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Putting Your Mark On It: An Interview with BLOODSHOT Artist Marc Laming

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We recently had the exciting opportunity to catch up with Marc Laming, the current artist on the popular BLOODSHOT ongoing series at Valiant Entertainment! We dig into inspirations, working with writer Tim Seeley and even what it’s like to draw Kaiju in a comic series! See below for the full interview…

Comic Watch: To start, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us here at Comic Watch about your work at Valiant Entertainment on the Bloodshot series. Can you give us some insight on how you got started working on Bloodshot?

MARC LAMING: I had worked on several short jobs and covers when Warren Simmons was at the company so when Robert Meyers & Lysa Hawkins got in contact with me a year or so later I was very pleased to hear them as I had always enjoyed working at Valiant and needed a break from working in a galaxy far far away. I was initially offered a series of covers for Bloodshot and the Zero issue which I LOVED working on and Lysa then offered me a run on the current storyline which I jumped at because I had enjoyed working on Tim Seeley’s Zero issue script so much.

CW: With this Bloodshot series starting with Brett Booth on art, is it difficult to come in after a series has already started as an artist or were you able to hit the ground running pretty easily?

MARC: Brett and I may work very differently but I feel like Tim has been really clever with his scripts so that we get to play to our strengths and not worry about any stylistic differences there might be.

CW: What are some of the inspirations you carry into such an action-packed project like this, both in comics and in other media such as TV and film?

MARC: With a project like Bloodshot I get to bring over some of the storytelling approaches I have employed to the Star Wars books I drew at Marvel which is very much based on the documentary style of storytelling George Lucas employed on a New Hope which hopefully puts the reader right at the centre of the action and on the ground with Bloodshot rather than at a remote distance. Another obvious influence on how I approached the book are the big set pieces from the new James Bond movies.

CW: We actually had a chance to speak with Tim Seeley just as the Bloodshot series was getting started last year and it’s easy to see the passion that he brings to the action genre as a whole. Can you talk a little about how the collaboration process with Tim Seeley has been and how it has impacted your work on Bloodshot? 

MARC: Tim has been great to work with, he writes scripts that play to your strengths as an artist and it definitely helps that Tim is an artist in his own right too as he understands the real estate of the comic page very well. In terms of how we actually work to together, I get sent his script, I read that over a couple of times and then produce pretty tight thumbnails. These go to Lysa & Tim to look over and I then in turn use those layouts as pencils and go to inks digitally on the Cintiq.
CW: As a particularly big fan of all things Kaiju, it’s safe to say I’ve really loved the latest issues of Bloodshot. I wanted to see if you could give some insight on bringing in Kaiju into the story and if it posed any unique challenges as an artist?MARC: I love a big monster and had great fun designing the god-beasts for the book. Lots of eyes and huge scales are always enjoyable to draw. I started with something like a great ape skeleton and built on that adding deadly slashing and smashing tails, something of a dinosaur and hammerhead shark hybrid head, and then went to town adding a huge number of teeth and eyes to the mix until I had something fierce enough.

CW: Are there any other characters at Valiant you would be excited to do the artwork on after your work on Bloodshot has wrapped?
MARC: I’d love to do a dark ages set sword & sorcery story with Eternal Warrior – a fully contained and stand-alone story like Divinity was, I even know that I would want Alex DeCampi to write it – no, I’ve not thought about it at all hahaha
CW: From the perspective of a creator, what attracted you to working with Valiant and what do you think separates Valiant from other publishers in the industry?MARC: I like that Valiant’s universe is still young and you can make a mark on it, but honestly it’s working with folks like Lysa in editorial and Gregg Katzman and Matthew Klein on the marketing side of the company that keeps me coming back because it is a creator-focused company that really cares about the talent they work with and that is a nice change of pace these days.

CW: It’s certainly a great time to be a Bloodshot fan with this exciting new series and of course the live action movie starring Vin Diesel. Have you gotten a chance to see the movie and if so, what were your thoughts on it?

MARC: Comics take me a long time to make so I get very little time to watch TV and movies so I have still to see the Bloodshot movie but I’ll let you know what I thought as soon as I have!

CW: Lastly, is there anything about your upcoming work you can tell us about that fans should definitely be getting excited for?  

MARC: I can’t say any more than I’m working on two long-form graphic novels, one is a hard sci-fi story the other is an action-adventure espionage tale – I’m hugely excited about them both and if you follow me on Twitter I’m sure you will see some in-progress pages from those books.
Be sure to get Valiant’s BLOODSHOT on your pull list if you don’t already and support your LCS! Stay tuned to Comic Watch for all your fandom news and reviews!
Putting Your Mark On It: An Interview with BLOODSHOT Artist Marc Laming
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