EJ Su is an incredible artist, with plenty of history working with both Marvel, and the Ultraman Series — often at the same time, with his gorgeous cover art for the Marvel Ultraman books!
For Ultraman Card Game Booster Pack 3, Shadow of Undying Vengeance, Su drew the English-exclusive art for the showcase card of Ultraman Orb, one of the most popular modern Ultra Heroes! To learn more about his creative process and what it’s like creating for this incredible game, UC reached out to him — here’s what we learned!
UC: What was the process like getting contacted to draw this card for the Ultraman Card Game?
EJ: The process of getting contacted to draw the cards goes back to that I have done some Ultraman variant covers, and the main covers for Mystery of Ultraseven for Marvel. When the card game was starting production, Tsuburaya Production asked Marvel to invite all Marvel artists who had worked on Ultraman comics to participate in working on the artworks for the cards. I, being a huge fan of the Ultraman franchise, of course wouldn't pass on the chance.
UC: You’ve done plenty of incredible drawings of classic Ultras for the Marvel Comics Ultraman books, but Orb as a design is very different from the original and Ultraseven. How did your approach differ on this hero?
EJ: I grew up with the classic Ultraman characters, they had a slick, elegant simplicity to the design. Ultraman characters have grown more complex, and play with a lot of interesting fun design ideas over the generations. Particularly the color pattern and body armors are distinctively very different from the classic characters that I grew up with. The challenge is to get every shape of every element on his body correctly and in correct proportions, and not missing any detail.
I also wanted to place the character in an environment where you get the vibe of being in Japan, so I referenced backgrounds from real streets in Tokyo to frame Ultraman Orb. I love the utility poles on the streets of Japan, it's one of those things that you don't particularly pay attention to in a drawing, but very distinctively a flavor you'd be familiar with in Japan.
UC: Do you have any characters you’d be particularly interested in illustrating, now that the Ultraman Card Game is bringing in so many different characters and artists from around the world?
EJ: When I was very little, growing up in Taiwan, one of my fondest memories was when one of my dad's best friends took me to a bookstore, and told me to pick out any book I wanted. Since I was too young to be able to read any deep literature, I love drawing and I love looking at drawings in the comic books, I picked up a stack of comic books, the only books that I remember from the stack were Ultraman Taro and Kamen Rider V3 books. I fell in love with these magnificent super heroes from Japan, and in later years, I started reading weekly comic anthologies that were published at the time, the stories that I most looked forward to were the serialized Ultraman story at the time. Ultraman Taro was my first exposure to Ultraman, and he will always be my favorite. I'd love to have a chance to illustrate Ultraman Taro somewhere down the road. Other than that, there are vast aliens and kaiju from the Ultraman universe, anything that comes my way is always welcome.
