Comic producer Marvel is very much open to the possibility of featuring Indonesian superhero characters made by Indonesian artists, says Chester Bror Cebulski, Marvel Vice President of International Business Development and Brand Management in Asia.
“We need to get some Indonesian superheroes into the marvel universe. If people came to us with some good ideas, we’d be more than happy to do that,” Cebulski told The Jakarta Globe on the sidelines of the Singapore Toy, Game and Comic Convention on Saturday, Sept. 10.
Having Indonesians working with Marvel will not be new for Marvel, as the company already has a number of Indonesians working in its team such as Ario Anindito and Jessica Kholinne. Therefore, Cebulski said Marvel would welcome more Indonesians on board, should they have the right skill and ideas.
Indonesia’s local comic scene is currently still dominated by Japanese manga and American comic books and graphic novels. However, Cebulski said he was impressed by the country’s comic artists, because of their self-reliance.
He said that most of the Indonesian artists he has worked with have shown that they are skilled in more than just one discipline.
“Most of the people I hired are artists who do everything from the start to the finish. They’ll pencil, ink, then color. They do everything themselves, so it’s almost as if they’re not comic book artists. They’re artists who draw comic books,” Cebulski said.
For Indonesia’s budding comic artists wanting to submit their work to Marvel, Cebulski offers a special tip, which is to submit sequential pages containing a mix of action scenes and ‘quiet’ scenes.
“People will think ‘I’m really gonna turn in pages of heroes fighting villains.’ No, we also want to see that quiet scene where Peter Parker takes M. J. on a date. We want to see how you draw a real-life scene of them holding hands, them at dinner and them walking home. We really want to see a creative world that has the quiet moments as well as those superhero shots,” he added.