What is it like working at two known publishing companies? Let’s dive in and find out. As an artist and writer for both companies, he did not have a typical workday because he does a variety of things that involves a little bit of everything. Sometimes he writes, draws, color and does production or design work for books. There are times where he will wake up early and be at his drawing board. However, there are times when he will be working all night and sleeping all day. Then there are moments of interruptions that can take his work off course. “With Marvel, there was a lot of switching gears in response to rejection or approval of scripts or art or corrections. With Image, there is a lot more work to be done for promotion as far as writing solicits and hunting for interviews.”
Now that we know what his general workload entails, it seems that he has quite a handful of responsibilities. Some might not want all this work, but Giarrusso stayed with it. Why is it important for him to be a writer and artist of Mini Marvel and G-Man? When he started out creating comics in college, he thought of doing a traditional style comic newspaper humor strip, which is usually done by a single creator. He did not think about sharing creator duties or being involved with a creative team. Plus, he did not know anyone else who would be interested in this type of work. Basically, “I wanted to make comics, and I had no choice but to make them completely on my own.”
Since the people at Marvel were already familiar with his ability to do comic strips, “they just said, ‘go ahead and do it.’” So there was not much talk about collaboration. Even though he enjoyed his solo opportunity that gives him the ability to say, “I did that,” in reality, the characters do not belong to him. According to Giarrusso:
“I’m not the boss there, and the people in control can pretty much do whatever they want without my input. I knew that from the beginning, so I was fine when it came to drawing Mini Marvel stories written by other creators like Sean McKeever, Mark Sumerak, Paul Tobin, and most recently with the Mini Hulks, Audrey Loeb. These days, I have nothing to do in the creation of the new Audrey Loeb written Mini Marvel Hulk strips, which have been drawn by another artist for well over a year.”In contrast, at Image Comics, “I’m the boss.” He is more attached to the characters and stories of G-Man. “I want to be in control of everything, so I write and draw it all myself,” said Giarrusso. “Ironically, with G-Man I’m also once again in the position of having no choice but to do it all myself because nobody else would be interested in having a hand in it.”
Although he had the opportunity to be both the writer and artist, there are some differences and similarities between his employment experiences. One big difference is the “creative control as it pertains to the editorial process.” At Marvel, the boss is the editor, which means that as a writer, his editor’s opinion would be more influential. He and his editor can have discussions about ideas and whether or not it’s doable. However, “the editor makes the final decision, and it might not always be one I agree with.” On the contrary, at Image, with G-Man, he is the boss. “So I can solicit opinions from others and have the same sorts of conversations about what works or what is a good idea, but ultimately I make the final decision, not an editor.” What makes the work experiences similar is the work process. “I come up with an idea and I write and draw it.”
© 2011 Linda Thai
Stay tune for Part 5 of the Chris Giarrusso interview.
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