Light and Memory Interview with Randy Duburke

Randy Duburke, an award-winning artist, mostly his works featured in DC Comics, Marvel, MacMillian Books, The New York Times and so on... He spent the majority of his life in New York. Currently he lives with his family in Switzerland. Sometime ago, we had a great chance to talk about him about his career and creative process to this day.

As you have spent many years working in the industry of Marvel and DC in North America, how did your path cross with creating children's books? Did you find it challenging to communicate/travel between these two worlds?

Do you think that they really make you feel apart when you work on them? 

I worked mostly at DC and did a little work for Marvel. For the most part I liked working for them but I was drawn to children's books because I thought there was a kinship between the two media. Working with words and pictures to create a cohesive tale was fun.

I see a connection between the two but unfortunately not many others seem to.

Children's book publishers and comic book publishers have different points of focus. Comic book publishers see themselves as doing work for a more ''adult'' audience while children's book publishers aim more for the younger market.

I have met with your works first through the fantastic lines and the astonishing compositions you created on Malcolm X. So, if you don't mind, I would love to specialize this question through this book apart from your other brilliant works... 

As an artist, could you tell us about your creative mindset during that process?

I was approached by Andy Helfer to illustrate ''Malcolm X''. Andy had an idea of where he wanted to go with the presentation of the piece and I was all in for it; however our editor had different ideas. This was one of the problems. Andy and I envisioned a 124 page graphic album dealing in a more comic format story as opposed to the 96 page text and illustrated format we wound up with...

When you look at your early years in artistic creativity, could you tell us about the atmosphere around you -and meeting with your artistic journey?

Well, I was interested in being an artist from a young age. My mother told me I was six when I came up to her and said I was going to be an artist. 

My mother was always behind me even though she knew little about art, she did the best she could to help me pursue my desire...

Many thanks to Randy for his kindness and make the time for us, to see more of his work please go to:

www.randyduburke.com or instagram.com/randy.duburke