clover Press for the collection?
BR: We are still in development, but something I’m clearly loving is that they are allowing me to bring my own version of what this book should look like and what to offer instead of applying a rigid structure. I also have been looking to bring to life some specific books as the full Nightwing Covers Book or the special edition unfoldable Nightwing #87: a full 22 continuous pages containing a one-shot telling a full story, that you can open at your reading rhythm in hardcover. Trust me, it’s looking so, so great…
BD: In looking towards the future, are there new characters or opportunities within the DC universe that you haven’t yet tackled but would hope to pursue?
BR: I’m working on some of that to be done in the future. The DC roster is so rich to tell stories that haven’t been done yet, and I’m committed to keep trying things with main characters and second line ones. There’s so much fertile ground all around!
BD: Lastly, in light of the Kickstarter campaign, are there any particular backer rewards that you would like to highlight for our readers?
BR: Really there’s so many options planned that I’m hardly tracking all of them—but to mention some, there’s also two different poster books, one focused on Nightwing and another for DC Heroes. You can find the full information on Kickstarter!
