The co-creator of both Transmetropolitan and The Boys was on hand in Naples to discuss his art and the evolution of both his technique and storytelling, before touching on MCU movie saturation, the upcoming end of The Boys TV series, and the impact of AI on artwork.
"Hi friends, I'm at the 25th Comicon in Napoli and we are starting with a big one as I'm here joined by Darick Robertson. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you."
"You are the co-creator for both Transmetropolitan and The Boys comic books.
Yes.
So looking back at them and how foreseeing, how foretelling they were, how do you feel about that?
Is this something that concerns you? Is this something that makes you proud?
Or is that a message that is sending a warning to..."
"Well, I think the warning was missed with Transmetropolitan because we've kind of entered into the world we were fearing.
But I still feel like the city is a crazier, faraway place than we're quite there.
But it is definitely, I was joking before that I want a hat that says, "make Transmetropolitan fiction again" Okay."
"Because there's too much of it that feels like we are living in kind of that nightmare.
And we don't have a Spider Jerusalem to guide us out.
Yeah, you just mentioned the context of that work.
How do you feel about, I wanted to ask you about the transition from Transmetropolitan to The Boys."
"Both about the context itself, the context you were living in, and you as an artist.
Yeah. In the context, did you say?
Yeah.
I don't, for Transmetropolitan, I'm a big fan of Jamie Hewlett, for example, Tank Girl."
"It was this, a lot of this sensibility is my sensibility of what I like and what I want to draw.
And so the world of Transmetropolitan allowed me to kind of draw in a freeform way.
And Spider Jerusalem was very much my spirit animal.
He was like my id."
"So I was able to sort of channel a lot of my own feelings and thoughts.
And, you know, the person I wish I could be cool enough to be, is there on the paper.
But, and that world was so much fun to create because it was at a time in my life when I was traveling for the first time.
So I had moved to Italy."
"I had lived in New York.
I lived in San Francisco.
So I had been to a lot of different cities, and I'd been all over Europe and really started to see the world in my mid-20s in a way that I had never experienced it before.
And that all ended up back in the book in the five years that I worked on it."
"All these crazy different life changes happened to me, ending with me becoming a father.
But with The Boys, I had finished Transmetropolitan, and it was an opportunity to work with Garth Ennis on something original.
And he and I had collaborated a lot at Marvel successfully, and we were kind of eager to work together.
So when Transmet ended, he asked if I would work on this book, The Boys, with him, and we started talking about it."
"But then I got offered to do an ongoing series of Wolverine under exclusive contract for Marvel, and that was like my dream.
And also I needed the exclusive contract as a new dad.
So I thought he would go off and find another artist.
But a year later, he came back around and said, hey, when you're done with Wolverine, I really want you to do this book with me."
"And I was like, yes, I really want to do that book with you.
So that became The Boys.
But it was really, for me, an opportunity to draw and create original characters.
And I loved Preacher, and I loved Steve Dillon's artwork, that I thought, wow, this would be a great opportunity to just make something cool."
"So both series went through the strange coincidence of getting started at one company, dying, and then coming reborn at another company.
So with Transmetropolitan, we started at Helix.
They killed Helix, and we ended up at Vertigo.
With The Boys, we started at Wildstorm."
"It was too much for them.
We ended up at Dynamite.
And both things kind of interrupted my creative flow.
But both books I'm very proud of."
"With The Boys, I feel like it's a statement on power and how absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And with Transmetropolitan, it was like a way of holding power to the hot flame of truth, holding power responsible.
And the message.
Yeah."
"So those two things resonate through both books.
All right.
So we've been talking about your background and the context you had for those books.
And also you've mentioned briefly Italy, and we are in Italy, and we are in Europe."
"So how would you say, you know, your style has been described as dirty realism.
Would you say you were also inspired by European sort of irreverence?
Oh, absolutely.
Like, as a young teenager, I originally wanted to be a fantasy painter like Frank Frazetta."
"So there are a handful of terrible barbarian paintings that I did when I was 14, 15.
And then I quickly learned that, oh, the reason my stuff doesn't look as good as Richard Corben's is because he can draw, and I can't.
So I set about learning to draw, and I never really went back to painting.
But in the process of learning to draw, I'm just self-taught, but I discovered Heavy Metal Magazine."
"Heavy Metal Magazine had Moebius, Milo Manara, Richard Corben, these incredible artists from all over the world, and especially from Europe.
And that stuff hit me between the eyes like in a way American comics never had, like where everybody was really into, you know, the Marvel universe and [Jack] Kirby and that kind of thing.
It would take me a while to come back around to that, and it would be John Byrne or Frank Miller that would drag me into that universe."
"And I grew up on DC Comics, but boy, Heavy Metal is nothing like DC Comics.
But I love Neil Adams and Bernie Wrightson and, you know, these incredible artists of that era as well.
And I noticed a lot of them working in both companies.
But for me, the European style and also just my love of Brian Bolland who created, or made Judge Dredd famous, like I saw those at a young age, the 2000 AD, and that to me is the personification of what I want my style to look like, and I can't do it."
"So it's just this failed attempt to draw like Brian Bolland that I keep failing at over and over again.
That has become my "dirty style".
I just can't be as clean as he is.
I'm just not that good."
"You can't be everybody.
I'm just me.
Then women like Milo Manara and then architecture like Moebius.
But what I love about all of those artists that they have in common is their ability to tell a story."
"And so for me, it's like the cleanliness of the drawing is not as important to me as the impact of what the moment is.
And if it's a little dirty, it might be because that moment's a little dirty.
You know, if it's a little gross, maybe it needs to be gross.
Maybe as long as you feel what the story is trying to convey, then I feel like I'm doing my job correctly."
"And I think you did.
And also we saw it transformed into a TV series.
Of course, I want to ask you about the TV series as well.
We know that The Boys as a comic book has an end to it."
"It's a complete story.
But the series is still ongoing.
I don't know if I have.
No, it's ending right now.
Ending."
"Yes.
Season five is the final of that story.
Exactly.
It's not yet there.
Yeah."
"That's what I mean.
They're filming it.
They're filming it.
It's not there yet.
So, I don't know if asking you how would you have ended it or what are you looking forward to seeing on screen realized the most in terms of, for example, character developments and what's left to tell?
That's hard for me to say because one, if I knew anything, I wouldn't be sharing it with you."
"But two, it's the fact that they've really done their own thing with the characters and that storyline has its own life to it now in ways that we never explored in the comics.
I love the series.
I love the story they're telling."
"I'm excited to see what they do with it.
And I've kind of backed away from reading the scripts in advance because I like to be surprised at this point.
That's great."
"So then what are you looking forward to seeing on screen from what's left?
The artwork I did for it?
No.
No, but I'm excited because I know Eric Kripke is a man of vision and integrity."
"And his regret was that he didn't end Supernatural on his terms.
And he doesn't want to do that with The Boys, as much as I want it to go on forever because it's good for me financially.
I respect that they want to close it down and tell a complete story."
"And in that regard, I'm excited to see how they wrap it all up.
And I'm curious who's going to survive.
Who's going to survive?
Okay, that's interesting."
"You've mentioned Marvel and DC several times.
Of course, you also have a story with them.
So how do you feel?
What can you tell me about this sort of saturation we've seen mostly on TV and movies?
And more specifically with Marvel in the past few years?
Do you think they're coming back to terms now?
Or is it just a lot to feed to viewers?
I'm one of the few people that's enjoyed it all for the most part."
"I haven't watched anything in the Marvel universe that I went, Oh, that's awful.
I don't like that at all.
I like everything."
"I think the majesty of the first arc in the movies is diminished a bit because of the plethora.
But it's thrilling for me to see these characters finally brought to life in a way that respects their roots and that the costumes look like the costumes and that the characters are the characters.
And that Fantastic Four trailer, I'm going to be first in line to go see that movie."
"I'm so excited about James Gunn's Superman.
That makes me feel like I did when I was a kid.
And I still think those Marvel movies, especially Endgame, Infinity War, all that, that was amazing."
"That was some epic cinema.
And to see the characters so fully realized like they were supposed to be in the comics in ways that they couldn't even get their head around in the 90s.
There's a terrible 1990s Captain America film."
"Have you ever seen that?
I don't think so.
The Red Skull is Italian.
Oh, it's awful.
No, I don't think so."
"He's got rubber ears.
It's terrible.
Now I have to watch it.
Now you have to.
It's on YouTube."
"But I'm telling you, it's like you watch that compared to Captain America, the first Avengers, and you see how far we've come.
And as a fan, I love it.
I love seeing these characters realized."
"I like that Daredevil TV show.
I like it all.
All right, final one.
We started talking about how foreseen both Transmetropolitan and The Boys have been so far."
"And there's going to be a recurrent question I'm going to ask many artists here, which is about AI.
Of course, in The Boys, we see it in the TV show.
We see with social media foreseeing some of the things that are going to come next, right?
How do you feel about that?
Do you think it can be used as a tool?
It is a threat to you artists?
Have you tried it out?
What's your stance?
I have not tried it out very much, although I had a chat with an AI being, because I got an advertisement."
"And I'm like, I'm curious.
So I asked.
I had a conversation with an AI being.
About the Captain America movie?
No."
"Just like, what's it like to be you?
But she was confused by my questions.
I felt like I was getting sold something.
All right."
"The funniest thing the AI said is like, I really like this interesting connection we're having.
I'm like, oh, do you?
But no, AI is like anything else.
The idea that when the internet first came out, everybody was like, it's going to be the end."
"And when this came out, television's going to ruin everything.
I don't know.
And none of us do.
But what I think is, if you dig a little deeper, the things that AI are doing that will help humanity are amazing."
"And there's a lot of that happening.
But it's not sexy.
So people don't hear about it.
But for example, there's a set of robots in Seattle that they put to work that can identify within a millisecond what kind of plastic is coming down a giant conveyor belt and put it and separate it into proper recycling."
"That's something no human wants to do or could do quickly.
This thing can do it all night long.
As long as it's plugged in, boom, that's AI at work.
And another thing is that they can run genomes as a way of cancer research."
"And that would be, once upon a time, human being would have to go, slide number one.
Okay.
There it is.
Slide number two."
"Takes years.
Years.
Now can do it overnight while you're sleeping.
So that's amazing.
But artwork."
"It always looks crappy right now.
Will it always?
I don't know.
You see hands that are like this and somebody smiling like this in a picture that they're trying to say is like, look what I thought of."
"But AI in and of itself, a lot of it is people trying to use that tool to get their artwork out in a way they can't physically do.
Is that good or bad?
I don't know."
"But what I also understand is that AI in and of itself is borrowing from existing things.
And AI is never going to understand what it's like to have its heart broken.
AI is never going to have to bury a pet.
AI is never going to miss their mom who died of cancer a year ago."
"These things are human experience.
And those human experiences make their way into artwork.
And that artwork feeds the AI.
So without that buffer, I think it's going to be a long time before AI can really make art on its own that is nothing more than visually pleasing."
"I think that's a perfect way to wrap this.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
Enjoy the show.
Thank you so much."