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All's well that's Rockwell: Mitch Gerads on the weight of midcentury influences at Fan Expo San Francisco

"It's all about trying to get that Norman Rockwell vibe that probably isn't real, but the ad artists made it look real."

Mitch Gerads
Popverse

Not to shake things up by sharing comics gossip, but if you’ve spent more than two seconds on the comics internet or within DC comics circles over the last decade, there’s a good chance you might have heard of this guy named Mitch Gerads. With an art style that took the scene by storm combining mid-century style and a dynamic new kind of digital feel, it’s an easy sell that Gerads is one of the most unique of the comics mainstream in the contemporary age. But where does that come from? And for that matter, where does the spark of ingenuity stem from when an artist is harking on halcyon days of art marketing past?

Popverse was fortunate to sit down with Gerads at his table at Fan Expo San Francisco to discuss how the mainstream can come to accept such a bygone era of art, and how harnessing the propaganda of mid-century advertising doesn’t always have to make for propaganda itself.

Popverse: Mitch, before we get started on anything else, talk to me a little bit about your process. Because I have heard that you do something kind of interesting with gray scaling when it comes to your coloring.

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About the Author
Chloe Maveal avatar

Chloe Maveal

Contributing writer

Chloe Maveal (they/them) is the Editor-In-Chief of the NeoText Review and a freelance essayist who specializes in British comics, pop culture history, and the subversive qualities of “trashy” media. Their work has been featured all over the internet with bylines in 2000 AD, The Treasury of British Comics, Publishers Weekly, Polygon, Comics Beat, and many others. Chloe doesn’t know how to “tone it down” while talking about really old comics, owns a sex toy signed by John Waters that they will giddily show off upon request, and probably has opinions about your Judge Dredd opinions.

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