Ethan Van Sciver - 5 Quick Questions

Ethan Van Sciver is an American comic book artist, best known for illustrating a number of DC Comics titles, including Green Lantern.



Van Sciver's entry into the comics medium-proper came when he was 19 years old, and created, "a horrible little character called Cyberfrog." Cyberfrog was written and drawn by Van Sciver, and published by Hall of Heroes, and later, Harris Comics. He has contributed to a number of high-profile series for both Marvel Comics, and primarily DC Comics. Titles include his own Cyberfrog and such titles as X-Men, The Flash, Green Lantern, and Batman.

Van Sciver's first major work was on the Impulse series for DC Comics with writer Todd Dezago. Van Sciver recalled that Paul Kupperberg offered him a fill-in role on Impulse, with the chance to try and save the title. Van Sciver recalls, "we did save the book for a while."

Many of Van Sciver's most notable works have been produced in collaboration with writer Geoff Johns. In 2004, Johns and Van Sciver brought Hal Jordan back to the DC Universe as Earth's main Green Lantern officer in the six-issue miniseries Green Lantern: Rebirth, before the duo re-launched the Green Lantern title itself with a new volume. Van Sciver's work on the Green Lantern mythos helped explain and retcon many elements of the Green Lantern story which some fans and writers found nonsensical, such as the reasons of the power rings uselessness against the color yellow, and Hal Jordan's transformation into the supervillain Parallax.

In 2007, Johns, Van Sciver, Dave Gibbons and Ivan Reis produced the eleven-issue Sinestro Corps War across the two Green Lantern monthly titles, the second part of a mooted trilogy of Green Lantern tales. This story launched the Sinestro Corps, the antithesis of the Green Lantern Corps, led by rogue Green Lantern Sinestro and his Qwardian yellow power ring. The series set the stage for a complete overhaul of the Lantern Corps, and introduced the emotional spectrum of power which provides energy to many different color variations of power rings.

He agreed to answer 5 Quick Questions

1) What would you say is your greatest achievement in comics?

Anyone's greatest achievement is to actually break into this industry and stay gainfully employed. Which I've done, and for 15 years now. They haven't gotten rid of me yet, these bastards.

2) Who was your favorite writer or artist that you worked with & why?

Geoff Johns, because he's always good. You can rely upon his instincts and the script he's given you, and all that's left to do is interpret it properly.

3) What character you have never worked .., would you like to do & why?

That I've never worked on in any capacity? Barbara Gordon's BATGIRL.

4) Who are your influences?

John Byrne, Jon Bogdanove, Todd McFarlane, Dale Keown, Brian Bolland and Bernie Wrightson. Those are the guys that made me want to draw comics.

5) What hero or villain would you like to change if you could and why?

Any changes I made to any characters would be to redirect them back towards what I believe the original intent of the creators were. And there are a few like that. Plastic Man is tops.