Dan Gottlieb Interview Transcript

Interview with Dan Gottlieb, comic illustration artist. Check out his work on Instagram at @dantheman_official

Nate: Hello, Dan, welcome to comic book. Curious, what's your name and handle on Instagram or whatever?

Dan: My name is Dan Gotlieb. My handle on Instagram is Dan, the man official.

Nate: Awesome. Great. Okay. Who is your favorite superhero and why?

Dan: Wow, that's a hard one. I liked more of the obscure sort of characters.

Dan: I guess you could say the character, I'm going to play the safe game and go with the Ironman because I can understand how someone rebuilt himself, literally with a suit of armor to make himself better, to fight crime. And during the course of the story of an iron man is that he had to improve himself in a lot of ways battling alcoholism and overcoming the fact that he had shrapnel stuck in his heart and you could die at any minute.

Dan: So it was a kind of a cool concept to read about and learn about.

Nate: Great answer. What is one quirky thing that you can do or party trick, sing, rap, beat box, voices, impression ,sounds, anything. Something quirky.

Dan: I can do, actually, I did voiceovers for a time for Fox kids. I was a lot of the background characters.

Dan: Dan Green was Yu-Gi-Oh so I was the guy in the background going, "Hey, it looks like...". I always relate to a funny story, because it started with Bullwinkle. Cause if you can do Bullwinkle and you can do other voices.

Dan: I've been guilty of being of certain party favor.

Nate: That's incredible. I love it. What is one superhero power that you want? If you could have one, say it again.

Dan: To fly.

Nate: Yeah.

Dan: To be able to see the world in a different perspective. It's similar to going home.

Nate: Cool. Awesome. What is one superhero power that you have now?

Dan: I guess the ability to create. Right now I'm currently working on a project where I'd like to believe that I was inspired by one little thing and suddenly the whole universe blossom from it and it attracted others. And now we're pitching it as a TV show. The ability to create a thing as a fantastic, super ...imagination's, the things that people need to see more of these days. Especially, when you're at home doing nothing.

Dan: This is the time to create.

Nate: What can you tell us about it? I know you're in a pitch stage, so I don't want you to reveal anything that you can't, but is there anything...

Dan: Well essentially they always say that you can, if you have a good pitch, you should be able to say it in under a paragraph.

Dan: So have you ever had a bad day? Sure. Ever knows somebody who ever had a bad life? Probably. What if you were a creature that had been alive for a millennia and you've had a bad existence and suddenly you can do something about it. You're about to find out.

Nate: Boom. Aye!

Dan: So yeah, so hopefully that was the hook.

Dan: Netflix did preview it and actually I have to edit it down and resubmit it again. But, the sad thing was the BDC was very interested and I was supposed to fly over and... We're stuck. It's been a lot of fun because we attracted actors from Doctor Who. We've attracted actors from various shows, Blue Bloods a young lady from Sweetbitter on Showtime.

Dan: I believe it's Showtime. No! Starz, I think, but we had a number of actors just start flocking to the project. Because they heard the concept and loved the costumes and designs.

Nate: Congratulations! That is fantastic. What's the name of it going to be?

Dan: It's called

Dan: I am Omega.

Nate: Aye! That's great, man. Okay. This is going to be hard for you.

Dan: I think I actually ...

Nate: Give it like a little angle. Oh, cool!

Dan: The photographer that shot it was the photographer from Captain America.

Nate: That is beautiful.

Dan: I don't know what I can do you for, but...

Nate: That is cool, man.

Dan: One of the many promotions.

Nate: Congrats on that! I can't wait. Okay. In one sentence, who would win in a fight Marvel or DC?

Dan: Marvel. That wasn't even a sentence.

Nate: Cool. Okay.

Dan: They just have their story sorted.

Nate: Got it.

Dan: They've got it right.

Nate: Who are any real life superheroes that you know, besides your parents?

Dan: Actually one of the people who I talked to who I worked with, the NYPD is Patrick Henry. Who's the treasurer of the police. And he goes out of his way to create funds for fallen officers, for children in need for, Ronald McDonald house.

Dan: This guy's a real hero. He goes out of his way to deliberately include people who could get lost in the cracks. And he's a good person. There's another young lady who I worked with at the hospital. Unfortunately her name was falling out my head right now. But Kristen, she actually is my liaison at Jamaica hospital and she does, she begs, borrows and steels to get whatever she can for the kids.

Dan: And those are the best superheroes out there.

Nate: Good. This leads right into the next question. What is your passion?

Dan: My passion is just to be able to create and travel. For me, life is all about, exploring your own adventures and whether or not they're adventures of the mind or control the body or wherever you decide to go.

Dan: You've got to make the most of every day.

Nate: That's great. What do you do at the hospital? Tell us what you were telling me before.

Dan: I dressed up as Captain America last time. I also dressed as Iron Man as well. Occasionally I'll jump into some other characters here and there, but that's the one that kids want all the time.

Dan: I organized a team of heroes that sometimes come in from out of town to come with me and one buddy comes in Spiderman. Another one comes in as Thor and when we can, we try to dress up and be as authentic to the characters as possible. And it's very different than someone who cosplays.

Dan: We try to make our suits and our costumes be as film accurate. So kids actually believe that when I show up as Tony Stark and I've grown the beard and I've got the glasses on, we actually talk like him. They don't, they can't tell the difference, and kids are very smart. So you really have to, get your act together and do it right.

Nate: That's incredible. Let's hear Tony Stark. Let's hear it.

Dan: I'm trying to think of a line. Earth is closed today. You better pack it up and get the hell out of here.

Nate: I love it. All right. Speed. Round one or two word answers. You already answered the first one. Would you realize her fly or teleport?

Dan: Fly.

Nate: Are you an introvert or extrovert?

Dan: Introvert.

Nate: Wolverine or Cyclops?

Dan: Wolverine.

Nate: Do you prefer sweet or salty?

Dan: Salty.

Nate: Batman or Iron Man?

Dan: Iron Man.

Nate: YouTube or Netflix?

Dan: YouTube.

Nate: Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel?

Dan: Wonder woman.

Nate: Super strength or super smart?

Dan: Super smart.

Nate: Favorite illustrators like three to four or five favorite illustrators from comics?

Dan: Sure. One of the paintings on the wall behind me and that's Jim Starlin, he's the creator of Thanos. He's cool people and he's really down to earth. And I'm a little jaded because I've actually hung out with a lot these people, they're my friends as well. Because I was trained by Mike Mignola, the creator of Hellboy, and I absolutely love his work in spotting blacks.

Dan: I also was trained a bit under Jimmy Palmiotti, who was the anchor with Joe Rosado, who's the COO of Marvel. So there's quite a few. It can be a little unfair, cause I like so many artists, but I like stuff that inspires me to keep on looking to be engaged. And these guys are really like doing it.

Nate: So name those three again, just for me.

Nate: Cause you broke up.

Dan: Jim Starlin, Mike Mignola, Jimmy Palmiotti.

Nate: Awesome. A favorite writer or writers?

Dan: That was actually a double because Jim Starlin was also a writer as well. In fact, Jim Starlin was the reason why I read comics in the first place due to a character called Adam Warlock.

Dan: It was the first time in the seventies that he introduced a conflict that dealt with religion in a way that actually said religion was bad, which was pretty, tough waters to traverse at that time. People were engaged and they read it and the book has been reprinted over and over again because he was the first to do it.

Dan: And now of course his characters on the big screen.

Nate: Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, that's great. What about how about like how comics have changed you or saved you or motivated you, or how do you feel about them?

Dan: Well, I mean comics in general it's a good medium, because know, it's visual. The best story I can tell you is that when a lot of comics, when people don't realize comic books were actually made to actually get kids to read more books. In fact I've got the line

Dan: exactly. Cause I used to have one of the original paintings but classics illustrated, which came out during the fifties was actually comic book interpretations of actual books to get kids to read more of them. And a lot of comic books are an inspiration to them. I've lost track of my answer.

Nate: No. How are they important to you? What have they done for your life?

Dan: Well, they've enlightened me. There were times that, I found like I was just bored out of my mind or there was just something that just didn't... a book didn't cut it because it didn't give me enough. And one of the reasons why I love my childhood book of The Brother's Grimm was because there was these really amazing illustrations and comic books do that.

Dan: They actually give you not just a visual medium, but also it means to actually see it as an actual movie. One of the reasons why the walking dead is so popular is because they literally took frame by frame some of the scenes and actually implemented them onto the TV, which if you look at the scenes with Michonne and comparing them to the comic book, it's literally verbatim at times.

Dan: Just a little bit, few swear words.

Nate: That's great. Yeah. That's great. I'm going to hit play. Don't go anywhere. That's the end of the interview, but that was fantastic.