An excerpt of the interview below, but for the full one, click here:

Inspiration Interview

Thanks a lot to Rachel Saunders!

- Locke and Key is such an evocative comic – what do you most enjoy about working on the comic?

I’m a very obsessive design freak, so having the chance to actually design EVERYTHING in this amazing universe is a lifetime opportunity. Also having the chance of mixing this incredibly rooted on earth real life sequences on one hand, and the most creative and bizarre magic sequences on the other is overwhelmingly entertaining… but by far, what I enjoy the most, is the absolutely unique emotional core that’s behind this story and characters… Joe Hill is an absolute master about creating compelling characters, and incredibly heartfelt moments, and the HUGE challenge of transmitting this emotions with images, and seeing it working (hopefully) in the finished book, it’s a unique experience.

- Who would you say is your biggest influence?

Lots of classics and contemporary artists as you may guess…. from Jack Kirby to Sean Gordon Murphy, or from Hergé or Moebius to Katsuhiro Otomo….. always studying other artists, trying to learn as much as possible from all of them. But for Locke & Key, I must admit that my biggest influences come from visual works on another medium: Stanley Kubrick’s, specially in some sequences from “The Shining”, “Barry Lyndon” and “Eyes Wide Shut”, and Hayao Miyazaki’s “Chihiro’s Journey” and “Howl’s Moving Castle”.

- Would you like to do your own comic in the future?

Well, Locke & Key is a comic of my own, as we’re developing as a co-creation from Joe and myself. I really have this feeling of “a baby of my own” in a creative field, and I’m having this enormous sense of compromise, and enjoying it as it should be. Also, this is my first “creative credit” in my career, so this project has become a turning point for me, becoming an even more important experience. I guess you want to know if I want to do something written by myself, and that’s something I may want to try at some point, but certainly is something I’m not rushed to do. Specially not while I’m having the chance to work with an incredible talent as Joe is, and also enjoying and incredibly fluid and natural creative dialogue between us…

- What are your favourite themes to draw?

This is a tricky one. I’ve done such incredibly different projects so far (CSI, George Romero’s Land Of The Dead, Clive Barker’s The Great And Secret Show, Beowulf, Locke & Key, Clive Barker’s Seduth), enjoying them all a lot, I can say that all this magic related stuff, but in strongly character driven stories is something I enjoy a lot. Nevertheless, there are two “genres” I haven’t done yet which I love to: superheros, and specially, any heavily sci-fi space opera. Anyway, no special rush on any. If ten years ago you would have asked me what would be my kind of dream project, I would have described what I’m doing right now in Locke & Key.