TALKING HEROES AND COMICS WITH TIM SALE

[MattBrady]

by Zack Smith

Tim Sale is one of comics’ hottest artists, best-known for such works as Batman: The Long Halloween with writer Jeph Loeb. But millions of viewers who’ve never picked up a comic book know Sale’s work…if not his name. On the hit NBC series Heroes, it’s Sale’s artwork standing in as Issac Mendez’s (Santiago Cabrera) prophetic paintings and comic books that help link the show’s disparate group of superpowered individuals (the artwork is archived online at www.9thwonders.com).

Sale recently spoke to Newsarama about his involvement with Heroes and his current work on DC’s Superman Confidential with writer Darwyn Cooke.

Newsarama: Staring with your Heroes work, how many pieces have you done so far?

Tim Sale: I’ve done maybe 20 paintings for the show and 30 comic book panels, not counting the comic that was given away as a promotion in San Diego. I should say right away, that the "paintings" are not actually paintings, they are wash drawings on comic book paper, about 11"x17", that are then colored by the amazing Dave Stewart on a computer, and then blown up and transferred to canvas -- except for the canvas part, just like Catwoman: When In Rome was produced.

NRAMA: Did you become involved with the show through Jeph Loeb (who serves as a writer/co-producer on Heroes)? What was your initial impression of the concept and the script?

TS: Early this year, January or February, Jeph put me in touch with (Heroes creator) Tim Kring. Jeph and Tim have known each other since the mid 1980's, when they met on Teen Wolf Too, Jeph having co-written the first one, and Tim being hired to write the sequel. They have kept in touch in the meantime, and Tim has become a very successful writer and producer on shows like Crossing Jordan for NBC.

Tim called Jeph to discuss the Heroes project, knowing that it had comic book overtones, and that Jeph is the comics master, and through those discussions, after the pilot script was written, Tim asked if Jeph had a recommendation for an artist from comics to illustrate the script. That's unusual, but Tim thought it would help sell it -- the concept is hardly everyday TV fare, after all -- and it also tied into the comics aspect. Jeph mentioned me, and that's how I came on board. The funny thing is, is that I worked on the pilot, and Jeph wasn't part of the show formally until it was picked up as a series.

In reading the script for the pilot, I distinctly remember feeling how much fun I was having, how much it was telling the kinds of stories that I enjoyed, and how cool a comic book it would make. I thought it was terrific. It's the nature of these things for there to be a lot of changes from script to film, but Tim's tone and interest and talent remained constant throughout.

NRAMA: Do you have a favorite character to draw, and what character(s) are the most challenging to illustrate?

TS: No favorites yet, it's more about whatever the scene is I am having to depict. I am not very good at likenesses, and so if that's important, I need to have a still from the show to draw from, and that's how most of the Hiro comics work is created. Everyone is learning how much I enjoy the darker stuff, the moody stuff, and so those tend to be my favorite ones to do.

NRAMA: What pieces have been the most challenging? Are there any you're particularly proud of or that you wish you could do differently?


TS: There are some that haven't been shown yet that I love, very moody, but so far the Train Wreck from the pilot, and the Shadow Chasing the Cheerleader are the one's that come to mind. Oddly enough, the painting that may have had the most airtime is my least favorite, the Peter Flying one.

NRAMA: Why is that your least favorite?

TS: They hadn’t filmed it yet, that was one of the things. It’s supposed to be dawn when Peter jumps off of the building. It was one of the few drawings where I had to do maybe half-a-dozen concept sketches of it. They didn’t know what they wanted until they saw it, one of those classic things. They eventually wanted him diving off serenely, and I just thought it looked silly. I still think it looks silly. The only part of it I liked was his coat. Peter’s is kind of easier to caricature because he’s got that silly hair and that kind of knife-like face.

But other than that, it’s kind of a sissy drawing, what are you going to do? It’s not moody, I couldn’t really play around with all the things I like playing around with, like the Sylar painting. I think the best thing that I have offer is bring the best of what I do in comics to a different medium. I’m hardly the best comic book artist around, or the best ever, but whatever I do, it has a certain look, and it seems to be a good fit for this, and I’m happy about that.

NRAMA: The characters on the show all have very distinct looks. Did you contribute to that?

TS: No, it was the other way around. I would draw to what the show had created. All the things that I did prior to filming were things like the train wreck or the atom bomb explosion. They weren’t dependent on characterization. And that was one of the problems with the painting of Peter flying. They were more precise in, “it has to look like the character,” and the other paintings are more expressionistic. They had cast the actor, but they hadn’t filmed that scene. They’d taken a couple of Polaroids of him in his wardrobe, so I knew what he was going to be wearing. I knew of the actor (Milo Ventimiglia) from Gilmore Girls.

NRAMA: One painting that’s gotten a lot of attention has been what some Internet posters have dubbed the “Floorpocalypse” painting, the one with the atomic bomb going off.

TS: That’s one of the few that there’s no wash, it’s just strictly black-and-white. The original is about 10"-by-15", and I created three or four different versions of it. For the pilot, they blew it up in black-and-white first. Before the pilot aired, they went in and colored it digitally on the film.

It’s not a painting on the floor. What they did was reproduce it on a sort of large rubberized mat that they placed down on the floor. They’ve replaced it at least once. It’s a different image based on mine, and it was actually colored in originally. I guess that’s because they didn’t want to go back in and color it (in post-production) every time.

NRAMA: And then there’s the painting where Peter has to complete it in a kind of amateurish style…

TS: That’s a problem with the cropping. I did two versions, one that was finished and one that was unfinished. So when you see Peter finishing it, he’s kind of just painting red on an area that’s already red. (Ventimiglia) didn’t actually paint any of the figure, that’s all me. But they cropped it really low-down on the painting, I imagine because they wanted to have actual paint dripping off the edge of the canvas. The figure of the cheerleader is much further down on the canvas than on my original composition, so it looks more awkward and funny than the original does. But I like the figure of Sylar, I like the shadow being cast that way.

NRAMA: What about the “9th Wonders” artwork? You look like you’re having a good time doing that…

TS: If you're talking about the comics covers that have been on screen, there have only been three: the one of Hiro shouting, “I did it!", and the two monster covers. One of the monster ones was shown very briefly, maybe two weeks ago in a scene between DL and Micah, and the Uluru one, the rock-god one, has only appeared as a cover on the show, Micah reads it. But it was very much intended to be like the old Kirby covers.

NRAMA: Would you ever like to do a full-length comic like that?

TS: I don’t know if I want to do a full-length one! But it might be fun. It would have to be pretty open and big images, things like that. In some ways, my Hulk is a version of that. That’s as exaggerated a character as I’ve ever done. But I’d love to do a series of covers like that. I love doing that stuff.

NRAMA: What's your working relationship with Tim Kring like?

TS: I don't really have much of one. He is a great guy, very "normal" and generous and quiet, and I like him a great deal, but we don't have much interaction in the course of making the show. I really am closer to being part of the crew, and so I work with the props department primarily. Jeph is a big help, but right now, in one of those stranger than fiction things, Archie Goodwin's old assistant editor, Chuck Kim, is working on the show as, among other things, my liaison.

NRAMA: How does that work?

TS: Well, it was funny, because I hadn’t really thought of Chuck since I worked with him on Long Halloween, which was when Archie was dying, actually. He did all of the job of an editor of making the trains run on time and making sure we were on schedule, and he was really thrown into the fire, what with Archie being sick and having to deal with Jeph and me, pains in the neck that we are. There’s an obscure little one page "story" that appeared in a DC Comics tribute book after 9/11 that Chuck wrote and I drew. It was three silent panels, very sweet, and it was his concept and his idea.

That was the last time I had spoken to Chuck before his getting the job on Heroes. I get scripts sent to me every day, every revision, and that’s more than I can deal with, so he’s very useful in dealing with people in studios. He’s in the studio (in Hollywood) all day, and I’m miles away in Pasadena. So he says, “okay, this is what the script requires, it’s now gone through three or four revisions, and we need it by this time.” He writes what they need, and makes sure we’re all on the same page.

NRAMA: How often are you called upon to produce a new painting, and how long does each painting take?

TS: I have had art in almost all of the episodes, sometimes many pieces, either comic panels or "paintings". The comic panels, the stuff Hiro looks at, are also colored by Dave, but they are done, one panel per page, but otherwise just like a regular comic would be. The deadlines are sometimes very tight, but everyone on the show now knows that my full time job is drawing for DC Comics, and that that must be my priority, so the maximum lead time I can have is best for everyone involved. Not always easy or possible on a weekly series, but that's the goal.

NRAMA: What kind of input do you get from the writers on these pieces?
TS: Not much from the writers, although Jesse Alexander was very kind when I did a few pieces for his script. Jeph and Dennis Hammer (the executive producer) are also great, but and are in touch, and everyone is enthusiastic in person, but I don't see these folks very often. Jeph and Chuck are the people I deal with the most. Jeph’s used to kind of having his fingers in a million pies, and he’s very good at it, very useful to the show, it seems to me. I mean, they could not have a better person, really, to do what he does. So he can multi-task and stays in touch with me. But Chuck is more primarily…me.

NRAMA: You’ve gotten to work with Santiago Cabrera, who plays Isaac. What was that like?

TS: I’ve met him a couple of times, we’re friendly, and do a little bit of emailing back-and-forth. Before filming anything, he came out to my studio and spent a couple of hours walking around and going over stuff with me, and I showed him what pens and ink and charcoal and stuff I worked with. He’s very soft-spoken, a very nice guy. He’s from Argentina, the son of a diplomat, and I believe he was raised a great deal in Great Britain. He trained theatrically in Great Britain, and he’s relatively new to acting. When he left here, I gave him Tim Sale: Black & White, the Active Images book of my artistic history. In there are a couple of things; one is my love of soccer, and another is a charcoal drawing that I did as a study of a Spanish artist named Francisco Goya, who worked in the 18th century, and toward the end of his life did a series of kind of supernatural, horrific paintings called “The Black Paintings.”

A few weeks later, when the first scene that ended up in the pilot of Santiago and Tawny Cypress, who plays Simone, in the studio. I was invited up to the set. And in between shots, Santiago comes up to me and goes, “So, you play soccer!” And I said, “Yes, how do you know?” And he said, “I was reading your book.” I figured I’d given him a bunch of stuff that he'd leave in the back of his car (laughs)…and apparently, he’s a longtime soccer player, quite good, he was in a movie this summer (the Goal! Trilogy).

The other thing is, he also loves Goya. So we discussed having Isaac’s work being reminiscent of Goya, and I thought that was a great note. I’ve tried to incorporate that increasingly into the work. So he’s the person I’ve had the most interaction with, but I’ve met them all.

NRAMA: Were any of the cast fans of your comic book work from before the show?

TS: None of the cast, no. Tawny Cypress, Simone on the show, her brother is Toby Cypress, is a comic book artist reminiscent to me of Paul Pope, who has taught at the Joe Kubert School, and is quite good and sort of quirky in just the way that I like. But none of the cast are comics fans that I know of, no. Some of the writers beyond Jeph are, like Bryan Fuller and Joe Pokaski and Aron Coleite.

But that’s kind of part of the fun, too. In the same way that Tim Kring is not a comic book person, and he’s created this kind of comic book-related project, I am somebody who does come from comics, and they’re not really aware of me or my work, but how it all really sort of fits together, and I think (people feel) that’s exciting, that there are these different worlds that we weren’t aware of, in a certain way, and that they’re impacting each other.

NRAMA: Do the writers give you comic-script style descriptions for the paintings?

TS: The writers are writing a TV script, and their purpose isn't really to go into much detail about what the art should be like, it's usually a very brief description. That's where Chuck is valuable to me, he will ask the writers the things I need to know after I tell him.

NRAMA: What’s an example of that?

TS: Well, there’s a scene coming up…this is a thing I do in comics all the time. I need to know the time of day, I need to know the emotional mood of the scene. I need to know what is important and what is not important. In comics, it’s called “storytelling,” and I don’t know if they use that word to describe the same thing in TV, what they’re trying to convey, because there’s a lot of ways they can do it. There’s a scene of a man in a river coming up, it’s a painting. And I asked all of those questions, and what people were most concerned about, because the scene had not been filmed yet, was that I didn’t lock in the director, the wardrobe, the actor, everyone, into anything too specific.

They needed to have the flexibility to shift things on set and so it was a challenge because I kept asking things like "What's he wearing?" and "What's in the background?" and "What time of day is it?" What I eventually figured out, what seems to work best, was that in the paintings, it’s much more evocative of a mood than a kind of expressiveness, and they’re not as exactly delineated as the comic-book panels are. The comic book panels are meant for you to go, “oh my God, we just saw that!” The paintings aren’t quite like that. The paintings are more moody. And actually, it's a lot more fun for me that way.

NRAMA: You had a big painting come out in Entertainment Weekly recently. How’d that work out?

TS: That all happened within the span of 10 days, a week. I got a call to see if I would do something. They went in, they did a photo shoot, they took the photo, they sent me a JPEG, I created the artwork from the JPEG…it was just much faster, but it was very similar to what I do to create the painting for the show, except it needed to be as close to the photo as possible, so in that respect, it was much closer to the comic book panels.

So I drew it from the JPEG, Dave Stewart colored it, I sent it back, and they Photoshopped it in at an angle. It was pretty amazing how fast it all turned around, but it was fun! I’m a subscriber to EW, so it was quite a thrill.

NRAMA: Your work’s getting a lot of exposure through this show. How does it feel to have that kind of audience?

TS: Well, the people who recognize that it’s me are the people that I already have as fans. It’s not that the show promotes me as an artist; I don’t get an upfront headline or anything like that. So it’s not like I suddenly have 12 million new people who know my name. I would venture to say that 99 percent of the people who watch the show have no idea. So it doesn’t translate that way.

There are some people who will go to the 9th Wonders web site, and see that I have a web site, and go to my web site, and write to me and try to buy a painting or something. So there’s some of that. But I don’t think that it translates to comics per se.

NRAMA: Do you have a lot of people asking, “Can I have a reproduction of this particular painting from the show?”

TS: Some people want the paintings…most people are interested in buying what they call “the artwork on the show.” Those are not paintings; those are props created by NBC from original art I do, the same way you wouldn’t buy a comic and think it’s original artwork. But it’s a hard concept for people to get around, and that's understandable.

NRAMA: What happens to the prop paintings after they’re used on the show?

TS: I have no idea! (laughs) Hopefully, they’re being saved somewhere. I would imagine that there’s a market for that, and at some point NBC will realize that there’s a market for a coffee table book, for merchandising, all that kind of stuff, and I’ll be a part of that, but I don’t know how big a part.

NRAMA: Any thought of selling the prop paintings off for charity or anything like that?

TS: I think that’d be a great idea! Now, on the pilot, the pilot was produced by a different crew. They were essentially the crew from Crossing Jordan, Tim Kring’s longtime successful other series. The person I primarily worked with on the pilot was Gay Perello, the prop master on Crossing Jordan, she's terrific, really great at her job, and we became friends. In the pilot, the scene with Isaac in his loft has him destroying the paintings that he has painted of the future because they are freaking him out, he thinks they are evil. Because they would need to film each shot from different angles, different lighting's, etc., Gay made multiple copies of some of the canvasses. The ones that Isaac destroyed, she offered the to some of the people on my web site, people who were the most loyal, who wrote in the most. So there’s maybe about six or eight of them that got the destroyed "on camera" paintings. But those are the only “paintings” that have been distributed, and the rest, as far as I know, are all up somewhere at NBC.

NRAMA: Let’s talk about your work on Superman Confidential. This is the first time in years you’ve done an extended storyline with a writer other than Jeph Loeb. What kind of adjustment has that been?

TS: Well, it’s more a challenge than I thought or hoped it might be, which has nothing to do with Darwyn’s talent. I have no problem in saying I think Darwyn is the best, most multifaceted talent working in comics today. There is no one who's work I more look forward to reading, and no one who I have more joy in reading. And looking at.

NRAMA: Have you seen the Absolute New Frontier hardcover?

TS: I just got my copy today. Darwyn spent forever designing that, putting it together, all those annotations in the back…all that stuff, you know, in addition to how great the series was. It’s just a testament to how well he does so many different things.
But I think the thing we’re dealing with creatively is, he’s never really written for another artist before. And it’s an adjustment for him to think about, and then write to, something that a) I might want to draw, and b) something that I would draw very well. So there are sometimes, in extended sequences certainly, where it works like gangbusters, and we’ll both have a lot of fun, and it’s exactly the kind of comic that I would like to read. There are other times when I will sort of just say to myself, “well, I’d really like to see you draw this, Darwyn, I don’t know if I should be the guy who does this.” It’s a learning process, we’re not finished with it, and we’re still struggling with that a bit.

NRAMA: This is a very different take on Superman than your last work with the character (Superman for All Seasons, with Loeb). It’s more of an action story.

TS: Well, it's both. Darwyn loves the big action stuff that Superman does, but he also is great at the softer, poignant material as well. If you look at a lot of his sequences in New Frontier with Superman, he loves the spectacular, the destruction of Tokyo, giant robots, crashing through buildings, like that. He loves writing that, but he also is so good at the moments that define character, like the sequence between Superman and Wonder Woman in Viet Nam where she tells him, "There's the door, Spaceman". And those are the kinds of scenes I am drawn to.

NRAMA: So would you say the storyline has forced you to adjust as an artist a little bit?

TS: Well, it’s forcing me to do things I’m not as comfortable doing. I don’t know how successfully I pull that off, that’s what I’m concerned with. It’s very important to me to have a different style and different way of drawing as much as I could for this, as opposed to the For All Seasons stuff, because the story is different and I think that the art should reflect the storyline, but also because I want to maintain the For All Seasons look for when I work in that style with Jeph.

NRAMA: The book had a lot of controversy when it came out because there were a lot of ad placements in it. Do you have any comments on that?

TS: (laughs) Well, I hate it. But I’ve hated it for 10 or 15 years. I didn't know there was a controversy, I usually figure I'm kind of alone in how much I dislike it, dinosaur that I am. I have no control over the ads, of course, and I’m sure every creative person would prefer not to have any ads in any comics they do. But that’s not the way it goes; the publishers are making more money from selling more ads, and as long as I'm playing in their sandbox, they make the rules. The good thing is, that almost everything is collected now, and the collection has no ads, so you can eventually get a copy that’s printed differently.

NRAMA: What are you working on after Superman Confidential?

TS: You know, I don’t know! There are things that are being talked about, and I know I’m still exclusive with DC for a little while longer, so I’ll be sitting up there. I want to work there, and they want me to work there, and there are things we’re talking about, but I’m not being coy, I don’t know what’s going on yet.

NRAMA: Would you consider going over to Marvel, because Jeph’s exclusive there?

TS: I would love to work with Jeph again, and I'm sure we will at some point, but, I’m not done with my DC contract for a while longer, at least another year. I don’t know; it would depend on the project, and I did grow up as a Marvel Zombie. DC has been really great with me, very generous and encouraging, and my relationship with Mark Chiarello is precious to me. But... I know that I get restless. I had no idea a year ago that I’d be involved in a TV show. Who knows what will happen with that, you know? Working with Jeph for as long as I did, and as strong and talented as he is, I really had kind of a cushion in the industry. Without that, I need to be a lot more…I don’t know, something. More I have to take on than I used to, more careful.

NRAMA: Would you ever see leaving comics and working in Hollywood with the clout you’re getting from Heroes?

TS: What's this clout you're talking about? (laughs). Show it to me! No, I'd never leave comics altogether, no. I love comics too much. And I would never want to only do one thing. That’s part of my personality, I move on. It’s why I can’t do a regular comic book series. I get bored. Who knows? Like I said, I had no idea I’d be working on TV at all a year ago. As long as that’s fun and interesting, I’ll be pursuing that. There may be a point when I’m doing something else for a while, but I imagine if that happens, I'll always want to come back to comics at some point. I just dig the medium too much.

[bishop-m]

I've enjoyed Tim Sale's work for quite some time. I haven't checked out Heroes yet though!
I'll have to track them down online...

[HazMatMan]

First?

Hopefully they'll anthologize them.

[pseudosham]

good, interesting article

[Kolimar]

Nice interview.

[ShinAkuma666]

Great interview, cant wait for any future colaborations between him and Jeph Loeb.

[EmeraldGuy32]

So the circle of light is an eclipse?

[MrNEWZ]

Originally Posted by EmeraldGuy32

So the circle of light is an eclipse?

Some Eclipses

And another

and finally

They look like the one in the picture and the logo to me. ;-)

[Book of GOB]

Great interview, Tim. When I got that issue of EW, my first thought was wondering what a crush your turnaround time had to be.

Love seeing your work on TV every week.

[PaulCrocker]

I'm hoping that a tiny little portion of that viewership will further investigate Tim Sale's work in works like Batman and Daredevil. Hope this can bring some new fans onboard this medium.

[melibell21]

Originally Posted by bishop-m

I've enjoyed Tim Sale's work for quite some time. I haven't checked out Heroes yet though!
I'll have to track them down online...

It's so worth it. It's shaping up to be a really cool series.

BTW, I wasn't sure that it was Tim Sale's artwork, but I had a vague suspicion. Now I know!

[Forbush Man]

i hope tim sale eventually goes to marvel and does some more cool stuff with jeph. good interview.

[shy guy]

Huh; I had no idea that was Sale's artwork in Heroes, and I watch the show every week. Of course you can easily see it whlie looking at the work in the article.

I'm mildly mystified at the large audience the show is attracting, since I think it's pretty awful, but it's fantastic that Sale's work is getting such wide exposure. Hopefully it encourages some viewers to seek out more of his work.

[Hobowatcher]

Originally Posted by Forbush Man

i hope tim sale eventually goes to marvel and does some more cool stuff with jeph. good interview.

So do I. Jeph seems to only write good stories if he's writing them for Tim.

[hermit]

i can't wait for the dvd edition of the serie. i hope they'll do some cool comic book related stuff (and probably will)

[Grendel Prime]

I've been following Tim Sale's work since his run on the original (technically second) Grendel series from Comico. It is so pleasing to me as a fan of comic books to see an artist (and I use that in the fullest sense of the word) continuing to develop and improve and push the limits of the medium after so many years in the industry. One day, Tim Sale will be considered in the same pantheon as Jack the King Kirby and Jim Steranko.

Much respect, Tim. Keep up the good work.

[BubbaKanoosh]

I never realized it was him who did the paintings, wow, I feel dumb

[bg.]

Yeah, I can't wait for the DVD either. I've seen all the episodes so far, love it. It's alot of fun to see the cross overs from comics to television.

I didn't realize that Jeph Loeb was a part of the series, that explains why the series is so good.

[NightRiver]

Great interview! Im so loving Heroes!

Anybody know where I can find that Entertainment Weekly image on the net?

[c_andrew_s]

Awesome article.... it's very cool that USAToday's, Whitney linked to this story.

[smitch]

I've loved Tim's work since I first saw it in Daredevil Yellow. I love Heroes too, what fun to see him so involved on the project. He's awesome, email him through his site, and he'll do his best to write you back personally. Huge thrill for a fan like me.

Ironically, I gravitate more toward his DC work, while he often admits he was a Marvel Zombie growing up.

Death to ads in comics! (cheeky)

[Delicious]

Hi, well done, I love yours here.