Portland’s Periscope Is Up
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on August 7, 2007 Sign up now!
By Douglas Wolk -- Publishers Weekly, 8/7/2007
The largest comics studio in the U.S. isn't in New York or L.A.—it's in Portland, Ore.. The members of Periscope Studio—which recently changed its name from Mercury Studio after years of being confused with a local alt-weekly—produce an enormous range and quantity of material, from mainstream and indie comics to theatrical design to commercial, promotional and educational work. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man and X-Men have all been drawn there in the last few years; Periscope's artists have done illustration and storyboarding for the Special Olympics, Tour de France, Hewlett-Packard and Cirque du Soleil.
The studio, which is located in an office building downtown, came together in early 2002; its initial members were Ron Randall, Karl Kesel, Terry Dodson, Matthew Clark, Paul Guinan, David Hahn, Rebecca and Pete Woods, and Steve Lieber. "The first action we took was figuring out the basic rules of the place," according to Lieber. "There weren't a lot. I think the main one was, 'you can have porn, but you can't put it up on the wall.' "
Five years later, it's still a pretty casual setup: a couple of rooms with a bunch of drawing tables, as well as some shared reference material and high-tech gear (like a Cintiq Graphics Tablet). Members pay monthly dues toward rent and utilities, and come in whenever they feel like it. Some are there every day, some once a week or less, and the studio joke has it that Randall's there 24/7—he always seems to be working on five projects at once, from adaptations of Norse myths to The Jewish Hero Corps. Recently, Periscope's started bringing in interns, as well. "We knew from the start it was going to be a loose organization, a bunch of people with a room," Lieber says. "We stayed that way for a long time, and I think we're starting to morph into something else—if not an actual business, we're getting closer to it all the time." The studio now occasionally takes on commercial assignments as a group, in addition to its members' individual work.
Periscope has expanded over the years, too. Besides the founders, its 20 or so members—nobody's clear on the exact number—now include Colleen Coover (Banana Sunday), Jesse Hamm (Good as Lily), Dylan Meconis (Wire Mothers), Jeff Parker (X-Men: First Class) and Rick Remender (Fear Agent). (A bunch of them shared an aisle in Artists' Alley at this year's Comic-Con International.) "There's a lot of good-sized cities out there where you couldn't name 20 cartoonists, much less get 'em all into the same room," Lieber notes. "It's possible here because we're in Portland, which is the most cartoonist-rich environment anywhere in the English-speaking world. It's the last affordable city on the West Coast, it's an incredibly literate city, it's got crappy weather that keeps people inside and great coffee to keep them motivated—people come to a place like Portland and they do stuff."
 Steve Lieber. |
Other collaborations between studio members are more ad hoc, especially when somebody's got a lot to do in a hurry. Matthew Clark, for instance, was working on Vampirella a few years ago when he got the call for his first big Marvel assignment, an Inhumans miniseries that was already behind schedule. "Matthew had to get Vampirella done," Lieber says, "so he bought several deli trays, and people all jumped in, and pages started stacking up. Any one of us can tell what any one of us did—we can look at a single feathered brushstroke and know who made it; I don't think there's a single reader who noticed. It was a very, very professional job. And it's a weirdly empowering thing to see a book go from 'there's no hope' to 'okay, done! let's go get a sandwich!' in no time flat."
Even when they're not officially working on projects together, the Periscope artists always seem to be beckoning each other over to their drawing boards to share tips and critiques. They've got a reputation for meeting their deadlines, too. "An attitude that everyone who's come in picks up quickly is that when you're drawing professionally, you're no longer depending upon being in the mood to create," Lieber said. "If you're not feeling inspired, you've got however many years of technical skill to stand in for inspiration, and it's really hard to not produce when everybody else is producing around you. It's a constant energy source that way. And once you're in the room, you really don't want to leave, because you're afraid you're going to miss something cool. That's been my experience. "
