Freddie E. Williams II has won fans over with his innovative artistic style on DC’s The Flash. Prior to his current gig drawing the fastest man on the planet, Williams’ art was seen on the monthly title Robin, a book for which he still provides the covers. Below, Williams gives us the inside scoop on some of his favorite works.
Double-Page Spread from Countdown #3
When I got the email from [DC editor] Mike Carlin to ask if I could do a fill-in issue of Countdown, which was issue #3, I was pretty busy at the time. I’m doing a how-to book right now on digital illustration that will be coming out through DC probably this fall. I was in the middle of that and also in the middle of Flash. I had made a note to myself to back off on taking fill-ins but whenever he e-mailed about doing this issue he said that it would have a knock-down drag-out fight between Superman and Darkseid, so I had to do it. Superman’s my favorite character and Darkseid’s probably one of the coolest villains. [Artist] Keith Giffen did layouts for all the Countdown stuff, although on this spread I ended up changing it quite a bit. This double-page splash I spent quite a bit of time on. It was thrilling to do a big powerful shot of Superman. Actually he’s pretty small in the scene but everything is related to him physically and is the result of his power. Up until this point I had just been drawing Superman standing around talking in Blue Beetle #15 and a couple issues of Flash.
Flash #240 Cover
[This cover features] Gorilla Grodd. I love gorillas and luckily in issue #240 and #241 I got to draw him quite a bit. I’m in the middle of #241 right now, but if I remember correctly, Flash is going to Gorilla City in #242 so there’re some more gorillas. I like the cover because this was the first cover I designed that had multiple panels on it. I don’t see a lot of that, but it probably happens all the time. There was a need to put a lot of different stuff on there because there were several different story points going on. I think the main reason that I wanted to include this was because it had Gorilla Grodd all up in your face, screaming.
Flash Demo
This one is actually a little bit out of style for what I normally draw. This actually has some rendering and I actually don’t do a lot of traditional penciling. My art is almost always all-digital, which means it just looks like it’s inked. It’s called “Flash Demo” because it was a part of a demonstration I did in a how-to book where I was demonstrating a certain kind of work flow. In the how-to book I described an all-digital work flow, a pencil hybrid work flow, and then an ink hybrid work flow, and this one was for the pencil hybrid. I also used it as an inking demonstration. I was happy with how it came out for being a demonstration.
Invincible Pin-UpInvincible is probably my favorite comic right now, and has been for quite a while actually. I loved it when [original Invincible artist] Cory Walker was doing it, and then [current artist] Ryan Ottley has really come into his own as an artist. His style has some similarity with Cory Walker but he is not doing a Cory Walker impression at all. Back in issue #32, a year and a half ago, I had just gotten the latest trade and reread the whole series. I had a user account on the Image message boards and I e-mailed Robert Kirkman and asked him if I could do a pin-up. He said, “Sure, go for it.” I just ran with it and it’s one of my favorite pieces partially because the response I got from Ryan Ottley, I forwarded it to him and he was like, “Wow, Mark looks like he’s about to get the hell beat out of him” or something like that because he’s completely outmatched there. I enjoy drawing a lot of collateral damage, so it was cool to draw the city on fire and all that.
Freddy Krueger from “A Nightmare on Elm Street”
When I was younger, I had a really good friend named Jason and my name is Freddie, and at the time “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Friday the 13th” were really popular. Freddy Krueger was, by default, my favorite horror villain just because we share the same name. Different spellings but close enough. Anyway, a little while ago the license for “Nightmare on Elm Street” was up and it hadn’t been made into a comic book yet. This was back before I had much work published. There was a company that was trying to get the license to “Nightmare on Elm Street” and I did a couple of pitch pin-ups to try to help them secure the license. It didn’t work out but this was one of my favorite pieces. Freddy’s a little bulky here but he feels pretty intimidating. This was also back when I was doing crazy rendering. There’s a ton of line rendering all over the place. This was back when I was trying to be [artist] Travis Charest.
Robin #173 Cover
I had done a couple covers before this one. I guess when I did this cover, there was an editorial shift for Robin and the new editor Jeanine Schaefer and I seem to share a lot of the same aesthetic and style sense. I just really like this piece, and I also ended up coloring this piece. Then, in some strange twist later on, right before it came out I ended up having to patch the cover and change it where there was a skull in the place of the character named Violet, the one with the goggles. They had me replace her head with a skull where it looks like [the character] Spoiler’s skull, where she’s still wearing the cowl and stuff. I still like the way the cover came out even with the skull there but I like the original best. I included this also because I really like the book Robin. Even though I’m not drawing it anymore I’m still getting to do the covers.
Freddie E. Williams II will be appearing at Wizard World Chicago from June 26th to June 29th. Buy your ticket today so you can get that Gorilla Grodd commission you’ve always wanted!
