1. What drew you to comics?
I was a huge fan of Elfquest in the 80's and had gone to school for Advertising Design. I was pretty good with a paintbrush so I decided to try to take that talent into the inking arena. It took a couple of years of practice, but I landed a job in '88 with Eternity/Adventure/Malibu doing grey washes and, soon after, inking. My first published credit was in 1989.
2. What do comics allow you to do as a storyteller?
Now that I have my own book, Divinity, this question takes on a whole new aspect. It allows me to express myself in ways that I'm not normally allowed to in "real life." I've taken my feelings about a personal tragedy and turned it into something healing and entertaining.
3. You have worked on some very well-known titles and popular characters — any especially positive experiences you’d like to share about?
A couple, actually. It wasn't exactly easy as a woman to break into the majors doing inking or penciling. Those were mostly (but not always) the arena of men. When Malibu hired me, they didn't care one bit what I was as long as I could turn out quality work on time. They were an awesome company to work for and I worked on a lot of titles, including every issue of Solitaire. Once I proved myself with them, DC eventually came calling as well as numerous other companies. Paul Kupperberg and Kevin Dooley were my editors at DC and they were great people to work with. I spent 2 1/2 years on Impulse and 18 months on Primal Force, to name a few, which were pretty long runs, I think.
4. Any characters or storylines you’d love to work on?
At one time I would have done just about anything to work on the 'Avengers', 'Wolverine', Superman' or 'Batman' but, now days, I'm more fulfilled working on my own creations. As for storylines, in terms of sheer monetary gains, it would have been cool to work on 'Death of Superman'.
5. Where can we find out more about your work?
Google my name and a ton of sites will come up, but currently, I'm with Silverline Comics (https://silverlinecomics.com). I'm actually not only a writer, inker, and colorist for them, but the CFO as well. It's a fun little company that is moving up so it's exciting. You can catch my bibliography and Silverline titles here: https://silverlinecomics.com/creators/m/barb-kaalberg/ My current books are also available on Indy Planet.