by Mike Collins

Your highly anticipated run on New Avengers is about to start. How did you get the assignment?

As we all know, there was a delay on the plots for Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #3 and I was doing a slowburn projects in the meantime as well as various covers. I got an email from Joe offering me the chance to do New Avengers on a regular basis. They told me while negotiating my deal to move to Marvel that they'd give me the best projects possible, I didn't know they'd give me THE best on-going project ever. It's awesome!

Brian Michael Bendis continues to write the book. Were you nervous at all to get such a high profile project with one of Marvel's best selling writers?

I love Brian's work and of course, I'd love to be among his favorite artists to have ever worked with him! I think I am extremely fortunate to have worked with huge superstar writers through out my career and Brian is another golden name on my resume. I did have some hard time getting the plots translated correctly during our first issue but after issue 27 onwards, I think I got the hang of it and I hope I did his writing justice.

With such a large cast of characters to draw have you found a favorite? Anyone you haven't quite gotten down yet?

I love every one of them. But honestly, I guess I find myself drawing Ronin with the least enthusiasm given that the book is just filled with Marvel's Best Characters Ever. I'm overwhelmed really that I get to draw my favorite Marvel Characters and it seems to me that I can stay in this book for ever and be completely satisfied for life.

Understanding that you can't say a whole lot on the plot what can people expect from New Avengers?

Lots and lots of intense action and character driven stories! This is definitely the best work I've ever done in my life.

Your style continues to evolve. Can you talk a little bit about how you approach taking on a new book?

I'm using my Silent Dragon style on this book as it is a bit on the gritty side. I think it's very cross-hatching heavy as opposed to Highroads and Superman: Birthright (two books that I am very proud off) which are a lot more cleaner and more animated. If you really look carefully, it's the same drawing style with a couple thousand cross-hatches thrown in on my Marvel work. I love hatchings as they create beautiful textures and set the mood. It's the most enjoyable part of my work actually as I let my hands go crazy and see little random accidents happen that I leave on the page to really make it look organic and raw.

Though I over-do it sometimes, I always have my handy pen-eraser to knock off excess lines.

Also, drawing a dozen characters per page is quite taxing, but at the same time, I just love drawing faces a lot and it just makes the effort all worth it.

Please explain the art process for your work. Your pencils are colored directly without being inked?

I know a lot of inkers aren't too happy with my current style but I really think it's a worthy alternative to inked work. It may not be as clean and slick, but it also has its advantages such as production speed (Fed-Ex times) and total control (no mis-drawn small faces). I did have the opportunity to work with the industry's best inkers and I love the work we produced together. Dexter Vines, Mark Morales, Rich Friend and Gerry Alanguilan are phenomenal and we've produced the best work that I am most proud of.

I do have some issues with some internet posts about how totally great my work is with inks and how disgusting my work is without inks. I really think there is an agenda embedded in these statements. Seriously, if it's not as good but surely it's not totally crap. If "inkless comics" is really bad, it will die out naturally. No need to bash it and create an artificial fuss. I am not doing digital inked comics though. It's just plain penciled comics and I have no intention of hiding it or making it look like inked.

What if anything can you say about Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk? When do you think the next issue might ship?

I think we are still acquiring all the plots and finishing a lot of issues before we resolicit it so the fans will have nice, continued Damon Lindelof goodness. I do have the plots for issue 3 though!

Between the delay on Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk and your first issue on New Avengers being pushed back a bit because of the delays on Civil War, has it been tough for you?

I would love to have a more consistent output so the fans won't forget me. That's why I jump on every opportunity to do a cover here and there and short stories like Civil War: Choosing Sides. It's tough but I'm lucky to still generate regular buzz on my work. 2007 will be a crazy year for me, so watch out guys!

You've also done some popular creator owned work on High Roads and Silent Dragon. Do you plan on doing more creator owned projects in the future?

I have no plans yet, as I intend to make my indelible mark in the Marvel Universe. I am enjoying my Marvel gigs immensely and I'm in this for the long haul.

Is it difficult living in a different country and working on an American comicbook? How does that process work?

It's tremendously easy and has very little impact on the production side. The Internet makes everything so easy that a guy from California has very little advantage over me except for cheaper phone bills.... but I am more of an email guy, so it matters very little. I can email my pages in minutes.

I would love to be able to attend more comic cons though, so that's the main difference.

Aside from New Avengers you also have a few other projects you are doing for Marvel. Can you talk a little bit about them?

Fallen Son #1 is about half done and coming out soon! This is looking great.

This is a dream come true as well, working with Jeph. We have been talking about working together for years now, even before my time at DC, but circumstances were not for us. He is such an awesomely selfless guy that he even introduced me to some great people who I ended up working with instead of him.

Finally, a whole Jeph Loeb and Leinil Yu Issue!

Anything else coming up from you Leinil?

More New Avengers goodness! I'm very excited and I'm so glad I have a wide audience to show off my stuff.

Leinil Yu can be found online at www.LeinilYu.com.

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