From the Sketchbook:
Mike Cavallaro
This CBC series features illustrators sharing their creative process and providing context for their amazing artwork.
Mike Cavallaro is an Eisner Award nominated comic artist, who has illustrated the graphic novels Foiled and Curses! Foiled Again (written by Jane Yolen) and Decelerate Blue (written by Adam Rapp). In this post, Cavallaro shares about his humorously sly new graphic novel, Nico Bravo and the Hound of Hades.
“I researched the mythic characters and places we see in the book—and then I ignored all of it! I’m kidding…but I’m not. The myths handed down to us concern gods, goddesses and creatures as they were, and what they did then. I’m more interested in what they’re up to today.”
“There are overt sci-fi elements, and borrowed bits and pieces from my favorite places, like this staircase from the New York Public Library.”
“The gateway to the Underworld that Nico discovers is based on the famous sculpture by Rodin.”
“I include references [throughout] to modern day things along with the classical elements. There’s a scene that spoofs the film “Apocalypse Now,” and…it’s all meant to ask: ‘where does our world begin and end, and where does it intersect with a more mythological one?‘ “
To see more of Mike Cavallaro’s final art and face his philosophical questions, you can browse Nico Bravo and the Hound of Hades.
