There’s a million ways to break into comics; comic creators sometime joke that the term “breaking in” denotes it’s semi-illicit, and that the publishers cover up those holes as they find out about them. But it seems like California artist Peter Nguyen has the best way of entering comics: by Jim Lee asking you to.
Hawaiian-born artist Peter Nguyen (no relation to Dustin Nguyen) broke into comics like few others — being hand-chosen by Jim Lee out of a mountain of submissions in a 2006 Wildstorm Talent Search with spec pages for The Authority. Nguyen, who was living in California at the time attending Cal State, began to serious focus on comics then with support from Lee and Wildstorm, which led to him ultimately making his debut with 2009’s Secret Six #16. Nguyen bounced around DC’s offices, doing a Batman short in DC Holiday Special ’09 and then an issue and a half of Paul Dini’s Gotham City Sirens run in 2010. After that he got noticed by Boom! Studios, who hired the fresh-faced talent to do covers for three issues of the Incorruptible series and then back to DC to do covers for several issues of Detective Comics that year. That quick rise saw him do some small work for Marvel in the form of the Women of Marvel #1 and then making a rare appearance as an inker over Scott Koblish for Marvel Adventures Super-Heroes #9. In 2011, Nguyen took part in major events for both DC and Marvel, illustrating Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Catwoman #1and then Fear Itself: Black Widow. In 2012 he eventually hooked up with the DC Digital department which has become his primary home, first doing Batman: Arkham Unhinged and now taking over on the Batman Beyond series.
Nguyen’s work still shows the need for a little bit of polish, but he seems to have the basics down pat and also is able to work as both a penciller, inker and colorist. What do you think of his work, and where would you like to see him next?
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I suppose that’s one way to do it… Could someone tell Grant Morrison that I’d like to write Seaguy?
Great stuff, by the way. Room for polishing, sure, but definitely promise. 🙂
Kinda of a manga esque still to some of his stuff, looks cool though. I really like the panel with Red Robin, Red Hood, and Nightwing as little kids. Being mostly a DC guy, those are my suggestions/wishlists: Plastic Man, Jack Kirby’s Fourth World stuff (if DC ever wants to do more with it aside from set-up in WW), Blue Beetle, Stactic Shock, and maybe with time The Spirit.
That Flash stuff was AMAZING!!!
I like his covers and sketches…..his interior work? Not so much.
His manga/anime influence doesn’t work so well when he has to do interior work. I hate to say it but it looks cheap. Unlike his covers which, for some reason, those same influences work for them.
While the art itself is good, it looks and feels a bit stagnant and not dynamic; that doesn’t bode well for Sequential Art. It does however, as you said, work with sketches and covers.
Yes, I agree. The work above varies, but the pieces that are covers look great and really tell a story in themselves, or at least create a curiosity about what the story might be inside. A lot of the other pieces also look like posters. I’m not sure why, but I really like the Robin where the body blends with the background. I’d love to put that one up on my wall!
that young avengers image was brilliant. now i kinda miss the old team …