Best known for his eight years on “Green Lantern,” Darryl Banks has since become a familiar face at a growing number of comic conventions.







The Columbus College of Art and Design graduate and former instructor had a memorable run with Ron Marz that saw the introductions of Kyle Rayner, Parallax, Fatality and others.







Banks is a featured guest at the inaugural 3 Rivers Comicon May 21 & 22 at Century III Mall.







The Swerve Magazine. How did you get your start in comics?









Darryl Banks: I began in comics about 1989 working for a company called Innovation. My first published book was a painted book called“Cyberpunk” and, at the time, they had the license for “Justice Machine” and I did pencil work on that. It was a rocky start because I had no idea how much work went into doing panel-to-panel continuity. It was a learning experience; I felt like I was back in school all over again.





Then the “Justice Machine” license moved to a company called Millennium. There I met a writer and publisher by the name of Mark Ellis and working with Mark took that learning experience to almost a mentorship because he really had a good eye for what makes a comic page really work. We worked on things like “Wild Wild West,” “Doc Savage, Man of Bronze” and of course, “Justice Machine.”







I was there for a while, and then five years later, I ended up doing fill-ins for DC Comics on “Legion of Super-Heroes.”







SM: Shortly after that, you landed “Green Lantern.” What was it like to be offered that kind of high-profile book?







DB: At the time, I was just glad to be there. They could have just given me anything, and in some ways they did. When I was doing fill-ins on “LOSH,” I was always talking about ideas I had for “Green Lantern.” even though I didn't grow up on Green Lantern, and wasn't the biggest fan of the character. I just liked the idea of the power, and sometimes randomly I would talk about things I used to sketch in my sketchbook and how I think the ring should be used.







I didn't realize at the time that the assistant editor from “Legion” was also the assistant editor for “Green Lantern,” and I think that got the wheels turning. That worked out really well. So when you're passionate about an idea, be vocal about it because you never know who's listening.







SM: Kyle Rayner's costume stands apart from any of the traditional depictions. How did you come about designing that costume for him?







DB: The book was in trouble. A lot of DC titles were having a tough time, and fortunately “The Death of Superman” was crossing into a lot of titles. They were open to anything, so they figured, “Let's take it in a radical direction.” My assignment was to create something that feels like a Green Lantern but looks nothing like the classic look. Keep in mind, this was the 90s, so over-designed, over-detailed costumes were the order of the day, and some of my submitted ideas were no exception. But my editor was like, “No, we want to keep it simple. We want it to feel different, but not to the point where you have no idea what you're looking at.”







I wanted it to be that, I wanted to sit at the cool kids' table, so to speak. My editor was like “No, this is too detailed. Let's tone this down.” He would choose elements from various ideas, like “Let's take the body suit from this one, the mask from this one, and the boots and gloves from this one.” So they picked the design elements that they liked best to come up with Kyle's costume. But it still wasn't finished yet because, in the first approved design, his logo was also on his back. I think I put that on there because I liked that Spider-Man had the logo on his back as well as his front.







The mask stayed pretty much the same, although I had some versions that were a lot crazier. As crazy as that mask is, some of my rejected designs were even crazier than that. What inspired me on that is that I'm a big fan of the 70s Marvel character Sunfire, I loved that his mask had a nose, but it wasn't really defined. Don't ask me why I like that design, I don't really know, but I always liked that look.







Even when we settled on the design, his logo was the classic logo. That's what they wanted. I said, “Well if we've come this far with the different design, let's give him a new logo.” I had to explain the reason I split the design in half like I did was because Kyle doesn't recite the oath like Hal and other Lanterns, I wanted to apply the oath, so the center I think of as the sun and the moon to represent Brightest Day and Blackest Night.







SM: At the same time, you also developed Parallax. What was it like taking Hal Jordan in that direction?







DB: Designing his armor, I had a strong idea right out of the gate. I did some supplemental designs just to give them something to think about, but we liked the first one. Except, in my initial design, he had the logo in the center, and they thought for what he was about to do, he shouldn't have the Green Lantern symbol. That's why there's a blank disc right there. Of course, when he first debuted, he didn't have a cape. The cape was added later because he was going to become a bigger deal than was originally planned.







Even after designing it, they were dead set on calling him The Protector. They said, “It's a name that we own, we don't have to copyright it, etc.” Well, if you look at what we're going to do with him, the name Protector doesn't make much sense, at least it didn't to me. The word Parallax deals with perceptions in the position of stars. I had to look it up, and write a paragraph like I was in school, “Here's why I think we should call him Parallax...” They're like, “Ehh, there's legalities to it, and we're going to call him The Protector.” So I had to sell them on it, but it went from something that they didn't like to even that creature in the movie is called Parallax.







SM: Another character that you developed during your run was the Lantern hunter Fatality. How did she come about?







DB: I'll just come out and say it, they wanted an Angela for Green Lantern. Like Spawn has Angela. I thought, “Well, I don't want it to feel too close,” so I asked how they would feel if she was Black, even though she's an alien. I designed her, and she was pretty close to how she ended up except she now has pointed ears because I wanted her to be from the planet Xanshi. That's the planet that John Stewart inadvertently caused the destruction of, and that was going to be her motivation to hunt the Green Lanterns. My editor pointed out that Xanshiians have pointed ears.







In some ways, I had more to do with her development than I did with Kyle's because they just said to me, “We want an Angela for Green Lantern. Go!” I came up for her reason, and all that stuff, and hashed it out with Ron Marz, and out she came. To this day, she's one of my favorite characters that I had something to do with.







SM: Speaking of Ron Marz, you worked with him for seven years. What was your working relationship like?







DB: Ron and I worked extremely well together. Mainly because Ron came up around a lot of high-quality artists like Bernie Wrightson and Jim Starlin, so even though he is a writer, he thinks very visually.









No offense, but I've worked with some writers that just put so much dialogue into what characters are saying that they don't sound like people speaking. It's almost like the writer's trying to remind readers that they have a high vocabulary. Ron's characters sound like people talking.





He often thinks, “How will this look, how will it translate to the page?” There were times he would actually ask my opinion on a scene. That's next to unheard of, I can only think of two people off the top of my head that have ever asked my opinion on if a scene is visually interesting.







SM: During your work in comics, you worked with some of the best inkers out there. Who do you feel did the best of translating your art?







DB: I am very fortunate to have worked with top inkers in the industry. Sometimes I felt it was better than I deserved like Terry Austin and Romeo Thangal, but I have to say the inker who inked the way I wish I could ink was Paul Neary. It was almost like imagining meeting myself in the future, if I keep practicing, this is what I could do, and he makes it happen right now.







We worked together on the prestige format Justice League story “Soul War,” written by J.M. DeMatteis, and I remember getting those pages thinking, “This is what I want. This is what I saw in my head.” Even to this day, even though I ink a lot more than I did back then, I still haven't nailed it the way I wanted. There are certain pages I still keep to this day, and I won't sell them because I study them like, “Yeah, that. That's what I was trying to do.”







SM: I've read that you like to cast people when you have to draw the character a lot. I know that you used Dennis Quaid for Hal Jordan, but what are some of the others that you used?







DB: It seemed like I could cast everybody except Kyle. I could never find the right actor that I had in my head. Until now actually, Matt Bomer from “White Collar,” I think he would be a great Kyle, but of course he wasn't around when I was drawing, so I just had to wing it. There were some that came close, but never quite hit it. Donna Troy was Jennifer Connelly. Jade was, she was on Baywatch, Yasmine Bleeth.







I cast just about everyone who repeated. Even though I couldn't always find photo reference, I just thought about that person to help point me in the right direction of what I wanted to do.







SM: Kyle Rayner not only still appears in, but leads, books. Did you ever imagine he'd be around this long?







DB: Not at all. Not ever half this long. You have to remember, 1994, that was right during the age of tin foil variants, and Dick Grayson as Batman and change for change sake. He was a 90s baby, and that stuff was here today, gone today. Superman was dead, then he was electric. Everything reverted back to normal, so I figured Hal would be back and Kyle would be the answer to a trivia question.







SM: You now work primarily in commercial illustration. Who are some of your clients?







DB: Most of my work is for a company out of Illinois called Hawthorne Village, they're a division of The Bradford Exchange. You've probably seen their ads online, or even inserts in the Sunday paper. They do a lot of licensed properties with sculpted villages and figurines. The spectrum of licensed properties. from Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Disney, McDonald's, NFL, NHL, all kinds of things.







The department that I work with is more ideas and pitches, “Well, what if we do a NHL cuckoo clock?” Just ideas, and I'll flesh it out. I'm not even sure what all I've designed that's seen full production. I've been with them for almost nine years now. I really like doing it because I never know what they'll ask me to draw. Some of the friends who introduced me to them, no longer work for them because “sometimes we're asked to do boring things like a farmer on a tractor or a potted plant.” I don't care, they're creative, they pay well, all of the editors are former artists, so it's a very good working relationship.







Another company I work for is Filsinger Games. They're like a sci-fi/pro wrestling game module, and I work on their character redesigns or design new characters for them, which is right in my wheelhouse. I've also worked done toy designs for Mattel and Hasbro.







SM: You do conventions regularly. How many do you do in a year?







DB: The list seems to be growing. I easily do over twelve a year, and I used to do two. What happened was a good friend of mine, an artist named Uko Smith, said that conventions are a good way to connect with your fan base, and make good business marketing. It's one thing to be online, but when people can see you face to face, it takes your brand to the next level.







It's Business 101, but I never really applied that to the comic side of things. It's like because the comics are tied so closely to my hobbies, I didn't put the same business practices to it. When I started to realize that they're one and the same, then I thought it made sense to do more shows.







SM: When you're doing sketches at cons, do Kyle and Parallax still dominate what people request?







DB: Oh yeah, they definitely dominate, but I understand why. Imagine when Adam West does conventions, he's done other things in his acting career, but what do you want to talk with him about? “Na na na na na na Batman!” When people see me, they're going to want something Green Lantern related. Once in a while, I'll get the question, “Can I draw anything else?” (laughs) and I'm thinking, “Shockingly, yes.” Sometimes, I'll get the opposite, where someone will say, “I'm sure you're sick of drawing Green Lantern. I'll pick something else.” And I say, “No, you choose whatever you like.”







SM: You drew the book for eight years, and now doing these commissions, how do you approach it to keep these characters you've drawn so many times fresh?







DB: That can be difficult actually. Usually for commissions, you want something like a money shot. It was actually more difficult in the book because sometimes it'd be a splash page of Kyle flying in space or Kyle flying, period. Having done so many, well, how do I make this different than the last 20 I did? So sometimes I'll see a page that has a lot of panels on it with backgrounds and cityscapes on it, and I immediately know time is of the essence and I need to dig in and tell the story, but something as subjective as a splash can be difficult.







Commissions are not quite the same amount of pressure because not everybody's going to see that person's commission. Not that I want to recycle a pose because that would be like two women showing up to a party in the same dress. They might have a lot of similarities, but I don't want them to be identical. It can be challenging, but it's not that difficult, especially because I really enjoy doing it.

