Next month
Viktor has worked in art production, graphic design, UIX design, and numerous other jobs in entertainment art for the likes of Pixar, Disney and Dreamworks, taking him from hometown Varna to Sofia, from Bulgaria to the US, and from California to Paris, where he now lives, working remotely as the studio art director for Tel Aviv mobile game developer Moon Active.
Viktor is best known for his comic book covers for DC, Dark Horse and his own hugely successful title Blue Estate. At the moment he’s working on the comic of Stranger Things, based on the Netflix original series.
COVER STRATEGY
Viktor begins a cover by gathering research materials. For Stranger Things, that means watching every episode. He also likes to ask the writer or editor of the comic to send him a list of words summarising the issue. What’s the message? What feeling does the writer want to leave with the reader? He makes quick sketches based on the three most important words, trying to come up with clever compositions or metaphors. He starts with rough elements – shapes that take a second to recognise, but which also make the viewer double-take. Maybe something’s a little off? Maybe something unusual is happening? The cover has to be layered so it poses questions.
A good example is the barbed wire in his Batman Beyond cover: it seems to grow out of the building behind the Dark Knight and bind him, because this is the issue in which Gotham has turned against its hero.
I started sinking in my chair. Deeper, deeper, deeper… I was having a kind of rebirth: I suddenly got it
Viktor has these early concepts approved by the client, then looks for references. He’s doesn’t know much about guns, for example. So he’ll find the right gun to use as a base, then hone this reference to make it his own. If Viktor’s working on a big title like Batman, he can sell the original piece, so he’ll work in pencil or acrylic, then scan the image in Photoshop. If