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Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Aquaman Shrine Interview with Geraldo Borges

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Most of you are aware that Aquaman is going to have an even larger presence on comic book shelves in the second half of 2013. In addition to his regular title and Justice League, two of his villains (Human Flying Fish and The Fire Trolls...no, I'm kidding) are getting their own solo one-shots as part of "Villains Month", plus there will be an Aquaman Annual!
 
Both the Annual and Aquaman #23.2 will be drawn by Geraldo Borges, who is new to the Aquaman Family of artists. Geraldo has been actively conversing with the Shrine on Twitter, so I asked him if he'd be willing to do a brief interview with us about what he's currently got on his drawing table:

Aquaman Shrine: You're drawing the Ocean Master "villains" issue of Aquaman as well as the Aquaman Annual. Were you a particular fan of the characters before you got this assignment?

Geraldo Borges: When I think of Aquaman, my memories fly on Neal Pozner and Craig Hamilton's run, when the hero wore a blue suit. Ocean Master was there too. And, of course, I love what Geoff, Ivan, Joe and Rod did to Aquaman along these recent years, putting him on the top characters of DC New 52 universe.
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TAS: Your work is very fluid and the characters show a lot of movement in the frame, making you a great choice to do Aquaman. Did you let DC know that you were interested in drawing the Sea King?

GB: Actually I didn't have any idea I would draw an Aquaman issue one day, but my artistic influences were from guys that do dynamic and elegant human figures, using foreshortening shots, like Alan Davis, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Ivan Reis. And this is what I imagine for a title like Aquaman, where figures need to be plastic and dynamic under the water, as a ballet show...BTW I thank DC for letting me play with the Sea King and all stuff, I'll try to do my best on it.

TAS: How long did it take you to get a visual handle on the characters? Ivan Reis and Joe Prado had time over the course of Brightest Day before they moved onto Aquaman, but Paul Pelletier really had to hit the ground running. What's been your experience?

GB: I've already drawn New 52 Aquaman sometimes, but not Ocean Master. It's not so difficult to draw these characters, but the challenge was to represent the bottom of the sea, animals, plants, rocks, bubbles (lots of them), and so on. I tried to do good research for letting the reader really close to this world.

TAS: Is there a member of the cast you've had the most fun drawing so far?

GB: Aquaman is cool, Ocean Master is a great villain, you know...but Mera is a character I've waiting for!! I really love working with female characters--I'm married and I have three daughters, I really love women LOL--and one of my favorite DC characters is Wonder Woman. I see Mera so strong and powerful as WW, and it's really good when female characters assume an important position inside the title.  


The Shrine is very excited to see Geraldo's work on Aquaman, and we know it won't be this won't be the last time we get to talk to him. We thank him for taking time out to do this chat and we all look forward to Aquaman #23.2 and the Aquaman Annual!

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(Double-page spread from Aquaman #23.2 by Geraldo Borges and Rod Reis, appearing in color for the first time courtesy DC Comics! Click to embiggen!)

 

3 comments:

BlUsKrEEm said...

That's one fantastic cover spread!

David J. Cutler said...

No offense meant to the current team but I'm hoping Mr. Borges gets promoted to regular artist!

Johnny said...

Aren't you a fan of Pelletier, David? His splashes have been really awesome.