ARTIST SPOTLIGHT - Guillaume Martinez

This week, we welcome Guillaume Martinez to the CBFC Artist Spotlight!

Q. Where are you from?

A. I’m French. Born and raised in Lyon, now living in the countryside.

Q. How long you’ve been drawing?

A. I’ve been drawing for ever! But professionally I began my career in 2000-2001 in France and I’m still working for the French « bande dessinée » market. I began working for the US market in 2021 more or less via my art rep kirbyscomicart.

Q. What materials do you prefer to do your art with?

A. I’m most comfortable with pen and paper and ink wash, but I’m enjoying more and more watercolor and digital work.

Q. Character you love to draw?

A. I love to draw Hellboy and Conan! I have a soft spot for any 90’s era X-Men too. I also love doing characters like Venom or Carnage, it’s visceral to paint, I can go all out on paper and just have fun.

Q. Character that you want to draw that you haven’t drawn yet?

A. Tons of them. I’ve been wanting to draw the whole Bat-Family I haven’t done, after doing my favorite villains recently. A Swamp Thing would be fun too.

Q. What artist inspires you the most and why?

A. That list would be endless. Otomo and Moebius might be my biggest inspiration from a young age, they are the reason I got into this field.

Then, from my good friend Gerald Parel who is always such an inspiration, to the entire team I met via my art rep : Dike Ryan, Simone DiMeo, Francesco Mobili, Michal Ivan and the others, their work inspires me every day. I absolutely adore the « big names » of the industry, people like Mike Mignola, Alex Maleev, Lienil Yu, Olivier Coipel, Sara Pichelli, Daniel Warren Johnson, Tommy Lee Edwards, John Paul Leon… And also artist I discovered recently and who really amaze me : Davi Go, Joshua Sway Swaby, Helena Masselis, David Lafuente, Alvaro Martinez Bueno, the list goes on. I love a ton of what I see and try to learn from all these amazing artists as much as I can.

I also love stuff from outside of the comic book world, artists like PJ Lynch, Chris Dunn, Armel Gaulme, Joao Ruas, Soey Milk, Eric Fortune, Greg Ruth… Another endless list!

Q. What was your first published work?

A. It was a French comic book called « La Malédiction de Bellary » in 2001, a historical comic book about an ancient curse in the Middle Ages, published by Glénat when I was around 20 years old.

Q. Which artist would you love to do a collaboration piece with?

A. Any of the artists I talked about in the question above! I’m sure it would be an amazing experience to work with them. I’d love to spend time painting with Michal Ivan on a big piece of paper one day!