I was late to the game with Caspar Wijngaard’s artwork. Thankfully, I learned about him thanks to his work with Kieron Gillen in The Power Fantasy (TPF). A comic book that Bam Smack Pow has as the best comic book with the No. 1 character of 2025 (Etienne Lux). Since I had the opportunity to speak with Caspar, talking about TPF was a must.
“We'd worked on Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, a few years prior to the initial conversation, and I had always expressed a desire to do something similar together again. An almost meta superhero commentary," Wijngaard revealed of how the project came together.
"He (Kieron Gillen) sent me a very basic premise of an idea he was forming as he was wrapping his X-Men run and we started from there, he had character archetypes of our main 6 Atomics, like the brain, the monster, the superman et al. I don't recall how much of the plot had been explored other than bullet points but it was very much a premise I was extremely excited for when I came onboard," he continued.
While discussing The Power Fantasy, Kieron said something that shocked me about working on cape comics. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to work on them. It was the vulnerability with why.
“I have no desire to do straight cape work, love reading them, but never really wanted to draw them. There are far better artists who continue to amaze in that field, and I'd only have imposter syndrome.”
I admire the vulnerability in this statement. It was a reminder that even people doing their dream jobs can still feel insecure.
"As I mentioned previously, I wanted to steer away from traditional cape design. I'm not particularly great at it, and I'm better at grounded and sci-fi. I grew up on a lot of 80s/90s manga with a healthy dose of 2000ad, Dark Horse, and Vertigo. Val (Santa Valentina) was originally a male in the initial conversations. I expressed changing her gender, and Kieron agreed," Wijngaard revealed in sharing the inspiration behind the designs for the characters in The Power Fantasy, which are among the elite in comics.
My favorite character in the series is Santa Valentina. When it came to her design, Wijngaard had some great ideas.
"A lot of her design is just casual, I recall saying to K (Kieron Gillen), she (Valentina) is so powerful she probably doesn't even really need clothes, and the idea she was barefoot just came from there. What good are shoes if they are unnecessary? So I just drew her without them in a design, and it just felt right for her. So I just drew her without in a design, and it just felt right for her."
As for Eliza, the idea was different. Wijngaard went for his love of JRPGS for her design. “What would a Final Fantasy character look like in our comic. She has been great fun to draw.”
"I couldn't say," Wijngaard laughed when ased about his favorite character. "I spend like 12 hours a day with these folks and act as them in every panel, so it's tough. We've been through a lot together. It's quite hard to see them as their characters in the series and not me acting through them. I knew them before they were born and knew their fate before they were realised. They're essentially actors playing a part to me, which sounds a little weird, I'll admit. I’m far too invested at the moment for favourites. I love them all in a way."
The Power Fantasy is an exceptional comic book with elite depth, storytelling, and art. There may be news coming up about issue No. 16, but that will have to wait for a future article.
Issue No. 16 of The Power Fantasy is scheduled to be released in February. Stay tuned to Bam Smack Pow’s social media sites, Bluesky, Instagram, and Twitter to find out what's next for the Atomics and if Eliza can be stopped from bringing Hell to Earth.