BRANDON GRAHAM TALKS TO MATHIEU BABLET ABOUT THE BEAUTIFUL DEATH.

To celebrate success of The Beautiful Death, we had issue 1 variant cover artist Brandon Graham interview writer/artist @mathieu-bablet to learn a little bit more about his process.

Brandon Graham - With a book with this much city detail, I’m interested if using photographs of cities or going out and sketching from real places were part of your process?

Mathieu Bablet - I think putting in a lot of details while drawing cities almost makes the reader feel like there is life in the street, stories behind the windows. I do use a lot of photos that I take or find on the Internet to catch all those small details. (Not so much sketches, but that’s only because I am a bit lazy).

Brandon Graham - Are you thinking of real places you’ve been while drawing the city in this book?

Mathieu Bablet - I always use pictures of places I have been to when I draw. For The Beautiful Death, I spent a bit of time in the streets of the city I live in, in France, taking pictures in order to have references of buildings. I also used pictures of travels in Asia, like China and Thailand, because in some cities the buildings are full of cables, lights, etc. So even if the city in The Beautiful Death is kind of like New York City, it’s full of places all over the world.

Brandon Graham - Do you listen to anything while you work, and if so what?

Mathieu Bablet - I am a huge listener of podcasts while I am working - especially when I am inking my pages (because it doesn’t require a lot of focus).
Most of the time I listen for people talking about cinema, video games, comics, science and politics - and also documentaries or interviews about the topics I am studying to write my books. So no music, just people talking!

Brandon Graham - What’s your work routine like?

Mathieu Bablet - I try to work as much as I can in the same hours my wife is working, in order to avoid night work or spending the entire day on my desk. I begin working arround 9am, and end at 7pm. Most of the time I spend my morning drawing the pencil line of a page, and the afternoon inking the same page. I try to draw all the pages before starting the colours, which is actually the longest part of the job.

The Beautiful Death comics are available in stores now - with the collected edition to follow in May 2018.