The High Republic: Interview with Phil Noto

Rewinding almost a year ago, The High Republic publishing initiative was launched, and since then fans have been able to immerse themselves in this all-new era of Star Wars storytelling through a variety of media—from novels to audio dramas to comics, each accompanied by the incredible artwork of some of the most talented artists in the industry. Among them, American painter and comic book artist Phil Noto, whose Star Wars work includes the Marvel comic book runs Chewbacca and Poe Dameron along with cover artwork for other various series, was part of this ambitious project from the beginning—he was responsible for creating initial character concept art, as well as later on creating comic book covers for Marvel’s The High Republic and an epic promotional poster. Noto shared with TatooineTimes.com how he got involved in The High Republic: “Mike Siglain from Lucasfilm reached out to me about doing some concept work for the new initiative. I did about five images for The High Republic storylines. They were very rough concepts of the different characters.”

Some of the characters drawn by Phil Noto actually became fleshed out through the words of Charles Soule, Cavan Scott, Claudia Gray, Daniel José Older, and Justina Ireland—from Keeve Trennis and Sskeer to Wayseeker Orla Jareni. “I didn’t have much to do with the development beyond the initial pieces, so it was a nice surprise to see them in [Marvel’s The High Republic] when I started doing the covers. As a lifelong Star Wars fan, it was a bit of a dream come true,” Noto said.

Every one of Noto’s comic book covers for Marvel’s The High Republic perfectly matches the emotional tone of the stories within, oftentimes teasing major key moments. Phil Noto shone a light about his collaboration with author Cavan Scott: “Cavan’s had great ideas for some of the cover images, especially the bookended The High Republic #1 and #15 covers. It can be tricky to show a key moment on the cover without spoiling anything. I often have to do the covers before the interiors are drawn due to the way the comic solicitations work.”

Out of all Marvel’s The High Republic comic book covers, Phil Noto admitted that the most fun to create were the ones featuring Keeve Trennis in her Nihil disguise, and revealed his favorite characters of the all-new era of Star Wars: “Keeve and Avar [Kriss] have definitely been my favorites to draw. They have such distinctive looks apart from most of the Star Wars characters that I’ve drawn in the past.”

Being solely a publishing initiative (at least for now), The High Republic takes on a similar formula that was explored in the past with Shadows of the Empire, the “movie without the movie”. Although the all-new era of Star Wars is yet to be showcased in a movie or Disney+ series (The Acolyte is presumably still in the early stages of development), The High Republic received a movie-style treatment with an epic ensemble poster for the conclusion of Phase I. “Once again, Mike Siglain contacted me about doing the poster. We were immediately on the same page in terms of concept when he asked for a 70’s style disaster movie poster. I was then given a list of the characters and then slowly started framing out the piece. It was a fairly simple process for something with that many characters,” Noto explained.

Phil Noto ended the interview with a piece of advice for aspiring artists: “Draw, draw, draw. It might sound cliché, but it’s really all about practice, just like any other endeavor.”

If you love Phil Noto’s inspiring and iconic style, then make sure to engage with him on Instagram and Twitter, and don’t forget to check out Marvel’s The High Republic—it is an essential part of the main storyline and even the perfect way to get introduced to this all-new era of Star Wars storytelling.