BY JENNIFER M. CONTINO
Cully Hamner is up for any challenge, but always wants to put his best artistic foot forward. That's why he took his time drawing Black Lightning: Year One. He wanted to ensure a quality product so those enjoying the biweekly series would get more than their money's worth. Hamner told us how he considers each new project. "The story is obviously really important, too-- not so much the character itself, but what we’re trying to say with the character, and whether or not I can bring something interesting to the project. And would I respond to the story as just a reader? I mean, if I don’t want to read it, I don’t expect that I’ll do the story any favors with my art, will I?"

THE PULSE: You've worked on a lot of eclectic projects in and out of comics these past few years. When you have the chance to take on something new like Blue Beetle or Black Lightning, what are you looking for as an artist?

CULLY HAMNER: You know, I’m not sure there's any one thing. I guess it has more to do with the people I’ll be working with that anything. I’d worked with Joan Hilty and Rachel Gluckstern on BLUE BEETLE, so for me, it was a way to keep working with them. The story is obviously really important, too-- not so much the character itself, but what we’re trying to say with the character, and whether or not I can bring something interesting to the project. And would I respond to the story as just a reader? I mean, if I don’t want to read it, I don’t expect that I’ll do the story any favors with my art, will I?

THE PULSE: What factors have to be present to make you even consider taking on a comic project?

HAMNER: Pretty much what I said above, and whether or not I can make a living doing it. Also, will I have the freedom to do it the way I think it should be done? Will I be trusted to make storytelling decisions? Will I be allowed a voice in the process? If that's all there, then I’m a lot more comfortable. And it's rarer than you might think.

THE PULSE: Speaking of Blue Beetle and Black Lightning, what were the "it" factors that interested you the most in drawing those series?

HAMNER: With BB, it was the opportunity to work with Keith Giffen, for one, and the idea of designing something new. Once we got going, I realized that John Rogers was going to be a boatload of fun, and that kept me interested. With Black Lightning, it was the fact that I had some fond memories of the character from my childhood, and the fact that I’d have the time to do it right the way I thought it should be done.

THE PULSE: Your work on Blue Beetle gained a lot of attention, what did you enjoy the most about not just designing this character but seeing how the readers responded to him?

HAMNER: Yeah, the reaction was kind of a surprise, actually. I’ve never actually worked anything that snowballed like this, and I’d certainly never before gotten attention on the level that the series got. I always kind of thought of myself as sort of an under-the-radar kind of guy. I mean, it's easy to feel that way when you’ve worked in a studio with Adam Hughes, Dave Johnson, Brian Stelfreeze, Tony Harris, Jason Pearson… you know? How could you be anything but the last in that line?

So, when this job came along, I really didn’t approach it any differently than anything else. I just sat down and designed a look that I thought made sense for the character. DC did send me some drawings done by some other folks, and they all seemed to be more in a Japanese robot kind of direction. But what was on the page about the character seemed to me to lend itself to a second-skin sort of approach, and that's the way I went. Luckily, everybody up at DC liked it.

So, here I am having been off the book for two years, and there have been toys, cartoon appearances… like I said, it's a first for me. Even now, if I go to a con or up to DC, I get lots of kudos from people for having come up with that look. It's really nice, and very welcome.

THE PULSE: How did you decide the look of Black Lightning in the new DC miniseries? What influenced you the most?

HAMNER: Story, story, story. That influences me more than anything. Also, I find that consciously incorporating influence is a dead-end for me creatively. I can’t just sit there and say to myself, “Should I go for a Michael Golden or a Frank Miller?” That would be cheap and disrespectful to those artists. For better or worse, I gotta be me.


So, I’m left with the script, and that's what I go with. Also, since Black Lightning is a pre-existing character, how do I avoid stepping on and being respectful to what Tony Isabella and Trevor Von Eeden created while still doing something DC wants and making it fresh? It can be a little bit of a wirewalk.

THE PULSE: His uniform looks as if it has received a few modifications or tweaks, which version of the costume was your personal favorite? Why?

HAMNER: My approach on this was different than on BLUE BEETLE. On that character, I had a mandate for change. DC wanted something new. On BLACK LIGHTNING, we have essentially an origin story, which means he had to look a lot like the guy I grew up with. On the other hand, since the DCU can’t be time specific, setting it definitively in the '70s just wouldn’t have worked.

So, the problem was how to stay faithful to Von Eeden's design while draining the 70's out of it a bit. You know, the silk shirt open to the navel… it's kitschy, it's kooky, and it's a product of its time. What's important are the lines of the outfit. So, I traded the disco shirt for a jacket and put a black T-shirt under it. The only other real change was giving him short dreads instead of the picked out afro. But really, aside from that, it's the classic costume with the same colors and the same lines. It was, to me, more about what I could keep, rather than what I could throw out. And I’d like fans to note that I kept the mask attached to the wig! Some things are sacred.

THE PULSE: A handful of artists have drawn Black Lightning since his introduction in the '70s, who are the ones whose work inspired or really defined the look of the character in your mind?

HAMNER: Well, Von Eeden visually created and defined him, so he has to be at the top of the list. Also, Jim Aparo's stuff on BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS—that's the stuff I have the most memories of.

THE PULSE: What are the challenges of, well, bottling lightning on the paper? How do you make his powers appear natural or "fitting" for the given scene, without going too over-the-top -- unless the scene calls for that of course!

HAMNER: I have no idea. I just went with instinct, I guess. I didn’t want to do that kind of jagged, “cartoon” lightning. I was more informed by what you see in the sky, and the animated arcs that you see ILM do in the Star Wars movies—what Adam Hughes always described to me as “toothpaste lightning.”

THE PULSE: What have you enjoyed the most about getting to work on Black Lightning?

HAMNER: The people I got to work with. The characters. The relationships. Suicide Slum. Getting to do a little bit of Superman/Clark Kent, and Lois Lane—characters I’d like to get a real shot at, at some point.

THE PULSE: What has the collaboration with Jen Van Meter been like for this series? What kind of communications did you have?


HAMNER: Extensive, and very, very open. Jen was just real accommodating to me, and really treated me like a partner, which I appreciated. We were on the phone a fair amount. She’d call me up and ask my opinion about how to handle something, and she’d put up with whatever ridiculous question I had at any given moment. I really like how character-oriented she is—everybody in this book has an interior life and a past. And I really feel that with Jeff Pierce and his family, she made them into *our* loved ones. What better testament is there to a writer?

She's a class act, that Jen.

THE PULSE: This series was announced a few years ago, did you draw it then or are you working on it now? If you completed the work a while ago, have you gone in and modified anything?

HAMNER: As I recall, it was announced at either the end of 2006, or early 2007. I started the book on the spring of ’07. So we’re talking about a year-and-a-half, two years tops. It was an average of about three months an issue or so, artwise. Now, I’m certainly not lightning-fast—sorry, couldn’t help it—but it's not a terribly unreasonable piece of time for somebody doing both pencils and inks. Honestly, they just didn’t want it on the schedule until I had finished the majority of it, because I’m not all that fast and it was going to be bi-weekly.

And I did a few corrections here and there, but for the most part, what you see is what I turned in. There was one thing on the cover to #6 that didn’t make it through Editorial that I really wish had. I won’t say what it was, but the really curious should find me at a con and ask me about it!

THE PULSE: What's next for you after Black Lightning? What other projects are you currently working on or will begin?

HAMNER: Well, there are some things, all for DC, but they’d KILL me if I said anything before they can do an announcement. So, I’ll have to politely leave it to them…



Issue four of Black Lightning will be in stores this month.