Tripwire Speaks To Writer/ Artist Dan Brereton

Drawn To The Dark

Tripwire’s contributing writer Paul N Neal spoke to writer/ artist Dan Brereton recently about a career writing and drawing comics and collaborating with some of the best talent in the industry…

Dan Brereton has been a writer and illustrator in the comic industry for many years. He was born in The San Francisco Bay Area and has lived in Northern California most of his life. I enquired if he had a favourite sports team to which he simple admitted, “I was born without the sports gene.”

Dan Brereton photo©2023 Joel Meadows. All Rights Reserved

TW: I like to start at the beginning. What inspired you to become an artist? Did an early interest in comics decide your career choice? Or did an existing passion for art propel you towards comics?

Dan: My mom is an artist. She used to paint when I was just a toddler. She started me painting when I was maybe 18 months old. By the time I was four I was drawing monsters all the time. Monsters are great because no one can tell you that you’re doing them wrong. I think whatever fears I had then were also managed quite a bit by the drawings I was doing. I wasn’t trying scary things. I was drawing things that were reassuring to me at least. That’s probably still true to this day in a lot of respects. Before I got into comics, I was really into cartoons and going to the library and checking out children’s books. I loved the art in them, and the stories. I was an early and avid reader. Once I understood the words “author” and “illustrator”, I wanted to be both of them. Discovering comics at the age of eight years old solidified that desire.

Paul: Can you recall the first comics that really appealed to you? At such a young age, were there any artists you started to follow?

Dan: It was the early summer of 1974, so I was eight years old. I knew a kid whose family was from back East who showed me his comic collection. Some of the first stuff I was exposed to was Marvel. Characters jump out at you first and then artists like Jack Kirby, John Buscema and Gene Colan followed. I responded to artists and began to recognise their work fairly quickly even as I was getting into different titles. Reading Marvel Comics made it easy to build an appreciation for artists and writers, because they promoted the idea of the importance of the talent by highlighting and mentioning them. I thought they all worked together in the “Marvel Bullpen”. I used to write to them actually. I’d send them drawings of characters I created with notes, hoping for a response or a sketch meant for the waste can.

TW: My research indicates you had a fair bit of formal art training in California. Can you talk about that experience at all? Is that where you developed your distinctive painted art style?

Dan: I had four years of art school at two schools: The California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, then the Academy of Art College across the bay in SF. When I got in, I was 19, and I very much wanted to do comics. I had been working on my own stuff, even to the point of seriously contemplating and pursuing the self-publishing route. After speaking with a few people in the business, it was clear: I needed a proper education in art. I had something – potential. But I was too green. Style was talked about a lot in school but I felt that building upon skill and establishing technique were what lent artists to the natural and unconscious development of style. This is not always the case with artists, but it was for me.

Dan: As I improved and learned my style took shape. Painting was definitely a big part of it – once I understood what painting and drawing was and I focused on the idea of being an illustrator, I could then set aside the comic book aspirations to focus on a solid foundation. Getting back into the comics mindset never really went away, and when I realised there was room in the comics industry for an illustration major who preferred watercolour and paint to just inking, it made all the difference. I have Bill Sienkiewicz, Kent Williams, Jon Muth, George Pratt and Scott Hampton to thank for that, who were doing fully illustrated comics and made me realise that there was a way in for me, rather than as a penciller.

TW: I gather your first published comics work was for Eclipse Comics, but was this your first published work as an illustrator?

Dan: I had done some small jobs before Eclipse. I illustrated some RPG module stuff for Chaosium Games. That was black and white line work. My first pencilling job for Eclipse was my first paid comics work that appeared in print but after that I showed them some painted comic page samples. I was working them up and they saw them and hired me right away to do The Black Terror.

TW: The Black Terror was quite a big project so early in your career. Three issues of fully painted art in Prestige Format must have been a big artistic commitment. At the time, were you daunted at all by the challenge?

Dan: No. The amount of work meant a solid term of employment and being published. It was the dream come true. After years of art school, wondering if I was going to make it as a professional, and pay off the student loans, I was relieved. By the time I was done with it, I’d already been hired by DC to do The Psycho, which was an even bigger deal. That paid much better from a big company and the IP was owned by the writer and myself.

Paul: I enjoyed The Black Terror. It was a wonderful pulpy fun noir crime book. It is a shame that it has never been collected. Do you have any idea why?

Dan: Oh, I know exactly why lol. The films for all the Eclipse titles ended up in the possession of some guy who kept them in a warehouse for years because Catherine Yronwode (Ex Eclipse Editor) had sold them to him when Eclipse went under. These have never been recovered as far as I know. I’m told Todd McFarlane may own the rights to much of the Eclipse library.

Paul: You mentioned The Psycho for DC Comics. This was another cracking three-part series, although it has been collected. Can you discuss your working relationship with the great James D Hudnall? Were you getting to a stage in your career where you were itching to have a hand in the writing of the comics you illustrated?

Dan: Jim and I met at a comic convention in Oakland in 1989. He saw my stuff and mentioned he had a miniseries just about set up at DC and they were looking for an artist. He sent them samples of my work and they hired me right away. From then on, Jim and I were co-creators on the property. Jim had wanted the character of the Psycho to be a kind of techno ninja with a reflective mirror surface over his face mask with the idea being, that when you were looking at him, you’d only see your own face! Because my style is not a “techno ninja style”, I came up with something I thought looked psychotic, unpredictable and a little frightening. I wanted every character to be fully realised and never generic. Jim was very aware of Watchmen at the time and wanted to make his mark in the way that Alan Moore had done with that title.

Dan: I approached it as an opportunity to create a world full of super-powered characters that felt like living, breathing characters in a fully-realised world. There was talk later about doing an ongoing monthly series, but it never came together. I was pretty keen to do other things when I was finished with the book. My DC editor wanted me to work on established characters, and so did I . At this point I’d done two prestige format mini-series working with writers and learning more about the craft of making comics. I leant both how to do it right and what to avoid. For Legends Of The World’s Finest I worked with Walter Simonson because it was an honour to collaborate with such a talented, masterful creator. He’s a great guy and was very accommodating. The first thing he asked me was: “so what characters do you want to draw?” which is a great way to start.

Paul: Black Terror and The Psycho were big commitments with a high page count for painted art. How many months work is this kind of project? Or to put it another way, would you describe yourself as a fast artist? How many painted pages can you produce for example in a week?

Dan: This is why I worked so much in watercolour. It’s meant to be a fast medium, and my quota per month was 12 painted pages. I had a bit of youthful energy then! I couldn’t keep up with that now. That schedule also meant when the final deadline was rushing up –  (DC often scheduled the book while I still had 48 pages left) – some pages were rushed or had to be done more simply, but they still had to be effective. I’m more careful in my work now and I don’t rush.

TW: 12 painted pages a month? It sounds like you were a fairly quick artist to a layman such as myself.

Dan: When you’re an art student, you already have a pretty heavy schedule with your classes and work that you’re doing in studio and assignments that you’re doing at home, so I was used to being really busy.

Paul: Batman Thrillkiller was another similar length mini-series (and a one off special), and an opportunity to work with another highly regarded writer. This had some top tier Bat-Family characters and villains in a unique setting. How did you find Howard Chaykin to work with? …I’d imagine you must have been thrilled (pun intended) to work on such a very unique storyline. How did it come about?

Dan: After I finished Nocturnals and Malibu Comics was pretty much kaput, (this was after Marvel had purchased the company) I pitched Thrilkiller to Archie Goodwin at DC. I had worked with him on an issue of Batman Legends Of The Dark Knight and a couple of covers for that series.  I really wanted to work with him again. I had Howard in mind to write it because we had talked about working together a couple of years previously. It seemed like the kind of thing he would be interested in, and happily it turned out that he was. When I wrote the pitch, “Thrilkiller” it was just a working title. I expected it to change and become something better or more attuned to what we would end up doing together, but it just stuck.

Dan: We did the follow up called Thrilkiller’62, and got to play with Harley Quinn, who at the time was not a character you were seeing much of, and definitely not in the DC universe. She was pretty much relegated to Batman Adventures and that comic title based on the animated series. We had fun presenting a pulp, Roman Noir version of the DC universe which was free of superpowers and cosmic storylines.

TW: You mentioned Nocturnals. I decided to ask about it  out of chronological order given its rather convoluted publication history. Firstly, would it be fair to say it is the comic project you’re probably best known for?

Dan: I think it’s safe to say – particularly given it has popped up again and again since ‘94. Also It’s not uncommon for creator-owned properties to hop from one publisher to another.

TW: Absolutely. Surely it is one of the joys of owning your own creation. Over the years I think your characters have had a home at Malibu Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Oni Press and Image Comics…and a recent crowd-sourced endeavour. Is that about right? Or am I missing anyone?

Dan: That’s about right. Dark Horse recently released the two omnibus hardcovers. There was a publisher who wanted to buy the rights, but I had zero interest in that.

TW: Avoiding the storyline or content of the comics a little for now, can you explain how the series came to exist? You created and wrote the series. How did you go about pitching the original series to Malibu? I recall they published several creator-owned titles under their Bravura banner. Was it a hard sell?

Dan: I had a few characters in my sketchbooks, but the main idea came from wanting to create a pulp hero and the name “Doc Horror” sounded bombastic and lurid, so I went from there. I was on a flight to Scotland (GLASCAC) and the idea I had was of a mysterious figure (Doc) who gave sanctuary to night creatures and other outsider types. In return they worked for him. Halloween Girl was not his daughter at this stage of development. I called it Doc Horror’s Pawn Shop, but a few months later the title “Nocturnals “occurred to me, and the concept evolved more. I pitched it first to Dark Horse who wanted to do it, but eventually went I with Malibu. It was not a hard sell really. At the time publishers were more open to creator-owned projects. This was just before the mass of speculators pulled out of the market. Comics were in a boom period.

TW: If Malibu had not folded, I am guessing the title would have continued with them?

Dan: Perhaps. To be honest by the end of ‘95 comic sales were dropping overall. The only way Malibu could’ve stayed a company is if sales in the market had not dipped so severely. I had full ownership of the property. I wasn’t sharing it with anybody. This kind of deal is not particularly efficacious to a publisher unless the creator has a top 10 book or something. There was just no way that was gonna be me, especially when I was only capable of doing 12 pages a month, rather than pencilling 24 pages.

TW: How did you adjust to having a project completely your own to not only illustrate but significantly to also write, plot and control? By this stage was it a dream come true or was there a level of apprehension involved? Were there helpful editor’s notes provided by Malibu?

Dan: It was somewhat daunting at first. At one point I consulted with a comics writer friend I’d worked with before, about pairing up, who would have obliged, but also urged me to go it alone. “I might want to change things that are dear to you.” That statement alone made up my mind. This turned out to be good advice, but also it would become clear later that, if anyone was going to “kill the darlings” of my imagination for the sake of telling a solid story, it would have to be me. There was a bit of nervousness about starting and about the structure of the story. There were so many ideas rolling around it was clear there would need to be very much cut as I simplified elements and characters into a cohesive structure. This happens pretty much with every Nocturnals story. I have a hundred ideas and characters show up in my sketchbooks, and many must be cut out, the wheat from the chaff, until what’s left is the core. With respect to the Nocturnal stories that I’m working on now I’m still doing that- some characters just don’t fit into the narrative.

Dan: There is some competition between the artist and the writer when these things are being conceived: The artist wants to draw this fantastic stuff the writer needs to control it, so it makes sense in the end, so it isn’t a scattered mess. After I had decided I was, and tackled writing this thing, I had conversations with Howard Chaykin (a fellow Bravura creator) who offered an early- and brief- critique of my early outline and recommended the writing of Syd Field, who has authored seminal books on screenwriting. This was the most effective advice, and research I could have got to aid in writing the story. I’ve since read other indispensable books about screenwriting (William Goldman, Robert McKee, etc.) As urged in earlier writing classes, I need to be my own editor – to be hard on myself and the material for the sake of improving by drafting and redrafting, simplifying dialogue and throwing out anything that doesn’t service the story. This is the kind of advice that you hear a lot from writers and it’s completely true. I think what makes one writer a genius and another one competent is knowing when a small seemingly unimportant thing is actually adding flesh to the bones. My editor at Malibu was primarily a traffic organiser, and there was no input from anyone on Nocturnals for years – not from one editor at any of the publishers I’ve worked with. To be honest it was fine to be left alone, not questioned, and given the freedom to create.

Dan: For the last graphic novel, Nocturnals: Sinister Path, (which came out in 2017), after painting 95 pages, but before writing the final dialogue, I sat down with my old friend and writer, Henry Gilroy ( Star Wars: Rebels, Batman Animated Adventures, Star Wars: Clone Wars) and we went over the story arc from start to finish. Henry gave many notes, and I even ended up adding a new page/scene to bolster the narrative. No one has ever done this for me before. It was huge gift. At this point I don’t have a comprehensive comment about my skills as a writer, where I’m at on the spectrum, other than to acknowledge possessing more confidence and experience, with a lot of room to grow and develop. As an illustrator, I’ll always be learning and always seeking to improve. I don’t know how you can be any other way.

TW: For the uninitiated, and without any spoilers, can you describe the premise of Nocturnals?

NOTE: At this stage Dan politely asked me to look through the promotional materials used for Nocturnals for a good answer to this question. He was careful to point out he didn’t write such things himself and could not take credit for the wording. I found two good descriptions from writeups.org and Dark Horse Comics official website (credit where credit is due) that I edited together:

“As can be inferred from the title most of Dan Brereton’s stories here take place at night, The Nocturnals are a team of inhuman vigilantes. They are led by Nicodemus Doc Horror a two-fisted scientist. The Nocturnals deal with things Man Was Not Meant to Know, unacceptably disruptive crime, callous conspiracies, predatory undead factions and other shadowy threats.”

“With his daughter, Evening (aka Halloween Girl) who carries a pumpkin full of haunted toys, a silent two gunned revenant (the Gunwitch), a lissom wraith (Polychrome) and a host of hard-boiled inhuman players Doc Horror battles hidden evils and protects his daughter from the horrors of her impending destiny.”

Paul: Has Nocturnals ever been optioned by any film studios? Have you come close yet to your creation making it to the big screen?

Dan: There have been a lot of bites and nibbles over the years concerning Nocturnals and some of my other IPs. It’s like working a gold claim – you pan and sift the mud and silt until you find the colour … that may be nuggets or just flakes. Being paid option money is a win/win. Your creations are working for you, and if nothing ever gets made, then there’s no chance something will get made that’s just plain awful.

Paul: Will Nocturnals and those characters always be a passion project you’ll forever be periodically returning to in the future for fresh and new adventures?

Dan: Definitely. These characters are like my children, and I’m invested in them. It’s been nearly 3 decades but I have more stories to tell with them.

Paul: Aside from comic book work you’ve had a lot of non-comic related illustration jobs. I’d like to ask about a couple of them. According to my notes, one of these was for Pressman Films? Can you say what movies you may have had a hand in developing?

Dan: As far as non-comics work goes, there have been quite a few music clients for CD art: Rob Zombie, Toto, Fireball Ministry, Ghoultown, etc I’ve also developed a couple of kids show pitches (Disney, Topps), but these never went to pilot, as they seldom do, percentage wise. I was hired by Pressman Films to create concept designs and art to help sell investors on what was to be a Crow film written and directed by Rob Zombie.

Paul: That must have been quite a unique opportunity.

Dan: Working under Rob’s direction, I painted three large pieces depicting the main characters and a look for the film. Unfortunately, it was never produced, and would be rewritten by Rob as an action horror film. This led to my working with Rob on his first solo record Hellbilly Deluxe, contributing cover art for the CD booklet. Other film projects included Universal optioning The Psycho for a few years, but I was never shown a script, though they have had it in development for quite some time. You get used to things not happening in showbiz, as it’s more the norm than anything else.

TW: You did some work for Disney. Could you explain what that might have involved?

Dan: I was hired in 2005 to develop a kids show for Disney TV Animation. It was called The Strangelings, about these siblings whose parents are galactic overlords. They were supposed to be training on Earth to follow in their parents’ footsteps, but they become fascinated with the idea of being superheroes after discovering comic books. I wrote the series Bible. I did all the art and wrote the pilot with Henry Gilroy.

Paul: I understand you did some work on the TV series called Numb3rs. As I recall that was produced by the legendary film director Ridley Scott. Can you describe what work you may have done for that particular series?

Dan: Thanks for reminding me – My friend, writer /producer/director Ken Sanzel was working on the show in 2007 and had written an episode set at a comic con. I was hired to create banner art and allowed use of my art to dress the set. I recommended the services of a friend who puts on conventions, and he recruited other artists and dealers to help build the set. It looked great. My eldest son and I were on set during the shoot, in the “Nocturnals booth” they’d built.

From l-r, Judd Hirsch, Diane Farr, Alimi Ballard, Rob Morrow, David Krumholtz, Dylan Bruno and Navi Rawat of the CBS series NUMB3RS.
Photo: Cliff Lipson/CBS
©2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

TW: Can I ask a more general comic-related question please? As an artist, over your career, has technology and computers altered the way you produce your art?

Dan: To a degree, yes. I still work traditionally, but after scanning in the drawings or paintings, I can noodle around on something digitally. Usually it’s just tweaking things here and there. Being able to take a picture of the work in progress helps quite a lot. Sometimes it takes seeing something the size of your phone or smaller to kind of zero in on what’s going on with it, and what needs attention. In the 90s when I started out, I didn’t have a scanner so I just sent the work to the publisher by FedEx and months and months later, you would get it back. After buying a scanner you at least have a scan of it before you send it out. Then later you could send the scan itself when broadband became more powerful. I’ve just never felt the pull to work fully digitally like a lot of my peers have transitioned to doing. It doesn’t interest me. I’m still very attached to working on a physical illustration.

TW: As a reader, how do you feel about digital comics? Have you tried reading Nocturnals digitally? Is it available in that medium? …Or do you just prefer paper comics in your hand?

Dan: My work has been and is available digitally, and currently I believe the two Nocturnals Omnibus volumes are available on the digital format from Dark Horse. I’m all for any medium that communicates to readers. As a matter of fact, I have a Legends of the Dark Knight arc I wrote and illustrated for DC Comics that’s only available as a digital download. As much as I’d like to see it in print (and have no idea why it isn’t) it’s there for folks to read in an extremely accessible medium. I don’t read digital comics enough to truly comment. I’m not opposed to them at all. For the LOTDK arc I did, the guided view option is really cool. Personally, my reading of comics consists mostly of my catching up on issues I missed from the Silver and Bronze Age : ) I’ll always prefer newsprint and staples .

TW: Covid may have briefly put a spanner in the works for the comic convention scene, but in general do you enjoy conventions? Is it nice meeting fans and signing your work? There must be a lot of travelling involved.

Dan: Oh definitely, it is great to meet people and catch up with friends. Comics have been the vehicle that has taken me places I’d likely never see otherwise. I try to keep my convention travels to a manageable schedule, so it doesn’t interfere with work.

TW: Do you have any fun convention stories you are allowed to share? Or for that matter have you ever found yourself genuinely “Starstruck” (for lack of a better word) meeting anyone in particular at a convention?

Dan: All I wanted for so many years as a kid, a teen, an art student was to become good enough to work professionally in comics. It took up so much of my energy and focus. Even after I’d attended some comic conventions as a student trying to get work, it never entered into my head what would happen when I became a “pro” in the business – like having fans! The idea of having fans is still strange to me. Being treated differently because of what I’ve done or what I can do? Meeting the people who’ve been touched by your work? That is an amazing thing. Decades later I still meet people who will say: “you’re probably tired of hearing this” before paying me a compliment or telling me what something I’ve done has meant to them personally- and you know what? I never get tired of hearing it. Part of me still can’t believe it. I just feel so lucky to be here most of the time. Even when I may feel like editors out there have lost interest, someone pops up with a job, and it makes me feel like I did in the first year I broke into the business.

Dan: Making friends because of comics? That’s a huge thing for me. Mostly because when I was younger, reading and being obsessed with comics, I was mostly at it alone. Now there are thousands of people around the world that I can speak a language with that I couldn’t when I was a kid. That right there, to me, is the most fulfilling thing about what I do as a comics creator. It is about reaching and connecting with people. Meeting your heroes is another mind-blowing aspect of my job. People whose work you knew so well over the decades and whose names were just names attached to that work – suddenly they’re living breathing people in your life. That’s an amazing thing and it’s nothing I ever thought about, not even once! Not in all the years when I was working toward being a working comic book artist.

Dan: I’ve had amazing meetings with legendary figures in comics. Some of them, like Gene Colan, resulted in years of friendship. I met Gene and his wife Adrienne in ‘92 and they were very sweet. Gene was supportive of my work and over the years we talked by phone or saw each other at shows or events. Something like that, being friends with your hero, that’s an amazing by-product of this industry.

Dan: Alex Ross and I came up as “painters” in comics around the same time and have been friends ever since. We’ve enjoyed ribbing each other about our particular styles for years. I met and spoke to John Buscema the year before he passed away and it was an amazing conversation. He’s been so huge in my artistic life. He was friendly and supportive, and I only wish I could have gotten to know him. So much talent has come and gone at the turn of the last century. We’re so fortunate to have walked with giants, but to have friendly discourse with them as a fan or as (I humbly say) a peer, is a true gift.

Dan: I met Mickey Spillane in the mid-90’s. His eyes matched the colour of his Florida tan. He showed me his license to carry a concealed firearm permit. He still kept it in his wallet. It showed his birth name (which wasn’t even close to his pen name). When I first met Walter Simonson with his wife Louise, he said ”I want to break your hand.” It was meant as a big compliment, but at first I was a little shocked.

photo©2018 Joel Meadows. All Rights Reserved

Dan: My eldest son and I were walking once among a huge crowd in San Diego when a wheelchair ran over his foot. The man in the chair was Ray Bradbury, which thrilled us both.

Dan: Another year in San Diego – this was the early 90’s – Clive Barker and I signed copies of the graphic novel adaptation of his short story DREAD at the Eclipse Comics booth. Clive is a very easy-going guy and it was an honour to have been hired to Illustrate the story, and a thrill to sign books with him and watch him easily deal with some of his more rabid fans. He was very smooth and charismatic.

Dan: I won the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award in 1990, for my work on The Black Terror – this was two years after my first visit to San Diego comic con. I was 24 years old and just a year out of art school. My editor at Eclipse handed me a ticket to the Inkpot Awards ceremony and banquet (this was before the Eisner awards became part of the ceremony). I didn’t know what the Inkpots were, and I was a little puzzled as to why they were inviting me. I was just a new kid working for them. I made it by myself to the event, but it took me a while to navigate – so I was about an hour late, so I missed the dinner. When I got there my editor was pretty upset and he said: “some things you just can’t be late for!” I was still puzzled – until he finally explained to me- for the first time- that I’d been nominated for an award. The first award they hand out is the Russ Manning… so minutes later I’m on stage with Dave Stevens, who presents me with the plaque and says to me, “ I voted for ya!” I was utterly gobsmacking, because when I was then expected to say something to the assembled comics professionals and San Diego Comic Con founders, etc , all I could manage was: “ I’m speechless!” People who know me can tell you that’s not normal for me to have nothing to say about anything! The most memorable aspect of that night was meeting Dave, having his approval, and later his friendship, for the next 2 decades.

Dan: My most fateful convention experience: meeting my wife at a comic show in 2001. We have since had three children together.

TW: So, after an incredible career so far what does the future hold for Dan Brereton? Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?

Dan: My plans include finishing the Nocturnals Sinister Path trilogy, and to that end I have the second of three volumes pencilled and will paint it and release it in a couple of years. I’ll put out another art book collection in 2023. I’ll continue sharing my studio and work with folks on my Patreon page https://www.patreon.com/danbrereton_nocturnals

Dan: Also I have other projects in the works I can’t announce yet. I’m always hoping to see an IP I’ve created make it to the small or large screen, but don’t obsess over it because being able to do what I love for a living means everything.

visit Dan Brereton’s website now

https://www.nocturnals.com/