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New York Times bestseller. Eisner Nominated artist. Shuster Award winner.
Meet Yanick Paquette, an illustrious comic book artist whose work across the realm of graphic novels is truly the stuff of legend.
Having contributed extensively to publishing behemoths such as DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse today, he has emerged as one of the most influential illustrators of his generation, with a career spanning almost 30 years.
From tracing the grungy alleys of Gotham to staging the sheer opulence of Themyscira, Paquette's innate craft as a master artist spans across multiple, familiar worlds that comic book aficionados have grown so accustomed to.
Some of his most renowned titles include Swamp Thing, X-Men, Xena: Warrior Princess, and JLA, among several notable others.
The piquant penciller recently attended Comic Con Mumbai '23 as one of the headlining guests, where SK Pop's Saahil Agnelo Periwal had the opportunity to converse with him and bear witness to the working mind behind the maestro.
"He went super dark": Yanick Paquette shares his thoughts on the Snyderverse, DC/Marvel project structure, and more at Comic Con Mumbai' 23
Q) How has your experience in India been so far?
Yanick: It's been pretty cool! I've traveled all over the world for conventions and stuff, but it's my first time in India. I was really looking forward to it and it didn't disappoint.
In fact, on my first day here, I got stuck in traffic. For other people it might be annoying, but for me I was like, 'This madness is cool!'.
I was just looking out the window and everything was just amazing and great.
It truly feels diverse.
Q) You have garnered a lot of experience over the course of your career working across multiple comic book genres i.e Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse.
With that in mind, which one would you say has been the most fruitful for you as a creator?
Yanick: I've gotta say DC for me.
As a kid, I was a Marvel guy. For me it was all about the X-Men universe.
However, having worked at Marvel and DC, from a point of view of just the work, I would just say that DC pays better! (Laughs) Especially for the kind of stuff I do, DC allows miniseries and special projects much more than Marvel.
For instance, I've been doing Earth-1, which is a comic book on Wonder Woman. So yeah, like no deadlines and they are just like 'when you're ready, we'll publish it.'
This is something unthinkable at Marvel because historically it was to make a profit, while DC was just an extension of Warner Brothers.
Today, both of them are part of this huge entertainment empire and things are happening very fast.
Q) Speaking of these huge empires that are being created, recently Marvel's very own James Gunn created a stir with this whole takeover of the DC slate of projects.
Do you think that bodes well for the future of the DCEU as we know it?
Yanick: What I've seen James doing is very convincing.
Who would have known that something as obscure as Guardians of the Galaxy would be anything you know, and he took that and brought it on the map.
It was a big gamble, but it worked! To be honest, in terms of the movie universe, Marvel has been doing exceptionally well.
I also really liked what he did with Peacemaker, it was funny man! That's the stuff I want to watch you know. So when you know these guys are now going to be behind DC, I'm excited!
DC, on the other hand, always kind of fell, maybe except for the first Wonder Woman movie, it had some gusto to it. The problem with this franchise is that everybody has their opinion of what it is.
My own understanding of Superman was not what Snyder ended up doing. To me, the way Snyder approached Superman, he went super dark, a bit too dark for my taste.
He went too close to Batman, who is already dark, which is why you have no contrast. There's a scene in there where he gets angry and destroys some guy's truck at the diner and that's pretty hardcore!
You know, when Steven Spielberg did E.T, no one had the vision to confront that because it was new. That's always a problem with variety.
You need to allow diversity and people try what they think is best with these characters. That said, I wasn't a fan of the Snyderverse. I had this talk with the people of Warner Bros. and from what I gathered, they tried to position the DC Universe of movies in contrast with the Marvel one, which was a fun ride for all.
It's bombastic and cool and family friendly, while DC was all like brooding and real and more like adult stuff. Come on, these are guys in spandex doing stuff, don't be too adult!
For me atleast, DC works better when all these characters are contrasted. These gods work only in the context of the Greek Gods, they're all different, they all represent something.
Some of them are dark, some of them are happy, they all represent a facet. When you put humanity through a prism, you get this variation of color.
They are all a small part of who we are.
Q) While Marvel seems to have perfected the box office formula, of late there seems to be murmurs of them perhaps reaching their saturation point with the audience.
For instance, for many, the MCU ended with Avengers Endgame, on account of which interest in subsequent film seems to have died down just a bit.
Do you think this fun and frothy formula might have an expiry date anytime soon?
Yanick: Yeah, it could. I mean, the first part of movies from Iron Man to Endgame was extremely well done. It was the first time movies would intertwine and create this web of connections.
And honestly, how do you top Endgame? The dramatic arc was so perfect. Which is why I think it's normal that there's a little bit of a loss of interest.
I just don't see a direction, like an obvious plan. Like all these other films are the aftermath of an earthquake.
But at the same time, for someone who loves movies, maybe it's okay. Sometimes you don't really need a good script, there's been massive plot holes that barely make any sense but like don't bother with it.
The stories are entertaining and fun, but is it worth doing in terms of originality?
Probably not, but when the returns come in, it kind of just sucks the air out of any other alternatives.
Q) Lastly, on a fun note, if you could recast Henry Cavill's Superman, who would you choose ?
Yanick: Wow, I don't know man! You remember like years ago, Tim Burton wanted to do Superman with Nicolas Cage and there are shots of him trying on the costume and can you imagine if that happened?
We'll never know, but I feel your time has arrived Nicolas!
He might not look like Superman, but let's just say I would be intrigued!
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