The era of the ’60s and ’70s had a bold Day-Glo use of color in various parts of the culture, and I wanted to connect with that. What led you to this choice? ALEX ROSS: I knew that another painted project from me would not get across the simple graphic impression I wanted to make with the FF team’s rendering and Pop Era style. MARVEL.COM: This OGN uses very specific, limited color palettes. From the moments the FF started going there without oxygen tanks in that anti-matter environment, you knew the ground rules were whatever you wanted to make of them. The Zone setting is more of an abstract place than a realistically functioning alternate dimension. MARVEL.COM: To quote Ben Grimm, 'This is straight outta them old creature features!' What inspired this particular take on subspace distortion and the Negative Zone? What did those settings allow you to do, that perhaps you haven't been able to before?ĪLEX ROSS: I’ve always wanted to do an homage to Jack Kirby’s photo-collage art, which he used heavily in the Negative Zone trips he took. The characters I used are key parts of the Lee/ Kirby legacy of their FF run, with important backstories I knew well but could only hint at. Without giving too much away, how did you arrive at using these deep-cut characters and references?ĪLEX ROSS: I was really giving in to the impulse I often hate in others: to provide answers following up one of the best-known stories in the history of comics. MARVEL.COM: Fantastic Four: Full Circle delves deep into FF history. Luckily, the opportunity came through with Abrams as a publishing partner to create this book the best way I could envision it.

I also envisioned the larger graphic novel format as something I wanted to bring back with Marvel characters. The basic story for Full Circle came to me early on as an easy and audacious way to draw attention to my approach. I knew I would need to illustrate a full story myself to get across the way I believed it could be done. MARVEL.COM: To start, tell me a little about where the idea for Fantastic Four: Full Circle originated and how it finally came together after all this time.ĪLEX ROSS: I have been petitioning Marvel for some years to do a graphic reinterpretation of the Fantastic Four in their normal comic series.

Fantastic four full circle panini