Shawn Martinbrough: How I became a Black Panther, Hellboy and Deadpool comic artist

Susannah Hutcheson | Special to USA TODAY

Our series “How I became a …” digs into the stories of accomplished and influential people, finding out how they got to where they are in their careers.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Shawn Martinbrough’s work on iconic characters such as Batman, Captain America, Luke Cage, the Black Panther and Hellboy has been seen across the globe. From his work on the "Thief of Thieves" to helping create characters seen on movies such as "Deadpool" and "Justice League," there’s no way you haven’t seen his work in some capacity.

USA TODAY caught up with the artist, author, TEDx speaker and art educator to talk about everything from Comic Con and James T. Kirk to the frustration of not being able to find work and the humbling power of storytelling.

Question: What’s your coffee order?

Answer: I like a vanilla cappuccino, and I only drink that when I travel or need to stay awake.

Q: What’s the last book that you read?

A: I tend to read a lot of magazines and graphic novels – I love Monocle magazine. It is an awesome lifestyle culture magazine that highlights different cool things around the world. The book is so thick – it’s costs about $12, and I love it.

Q: What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done?

A: Recently, I was invited to a comic book convention in Portsmouth, England, the Portsmouth UK Comic Con. It’s a really small shipping town about an hour outside of London, and it was really awesome to go to the first one that they held. It was great to see a bunch of fellow comic book writers and artists, some people that I know and most people that I’ve been a fan of for a long time. I got to hang out and sort of talk and break bread and grab drinks with them, and it’s always a cool experience when you can bond with other creative types in a completely different country.

Also – attending the world premiere of Marvel's "Black Panther" movie.

Q: Who has been your biggest mentor?

A: I would probably say my mom and my dad. (They) are two completely different personalities. My mom is very organized – she is very, very tightly wound. And my dad is more of a socializer, more of a people person in that way. Having both personality traits sort of guide me through life has been very descriptive of my character. I can be very outgoing but also can be kind of controlling and very introverted as well.

My professional mentors are two African-American artists, Gil Ashby and Michael Davis. I met them when I was in high school, and they gave me the yin and yang of being an artist. Gil Ashby was a purist – he was like, “You have to learn how to draw, you have to learn how to draw anatomy, perspective, etc.”

Davis was all about, “This is a business, this is a hustle, (you) have to learn how to sell yourself.”

That really gave me a big leg up professionally.

Q: What does your career path look like, from college to now?

A. I went to a performing arts high school, at the Fiorello H. Laguardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City. I was an art major. Then, I went to The School of Visual Arts and got my BFA in illustration. I was determined to get professional work in comics before I graduated college, so I got my first job working for Marvel Comics in 1992. I was a junior in college.

From then on, I went on to work for Marvel, then I worked for Milestone Media, then I worked for DC Comics, then I worked for Dark Horse Comics. That led to working with Robert Kirkman, the creator of "The Walking Dead" series and his company Skybound Entertainment. I’ve been working with them for the last five or six years on a series called "Thief of Thieves."

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Q: What’s your favorite project that you’ve ever worked on?

A: It’s weird because each project is different, usually involving different subject matter. For me, it’s always exciting to visualize a completely new kind of story. So, for example, one of my favorite projects was drawing "Luke Cage Noir" for Marvel, which set the classic character of Luke Cage – who was created in the 1970s, he was a Blaxploitation-type character – and I got to reimagine him in the 1920s. That was a really special project.

Then I did a project with Geoff Johns. He and I worked together on a little-known mini-series called "The Morlocks," which introduced a new group of mutants that were set in Chicago. He wrote the series and I illustrated it, and several of our characters have been adapted into television shows like "Gifted" and movies like "Deadpool."

Another project I worked on, which was really cool, was the Black Panther – it was, like, the end of the series back around 2010. It was called "Black Panther: The Man Without Fear." That was an awesome opportunity, to get to draw a classic character like the Black Panther.

Then, "Thief of Thieves" has been really great, because I’ve drawn 42 issues of it, and over the course of 42 issues we’ve taken the character around the globe, because he’s a globetrotting thief and he steals precious artifacts and pieces of art. I’ve drawn him having adventures in Venice, Italy, London, Rome – right now, we’re in the Middle East.

Each project is awesome in their own way because it sort of takes me into a different place. I can visualize a different place, as well as different characters.

Q: What does a typical day look like for you?

A: I make the very long commute from my bedroom to my studio in the condo that I share with my lovely wife. I tend to work from about 9 in the morning to maybe 1 or 2 in the morning, and it really depends on if I’m in the zone. Sometimes I can actually work until about 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. I have to go to bed before the birds come out and start chirping.

During the day, I’ll take breaks – go ride my bike to get some exercise or go to the gym. Since I sit on my butt all day at the art table, I’ll have to balance that out with some kind of physical activity. I’ll try to take breaks between drawing at the art table to sneak out to a movie, because that’s like the best sort of recharge for me with regard to visual imagery. To go see something on a 50-foot screen is like, boom, I just got a nice sort of charge of creativity.

Q: What has been your biggest career high and your biggest career low?

A: (Low) Being at a point where you can’t get work. As a freelancer you always will hit a dry spell, where people are like, "Oh, I love your work but I don’t have anything for you," and then that becomes a career low where you’re not booking, and you’re not making money, and that sucks.

(High) One would be my art book, which is called "How to Draw Comics: The Art and Technique of Visual Storytelling," published by Random House. That was really awesome, because that sort of summed up my entire experience from learning to draw to becoming a professional artist in one book.

The other is being a guest at conventions in different places. I’ve been a guest at conventions in Paris, Rome, and Italy. That’s just been an amazing experience to go and interact with people from different cultures – who can, a lot of the times, not speak English – but they all understand the universal art of storytelling. To have someone say, “I’m such a big fan of your work, and it’s such a pleasure to meet you,” that is just so humbling and really reminds you of how far art can travel.

Q: What is the biggest lesson you have learned in your career?

A: I have to quote the great James T. Kirk: I don’t believe in a no-win scenario. I believe that you can change the rules, and you can sort of bend the rules to fit what you want to do. It just takes a little time, patience and research, but you can do anything that you want.

Q: What advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?

A: Study. Art is like boxing – it’s like muscle that you constantly have to train, and you constantly have to improve.

I always tell people that if you want to become an artist, draw, draw, draw.

Study your competition, and then do your research in terms of – if you want to become a comic book artist, learn all that there is to learn about the comic book industry. If you want to go into animation and design characters for Disney or Pixar or Sony Pictures Animation, or whatever, study how those companies operate. Use that as your way to sort of bridge into them.