Whenever I scan the shelves of Cosmic Monkey or Excalibur, my local comic shops, I am a stranger in a crowded room, desperate for a glimpse of cover art that rises above the usual clutter and noise.
Invariably, the art that catches my eye, and grabs me by the throat, is the work of Tula Lotay.
Lotay is the pen name for Lisa Wood, an artist from northern England who is as expressive and inventive as anyone in comics today. She’s also the founder of Thought Bubble, the Yorkshire comic-art festival that, in many cases, first introduced her to the writers and artists who are now so eager to work with her.
“In a roundabout way, my dream of becoming a comic-book artist, which I never thought possible, happened because I knew people,” Wood said last week at Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle. “I never thought I was good enough, and I wouldn’t have had the confidence if they weren’t saying that I was, and offering me work.”
Cover work on DC’s Lois Lane and Wonder Woman. On Warren Ellis’ “Supreme: Blue Rose” and Sam Humphries and Jen Bartel’s “Blackbird.” On Archie’s Cheryl Blossom and Dynamite’s Red Sonja.
And in the not-too-distant future, a sumptuous collaboration with Portland creator Matt Fraction.
“I may have even said to her something like, ‘I don’t know what the ‘In the Mood for Love’ of comics is, but if you ever want to try and figure it out, let me know,” Fraction said via email.
“I suspect I reached out to her because, as a fan of her work, I just plain want more of it in the world. I reached out because … the idea that I could collaborate with her and find whatever the thing the Tula-and-me book is felt mysterious and exciting and challenging and cool. It would be amazing to work with someone that lives in a place of tone, ambience, mood, gesture – not words one typically associates with comics.”
Wood was all of seven when her father began taking her to a Batley flea market, outside Leeds, giving her 20 pence to buy old comics while he sought out boxing magazines. “I had trouble reading them because I’m dyslexic,” Wood says, “but I absolutely loved the art.”
Because she also loved science-fiction and horror film, she was captivated by the ability of Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson to bring “Blade Runner” to life in the pages of the 1982 Marvel comic. She began to draw, searching for a subtle grip on that magical power.
Wood went on to study photography, art and design, and earn a fine-arts degree. As she told the Yorkshire Post several years ago, she tuned her craft between jobs at McDonald’s, Toys “R” Us and the local cinema, where she ran the film projector.
But too much of art, and her confidence, remained locked away until 2007, when Wood launched Thought Bubble in the Leeds Town Hall. Like its founder, the comic art festival had an uplifting and gracious vibe, and attracted creators who were burnt out on New York and Comic-Con. Many of whom fell as hard for “Tula Lotay” as I have.
Her range and her sense of color are extraordinary, not only in her comic covers but her film posters and watercolors.
“A lot of it is loving what you do, and trial and error,” Wood says. “People talk about ‘finding a style.’ I never tried to find one. I know what I like. I guess that’s how my work has come about: trying different things. Some work and some don’t. The things that work, I just keep taking forward.”
That includes pushing the boundaries on her erotic art, whether that’s her X-rated variant covers for Boom! – “I enjoy doing them, and they sell very well” – or her upcoming “erotic medieval witch” project with Becky Cloonan.
“The closely observed human form and figure is the anchor of her work,” Fraction says. “All the Tula stuff, all the strangeness and charm of her surfaces, all that invisible tone she somehow renders visible, and mood she captures and freezes as if in amber, radiates outward from her study of how bodies move and look.
“She draws people that look like people. I guess it’s easier sometimes if they have their clothes off.”
However those figures are dressed, or undressed, they never lack for the presence or attitude that calls to you across a crowded room. That is the power of Wood’s art.
“I’ve loved drawing since I was a child,” she says. “You find what you love and make that work. I’d love to see a future where I’m being even more expressive. I have so much more to learn.”
-- Steve Duin
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