Here is one of my older articles that originally appeared on a website with which I am no longer associated, hence I wanted to repost it here in my blog for all to see. This article is from 2016
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In addition
to all of his comicbook work, Guy has actually expanded beyond comics, and has built
up his portfolio in a variety of different art fields, such as toy designs (for
WWF/WWE), trading cards (again including for the WWF), coloring books, magazine
covers, stickers, billboards, newspaper comic strip ads, and much more. Some of
these other works include Hercules and Xena watch designs, character development
for the Silver Surfer cartoon series, Star Wars Comics to Color and
the list goes on and on.
We recently
caught up with Guy and (finally) got the chance to talk to him about his very busy,
very full schedule.
RJS: So
when did you break into comics?
Guy Dorian,
Sr: I broke into comics at the age of 22 almost 23. I had tried for
about two and a half years to get into Marvel, with the help of my brother Ian,
Mark Pacella, and Dan Panosian, as well as my wife’s willingness to wait, and also
my aunt Trudy who helped me financially to go back and forth into New York.
Thanks to
my brother’s connections with Mark Pacella, I became his assistant. When I met Dan
Panosian both he and Mark brought me into Marvel…Dan took me into Marvel to see
the editors. So after two-and-a-half years of trying to bring up samples into Marvel
— which was a wonderful place to hang out back in those days — you could hang out
in Marvel and talk to everyone and meet everyone; and I would do my samples right
there at Marvel. The editor I had seen first was Ralph Macchio. He looked at my
work and said it will take you about two-and-a-half-to-three years to get in; he
was right on the money. Finally, after many years of struggle, with my wife and
I eating peas out of a can for our lack of money, and many tears on the train ride
home, I walked in to Rob Tokar’s office where he was doing New Warriors and
showed him my samples. I went into his office he started to look at my work, and
he got a phone call right then. He seemed to be on the phone and I didn’t want to
interrupt him so I decided to leave thinking…“Oh well, I guess I won’t have a job
again.” But as I was walking out he said, “Hey, what’s your schedule like? I think
I have a job for you.” Just like that, I began my first job at Marvel.
Actually
as I recall now my actual first work was through the Daredevil office with
Editor Pat Garrahy. Pat was Mark’s editor, I believe, and said, “Hey, why don’t
you do some samples of Daredevil…here’s a script.” It was a backup story. That was
the first actual paid work I got — I got paid $50 per page for those pencils. He
then bought a pinup of Daredevil from me but it was never published. He also bought
a double-page splash pinup of the Fantastic Four. So that was really my first work.
As I mentioned before, I started my work on I believe issue #48 of New Warriors,
and Rob Tokar purchased a pin-up of Nova from me.
GD, Sr: At the
age of maybe eight or nine my brother Ian and I saw comics on the stands and were
amazed by them. Comics by Jack Kirby, Walter Simonson, Neal Adams, John Byrne, Michael
Golden, Herb Trimpe, Sal Buscema — to name a few, had captured our attention. The
Fantastic Four, The X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America,
Iron Man, Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Green Lantern,
The Flash — not to mention the cartoons and audio books that we purchased
as well as toys. These things made us want to draw comicbooks. At a very early age
my twin brother (Ian) and I studied from artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo DaVinci,
Albrecht Durer just to name a few. We were both sent to a gifted school and there
we gained a lot of confidence that we could actually acquire those high heights
of becoming professional artists.
RJS: You
really have bounced around not only in the kinds of books you’ve done but the type
of art you’ve done. Everything from comics to tour designs, to — as you told me
at Winter Con; sculpting and landscapes — how do you explain that?
RJS: Do
you think that art is art and that it is something genetic or do you think that
is a learned trait? I get that you can teach technique, but do you believe that
some people are simply predisposed to be better at it than others?
GD, Sr: Well as
far as art is concerned everyone can learn technique, whether or not they are good
or bad, people can learn…well, at least the average person can learn how to use
technique to make art that looks interesting. There are a lot of techniques that
through practice people can use to do works of art that may seem to be okay to fantastic
depending upon how well they learned the medium…How well they learned those techniques,
but some people like myself have a different sense. Where we can just see art as
design, structure, light and shadow, color atmosphere, texture, energy and feel
it. See it and embody it, because it’s just how we see the world. Whether we never
took one lesson or took a hundred thousand lessons, we would be able to produce
artworks of high quality that are beyond what most people would normally be able
to do. But if you asked me to sing I can’t do it. How lame.
RJS: Given
that you seem to be doing all sorts of art these days is there any that you prefer
more than others:
GD, Sr: No, there
is no one type that I prefer over another. I prefer the challenge of creation, the
challenge of inception, and understanding. I prefer the challenge of accomplishment
and reaching a goal. I prefer to be tested, and I prefer to conquer and achieve.
Whatever type or style of art or medium that is required, those are the factors
that make me enjoy them equally no matter what they are.
RJS: Your
brother, Ian is also a very talented artist in the same field of comics. Is there
any rivalry, friendly or otherwise between you two?
GD, Sr: There is
no rivalry between the two of us. We do try to influence each other to do better
and push each other. We can work well together at times and other times we don’t
work well at all. I would say that you know I started out as a professional when
I was 22, my brother started out doing small parts of some of the projects that
I had when I was younger and working in my early twenties. Ian went off to college
to get his Master’s degree and become a professor, and became a professional stone
carver, sculptor, as well as painter, illustrator…you name it he has the degree
to prove it. So now that we’re both professional illustrators working in comics
and for the same company! It is very special, and we actually bonded even closer
because of that. We both worked on the 2015 Avengers Assemble calendar, but the
one that has more of the buildings on it was done by my brother. We worked with
Chris Sotomayor’s SotoColor on that and that was a fun job in some ways and in other
ways it was very difficult. So we’ve worked on the Avengers calendar, commercial
art that will be used for many things over the next few years on clothing; shirts,
pants, shoes, books, hats, you name it…my brother was mostly the counselor and I
was mostly the inker. Sometimes he did a little drawing on the computer and sometimes
I felt that a little change of the figures in the illustration would improve the
result. All in all, it was a fun gig in the end…and very rewarding to do that Avengers
Assemble 2015 calendar.
RJS: Have
the two of you worked on any projects together before in the past?
RJS: Is
there any existing character you’d like to work on that you haven’t already?
GD, Sr: There are
several. My number one character that I’d like to work on would be The Incredible
Hulk, others would be Dr. Strange, Man-Thing, Mister Miracle, Machine Man, Black
Panther, possibly Spawn, as well as the X-Men… maybe Green Lantern. I have illustrated
most of those characters on or in some capacity over the course of the 22 years
as a professional. I have, I could say a lot of them were done on a trading cards
as well as some paintings and such, but as far as full issues most of the main few
that I mentioned in the beginning were my big hitters. Oh, I forgot to mention of
course the Fantastic Four! I did come up with a story based on one of the characters
of the Fantastic Four that I would like to pitch to Marvel. I do have a great writer
involved — a very famous one — to help me pitch that.
This is
part one of a two-part interview with Guy Dorian, Sr. the second half will follow
soon.
The Avengers,
all members of the Avengers, The New Warriors, Daredevil, and all artwork associated
with those character are © & TM 2015 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.
Coping with
the New Activism poster © & TM 2015 PKMM
Entertainment/Guy Dorian.
Funnybook
City, and this article is © 2015 & 2024 Robert J. Sodaro, D.B.A. Freelance Ink.
All rights reserved.
Robert J. Sodaro is a noted comicbook historian and journalist who began reading comics during the early ‘60s while sitting on the newsstand in his Uncle’s “Mom & Pop” grocery store. He has been writing about them in the early ‘80s, and wrote for virtually every print comicbook publication published during the ‘80s & ‘90s. These days, much of his writing can be found on Hubpages.com/@robertjsodaro.
