‘My Art is the Final Product. That Cannot be Replaced by A.I.’

One of the top comic book cover artists in the entire comic book industry is Stanley Lau, best known as Artgerm. His variant covers are some of the most in-demand covers in the world of comic book collecting, and he has drawn variant covers for almost every major comic book company around, but you’ll probably best know him for his many DC and Marvel covers. DC even released an entire poster book based on Artgerm covers.

One of the biggest comic book conventions in England, MCM Comic Con London, is taking place this May, and one of their big comic book guests is Artgerm. The convention arranged a chance for CBR to talk with the superstar artist, and here is our interview with Artgerm, as we talk about his career, his new costume he designed for Supergirl, and his thoughts on how much A.I. has changed the world.

CBR: Thanks for having this chat! Now, you grew up in Hong Kong, so how did your move to Singapore when you were a young adult affect your approach to art?

Stanley “Artgerm” Lau Well, I was born in Hong Kong, and ever since I was very young, I have really loved to draw, and my parents were quite encouraging. They allowed me to do what I wanted, and I think it was great because there were no distractions. There wasn’t even the internet to begin with. So I spent most of my days just drawing, and mainly from the manga comics that I was reading at the time, or any anime magazine that I could find. So, that was my main hobby when I was young. When I moved to Singapore when I turned 18, I was slowly being influenced by the culture of the West, because Singapore is more of an English-speaking country, so I started to expose myself to more Western content, like superhero comics and stuff. So that somehow slowly influenced my way of looking at art. I was initially strongly anime-oriented, with cute girls with big eyes and stuff. But then I started to look at something a bit more superhero-related. I think that’s how things started to change in my artwork.

It must be an interesting thing that, for us in the States, it looks like you have an anime influence on your work, while over there, you probably look like you have a Western influence, right?

Yes, it’s a very interesting situation with my fans. When they start looking at my work, if you ask any of the Asian fans, they will say that my work looks really Western, but when you ask that Western audience, they say, “Oh, Artgerm is really anime.” So I guess I meant to find something in the middle that appealed to both sides.

So, how exactly did you break into doing comic book art, as you were doing, I believe, design work before, right?

Yeah, my main study was in graphic design and advertising. So that was my starting point. For five years after graduation, I worked for an advertising agency, so I used to work on a lot more commercial illustration for corporate stuff.

Gotcha.

And then, while doing that, I started to post on DeviantArt, and my fan art was starting to get a lot of attention, mostly with me drawing stuff that people wanted to see, like manga/anime/superhero art. And that’s how I started to expose my work more to a Western audience. And once I moved out of my design agency, I started a company called Imaginary Friends, where I focused more on entertainment art, which means covers, games, productions and stuff. And that’s where the first contact from DC came in to work on comic covers.

Now, before you worked at DC, there was a book you did for, I believe the company was called Radical, called Caliber. What was up with that?

Do you know anything about that?

No, that’s why I’m wondering. I just saw that you did covers for it.

Yeah, that was a weird thing. It was not exactly the most pleasant experience.

Oh, sorry.

It’s okay. It was just really tough, because they asked for something really high quality, to the point that every panel inside the comic was like a cover, right? So eventually, I was running a studio with a team of about 20 people, and I had to set aside about seven artists just to work on that one book! So it was really so demanding. It was crazy.

When you made your first contact with DC, was that at a comic book convention, or was it onlne through DeviantArt?

Okay, well, if we backtrack a little bit, once I set up the studio, Imaginary Friends, we put together every resource that we had left and flew everyone to San Diego.

Oh, wow.

I reprinted our first art book, which was a compilation of all the artists’ work. And then we gave them out at San Diego Comic Con, like brochures. And people started to get into that, and to get interested into what we were doing. After we came back from SDCC, we started getting inquiries about commissions and stuff. That’s how we started working with some of these publishers. I remember the first project that we got that was American comic-related was a GI Joe coloring book.

Oh, really?

Yeah, that was done with Devil’s Due.

Oh, yeah, they had the G.I. Joe license for a while.

(I don’t know the name of the coloring book, so instead, here’s an Artgerm cover of G.I. Joe #218 featuring the Baroness…

)

So that’s how we got started. Now, for me personally, I was chosen because one of the DC editors saw my work and just wanted to work with me. And so I started my comic career, on my own, at DC Comics.

On the Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance series, I think.

Yeah. At first, I worked on a lot of the second tier/third tier books that nobody knew about. And after I did Final Crisis Aftermath, I did The Great Ten, who were Asian heroes. Now my big break actually came when I was hired to do Batgirl covers.

Let’s back up a little bit. I remember that The Great Ten had a deal where every issue had a spotlight cover of one of the ten members of The Great Ten, but then the series was cut off before there were ten issues.

Yeah, only nine issues.

So, did you draw the last two spotlight covers, which I think were (let me check), Socialist Red Guardsman and Mother of Champions. Did you ever work up anything for those two, or did you know ahead of time that nine was going to be it?

I didn’t know way ahead of time. Maybe an issue before that, okay, but I never drew those last two spotlight covers.

Those were really fun spotlight books.

Yeah, that bunch of characters were so weird, but it was cool.

Now, at some point, you moved beyond being the guy who was on the low level books, and became a guy that Marvel and DC both turned to for major covers. How did that come about?

It was a long process to build the confidence and trust from them, but eventually it came about, and they now allow me to do whatever I want.

Something I’ve always wondered about, you had that epic run of Supergirl covers, how did that happen?

That run of Supergirl covers was something that happened because I was watching the Supergirl TV series and my wife and I were really enjoying it. So one day, my wife asked me, why don’t you just do a Supergirl cover run? I thought, yeah, that’s a good idea. So one year, after San Diego Comic Con, I was invited to the DC office in Burbank and I went in and I met with the chief editor, and he was asking me what I wanted to work on (they always ask me questions like that), and I said that I wanted to do a Supergirl cover run, and they were down with it.

It’s got to be really crazy now, sort of bringing your career full circle, that you got to design the new Supergirl costume. That has to be an amazing experience,

Yes, but it’s funny, after working with DC for many years, this is the first time I started asking about designing a costume for them. It has never come across my mind that I wanted to design a cotume, but if there was one that I really wanted to do, Supergirl is an easy choice, because I love her so much. I’m glad that they allowed me to do that. It was a lot of fun.

What would you say was your major inspiration for this costume? What was your biggest influence in the design?

Okay, let me be very honest that I don’t even read comics, so I don’t know many comic characters or the history of those characters, even though I draw them all the time. But for Supergirl, there’s always this perception or this image of Supergirl I really want to portray, which I call “The Supergirl Next Door” look. So I want to make it as approachable, as human as possible, but also strong, and maybe sporty and and fun. So this is something that I always wanted to portray and with this particular design that I just did, I did exactly that. So I wanted her to have a strong look, which is why I have her wearing a very tight fitness compression suit, which is very common for fitness wear, and then the dress is actually a tennis-inspired skirt, very high-cut. It covered the belly button, but you allow a little window to see the abs. Because I really like abs. I really want to show how strong she is. I like the bit of sexiness without looking to expose too much. Just showing a little. I know that they are not very keen on showing the abs, but I really wanted to do it. So what I did was that I added the turtleneck for her to cover more on top, so that I could cut short her skirt. I also cut off her cape, so that it has better movement. So, that’s pretty much it.

The design reminds me a bit of Michael Turner’s Supergirl. He was another guy who was big on covers. It evokes that pretty well.

Yeah, but design-wise, he was more about exposing skin.

Yeah, that’s true. He did like to go for that in a big way.

He likes to go really low. I don’t think that really fits Supergirl’s persona as well.

That’s fair. Now, it’s funny, recently on social media, there has been a big discussion among comic book artists, and one of the discussions is whether they can even AFFORD to do interior pages. It seems like comic book artists really break into two camps, those that primarily do interior pages, and those that hit the “Three Cs” – covers, commissions, and conventions. And so, obviously, you are one of the biggest guys in the world of the Three Cs, so why have you chosen that as your camp? Why don’t you want to do interiors?

Well, honestly, DC did approach me before and offered to give me a full book to work on, including interiors. I guess it’s a matter of me just knowing my limits. I know my limit. As an interior artist, you have to commit at least six issues, and I would have to burn myself month-to-month just to hit that deadline, and I also have a school to operate, which I commit quite a bit of my time to running. Plus there are conventions and things like that go go. So it is extremely difficult for me to manage my time. And, most importantly, I don’t think I’m good enough as an interior artist.

Oh? That’s surprising.

I think I could learn to rise to the occasion, but at the same time, if I take on an interior job, I basically have to reject all other covers. And that means shutting down all of those other bridges that I’ve built over the years. If I’m doing DC interiors, I can’t work on Marvel covers, right? And I think it is important for me to maintain a relationship with everyone. Everyone’s happy this way, and I’m okay with that.

What I find fascinating is how, over the years, you’ve occasionally tried some very different approaches to your covers. Like, I remember your Captain Atom covers, they were SO different from everything else you had been doing to that point. SO different. So are you constantly trying to challenge yourself with new approaches?

In general, I don’t have the burden of presenting the character in a certain way, like I did on those Captain Atom covers. Like I said, I don’t read comics, so generally, I’m working on variant covers, which aren’t the main cover anyway. So my job with my covers is to bring in a new audience. I’m not beholden to draw in a specific traditional Western/American way. I’m never going to be to draw like Jim Lee or any of those legends, because I didn’t grow up in their culture. So what I can offer to bring in a new audience, people who are more into video games, and into Asian culture. I want to appeal to that audience. My job is to bring in new blood who will want to buy my variant cover because they like my artwork, some of whom don’t even read comics normally, and hopefully one day they will open up and try to read it and become a new comic fan. And because I don’t have a strong commitment to comic culture, I’m more free to play around with different styles and approaches. Of course, I mainly do digital covers, but at the same time, I also do a lot of weird covers that may not sell as well, but it gives my collectors something new, so it’s more fun for them to collect. Because it’s not always the same, right? If you can sort of look at some of my recent covers, like if you look at my recent One Bad Day: Two-Face cover….

Yeah, that was a much darker approach.

Yeah, and it was like a whole new person was coming out of his face. Or when you look at the recent cover I did for Harley Quinn: Black, White, and Red. That one was inspired by the video game, Persona. So, I try to bring different influences into the comics, and do different variations, which hopefully more people can enjoy.

It’s interesting you mention the slight variations, as it is so funny how some of these variants nowadays are the same image with multiple slight alterations, like your Absolute Wonder Woman variant that had, like, 17 million slightly different versions, right?

{laughs} That’s not up to me. Sometimes I just submit the cover, and they make ten different versions out of it.

That’s fascinating. So I noticed you’ve been doing a few recent pieces for fun with Marvel Rivals characters. Obviously, Marvel Rivals is really hot right now, that style and approach to the characters. So for something like that, do you try to keep up with the current trends, or do you just go by what people are asking for?

Yeah, those covers were done just for fun. I’m a teacher, and I face an audience of students every week, so I get to hear and look at what they like. For me, my job is to inspire them. So that’s why I draw Marvel Rivals, because my students keep talking about it. I said, “Okay, I can draw some.”

So the students always keep you up to date?

Yes, all the time. Even for my yearly October event, when I do 31 Days of new art each day, that list of characters that I draw, half of them are given by my students.

That’s awesome. So, once you became more established as an artist, you obviously started doing a lot more conventions. That kind of experience has to be amazing, as you’ve gone all over the world with this stuff. Is there any particular convention story off the top of your head, or experience, that stands out to you?

I’ll tell you a funny story. When I first attended San Diego Comic Con, which was my first big convention as an artist, I was sitting in Artist’s Alley, at a really, really small table. And I remember I had a really long queue. The queue stretched all the way to the entrance! So some people came in and asked some of these people queuing up, asking, “What queue is this for?” “Oh, it’s for Stanley.” And everybody was crazy, “You mean STAN LEE?”

{both laugh}

Conventions have always been fun, because I get to meet people who have followed me for many years, especially those people who know my own characters. And now, I travel with my wife. She stopped working during COVID, and now she joins me as my event manager, and this has become a really, really fun time, because I get to show her my world, which she never got to interact with earlier. So now she can see how people respond to my work, and how some of my work has influenced a younger generation of artists. It’s a really rewarding experience.

That has to be amazing to have a job that allow you to bring your wife so many different places, just based off of your work.

I always fell people that I do workshops every year, which means that I go to conventions to work, and she goes there to shop. {laughs} She also does my social media at the shows, so when I draw, she gets to capture the time-lapse of my drawings, which I think adds another layer of fun to social media.

What’s interesting about social media to me is that your students have never lived a life WITHOUT social media, and you first came up when it was really not much of a thing at all, but it is obviously a big thing for you now (as it is for most top artists). What’s the number one lesson that you try to teach your students about special media?

I think it is very important for them to understand that with social media, there are two sides to social media. You can’t just be someone who posts your work and expect people just to like it without interacting. That’s why the social aspect came in. You need to learn to pay it forward. You have to share other artists’ work, and maybe they’ll begin to share yours, as well. But I think you also have to be mindful that social media doesn’t mean that much in the end. Many people try to chase followers, but I tell them, honestly, of all of my followers, maybe 0.001% actually purchases anything from me. That means your followers are not exclusive to you. Sometimes they’re a fan of a character, and they followed you because you drew that character once. They just follow you because they thought that piece was pretty, but that doesn’t mean that they are actually committed to you, or will buy something from you. Do not buy the illusion that just because you have a certain number of followers, it guarantees success.

Most importantly, when it comes to social media, is the product that you are trying to sell. That means always focusing on your artwork, and don’t let your social media or your audience sway you or change how you approach your work. The number one fan on your social media should be yourself. You should always prioritize your personal growth, explorations, and inspiration over other people’s.

I think that’s great. Now, it’s funny, I’ve read you talk about AI a little bit over the years, but I’m sort of curious, what is it like to be a PROMPT? There’s not that many people out there who are a prompt. There’s very few artists where you have all of these people telling a program, “Draw it like this guy.” And you’re one of those rare artists, so what’s it like to be turned into an AI prompt?

I think it’s cute. I mean, “When it doubt, insert the Artgerm prompt, and you get better results!” I think that’s cool. The only thing is that many, many new fans have become fans because they were using AI, and they tried to insert the Artgerm prompt, which knowing what that meant. They then found out, “Oh, that’s a real artist. That’s a real person. THAT’s why I’m using an ‘Artgerm prompt'”! only things that many, many new fans are many people become advanced because they were using AI, then tried to insert this action prom without knowing what it means, until they found out that, oh, that’s a real artist, a real person. Oh, so that’s why I’m using the action prom.

That’s hilarious. What’s so funny is that even before AI, once you became so popular, there were many people trying to draw like you anyways, even before the computers were doing it. But I guess, as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Exactly, I agree. But AI is definitely a big disruption in the art world, because many young artists, they feel like there is no future in art because of AI. They think that AI is going to replace them. In fact, it also has affected some of our intake for our school, because many parents start to get concerned about whether they should send their kids to the school if they are just going to be replaced by A.I.

That’s interesting.

It’s very important to understand that, objectively speaking, AI WILL take over quite a lot of art-related jobs, for sure, especially in terms of game development and all kinds of creative development. But the two things to look at are, are you an artist who facilitates the development of a movie or an anime or a game, or are you an artist where your art is the final product? For me, my art is the final product. That cannot be replaced by A.I, because I can tell you that the reason why people buy my covers is because they’re done by Artgerm. It’s not done by A.I. Since I’m producing the final product, and my name is used to sell the art. That is different from someone who is in the development pipeline of a game where certain segments are being replaced by AI. Or, for example, in animation nowadays, the in-betweens can be done with A.I. easily. So the in-between artists may not be relevant or AS relevant as before. So that is the reality. But eventually, no matter how good AI has become, if they can even pretend to create things that LOOK like my work, the bottom line is, it is not mine, right? That’s not what people are paying for. I do understand that the rise of A.I. has led some artists to do more traditional art, both to stand out, and also so that they can’t be replaced by A.I. because it is all hand-drawn.

That’s right. You’ve been doing a little more traditional stuff recently, right?

I always do traditional stuff, but more and more of my friends are joining me because of that.

You mentioned that you don’t read the comics, which is fair enough, but what happens when they give you a book where you don’t know the character?

Yeah, I try to make sure I know the character before I commit to a project. For instance, I have comitted to certain covers where I didn’t know about the character design, or I thought the character looked like one thing, but she’s not, which eventually became really, really difficult to work on. For example, I was asked by DC to work on this cover of the Chetah. So, Cheetah, I knew she was a Wonder Woman enemy, and she was pretty sexy, but with a slight Cheetah-like face, but still mostly human-looking.. So I say yes, and I start the project, and only after I committed, I found out that her latest design is an ACTUAL Cheetah-like creature!

That’s too funny.

So I thought I was trying to draw a pretty hot chick, and then it becomes I need to draw a furry! So eventually, I try my best to make it look like a National Geographic/Animal Planet take on the Cheetah.

That’s very funny.

Now, we’re talking today because of MCM Comic Con London, so what drew your interest to attending MCM Comic Con?

I used to only travel to the United States, mainly for the big U.S. shows, and then some of the regional shows. But now, with my wife traveling with me, she wants to make me go on a freakin’ world tour! She keeps asking me to go to different places, different parts of the world, and the United Kingdom is one of them. She really, really wanted to go to the U.K, and just have a taste of what it was like, and that’s one of the main reasons we started talking with MCM Comic Con, and have them fly us over. It’s a new experience for us as a couple.

You were one of the first big announcements for this year’s convention, right?

I think so, and I’m glad that people are excited, because I’ve never been there, and I guess a lot of UK fans are looking forward to meeting me, so that’s great. I’ve also been working with Titan Comics, a big U.K. publisher, for a while now, and it’s nice to catch up with them in person, as well.

I just love that you get a chance to travel the world with your stuff, because obviously you have fans all over the world, so this is a great way to spread the Artgerm, as it were.

That name was not so good during COVID!

Hah, that’s true. Thanks so much for spending this time with us!