Joe Jusko
Fantasy Artist

An amazing a well respected fantasy artist, Joe Jusko continues to produce some of the most compelling fantasy paintings around.

Editor's Note: You'll have to forgive any lost words or
misinterpreted sentences, unforetunately the background noise
of the convention was severely under estimated. So, that said, read on.

figma: So, where did you get started?
joe: Well, I went to Art Design High school in New York City, back in the late 70's. Then the summer I graduated, I ran into Howard Chakin in a comicbook store and he hired me as his assistant and I worked with him for about 6 months. Worked on a comic covers for a book called Heavy Metal, and got started from there.

figma: So out of high school you were already doing paintings?
Joe: I didn't paint until I graduated. I won the DC Comics Award of Excellence in cartooning... which was basically worth a 25 dollar gift certificate at an art supply store and a letter from DC. I went to the art supply store, and for some reason decided to spend it all on paints. I decided I wanted to paint. Up to that point I just wanted to do comics, but I had seen like how inkers could destroy all your work, and I wanted more control over what the work looked like.

figma: So at the point you were just pencilling?
Joe: Just pencil and ink, yeah. And then started in with paint.

figma: Back then, was paint really expensive... after walking into a store, you think "WOW, this is a little expensive to get started"?
Joe: Well, yeah... it was... y'know, a little more expensive than just using pencils and pens and stuff like that, but it was something I wanted to do.

figma: Do you have any educational background in art per se or... were you self-taught?
Joe: Well, Technical Design High School. They teach you the fundamentals of drawing and the basics and things of that nature.

figma: So that was like a vocational high school?
Joe: Yeah, it was the only vocational high school of its kind in the country really. It's on 57th street and 2nd avenue. It's geared towards a career in commercial art. By the time you hit your junior/senior year its a heavy curriculum of all art classes and stuff. And it's all taught by seasoned illustrators. Its a really good school.

Unpublished ElseWorlds Superman Sampling of art from an unpublished ElseWorlds Superman card set for SkyBox

figma: How many companies would you say you've worked for in terms of like... the different industries?
Joe: Uh... wow. Yeah... well, the major ones are the majors ones like Marvel, and the trading card companies. Ironically, I won the DC comics award for excellence, and I've never worked for DC [Comics]. The closest I came was a Superman trading card set I was working on a few years ago for SkyBox that got canceled because the company didn't even like the concept.

figma: Wow. That's Odd.
Joe: Yeah, I was like 30 paintings into the set, and then I got a call to the house and they were like, "We don't like this".

figma: Did they pay you a kill fee or something?
Joe: I got paid for the work that I did, and I got a slight kill fee, yeah, but I would have still liked to have finished the project.

figma: So out of all your body of work, you don't really have a lot DC characters?
Joe: No! It's amazing, I've done one thing, that was that one Superman poster for DC and that's it.

Marvel Masterpieces '92 Card set series of Marvel character paintings by Joe Jusko

figma: That's amazing. Okay. Could you compare the comics industry with the art industry in general? Have you done a lot of other commercial artwork?
Joe: Yeah, I've done storyboards and advertising art. I did a lot of the advertising posters for the World Wrestling Federation... back in like '90, '91 and '92, I did posters for Royal Rumble like in '91 and '92. I did the promotions holding the American flag. Plus I've done a lot of other stuff outside of comics. It's a little tighter and heavy handed art direction outside comics. Comicbooks, if they know you're work, you can have a lot of freedom.

figma: How do you feel about it, is the pay more in either?
Joe: It varies. The comicbook industry right now is on a down slope, so companies aren't paying the rates they used to. Advertising pays very well, always has... so there's a lot of money to be made with it.

figma: How is it soliciting that type of work?
Joe: Normally, in comics, its sort of an incestuous business... everybody knows one another. Once you're known, you're always called for work. Advertising really needs like a rep or agent to help you nail down certain jobs.

figma: Kind of to help your name get around so editors keep you in mind?
Joe: Right, right... unless you're working exclusively there are so many people in commercial art its impossible to have any clientele remember who you are again.

figma: Now, I might have to rephrase this question, but... what would you say was your best work so far?
Joe: The work that I'm most proud of? Probably, my favorite body of work would be the Edgar Rice Boroughs trading cards that I did, yeah. I did 120 paintings based on books that I really really loved and subject matter I really loved. I'm a big fan of wild life art. I like big cats especially. I'm more in tune with the more natural themes than the superhero ones. I can do the superheroes, but I'd rather do the more reality based characters.

figma: Who did that get published by?
Joe: FPG [ed. Friedlander Publishing Group]. Its a trading card company that does fantasy art cards.

Joe Jusko's ERB Collection The fronts of the cards are all painted by Joe Jusko and illustrate the various Burroughs stories. The backs identify the story from which the scene is taken, have a brief comment by Joe Jusko, and devote half of the back to an image by another artist which has also been used to illustrate Bourroughs stories, usually a book cover.

figma: And that's basically sort of their version of "Joe Jusko does Edgar Rice Boroughs"

Joe: Yeah, heh, first time I had my name sort of "above the marquee"! It was kinda cool.

figma: Where do you see your career going in the next few years?
Joe: Actually, I'm starting to gear myself out of comics. Kind of bored with doing the same thing over and over again. And, like I said, I figured I'd do wildlife art, so I want to try and get into doing wildlife lithographs and stuff. I'm taking a plane to Africa to go and take shots of lions. I really want to take a year off and do big cat paintings. Try to slowly go into the fine art type of realm.

figma: So, for a lot of your paintings, how do you work with models, how do you find them, do you have a studio where you photograph them, or do you get slides from them...?
Joe: Well, I've got a lot of years of life drawing behind me, so a lot of the initial drawings are done out of my head for layouts and stuff. I use photographs to correct anatomy or sometimes get the lighting just right. Or other times, I'll specifically shoot models if there's something real specific I have in mind. So it depends really on what I'm doing as to how I approach it. Models? I've used friends for models, people from the gym that you meet that's particularly appropriate for a physical type or something, you could use them. And then there's conventions, y'know some socializing with the pros and the models and everything. People you become friends with you can work together on stuff. Like right now, I'm doing a series of... probably a full chain of wildlife art, a full series of paintings, big giant oils, paintings for lithographs of Karin Taylor and big cats. There's one with lions, big leopards, one with cheetahs, so we're collaborating on a big fine art project. I'm really looking forward to it. She told me yesterday everybody's asking her "Is he really going to paint you? I can't wait to see these paintings!" People are psyched for it.

figma: What media do you like using best?
Joe: Well, I've worked exclusively in acrylics commercially, because I'm really impatient... y'know, I've got a hair dryer in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. I've never really learned to use oils in a real expeditious manner, so the acrylics work better for me as far as deadlines go. But, ah, in truth for stuff like the Karin Taylor paintings, I've switched back to oils again. I wanted that real fine art look, that deep rich look, it just takes time.

figma: Yup, you gotta take your time, leave 'em for a while and come back.
Joe:Right, come back and work a little at a time. The acrylics are good, because y'know, I work from real tight pencils when I paint, so its like color-by-number for me basically. They're a snap to use once you've got the technique down.

figma: In between different projects, do you do a lot of experimentation and things like that?
Joe: Personal work and such? I haven't had any personal work in years, I just haven't had time. Schedules been really tight. I tend to take on big jobs that take a year to do. It's not like you're doing paintings here and paintings there. So, there isn't really down time, and when I'm not working, the last thing I want to do is...

figma: More work...!
Joe: Yeah... so I'm kind of distressed that I haven't really had a lot of time to do personal work. Doing a lot more of it now, in the past year or so than I have in the past.

figma: So in transitioning back to oils and stuff, are you gearing up for that particular project, doing any tests and things?
Joe: Yeah, actually its been like 20 years since I've mixed with oil paints, so what I did was I did a couple of big leopard head studies in oil and stuff like that to try and get a feel for the painting. 'Cause I don't want to just jump right into those. I'm doing a few studies here and there actually, to try and get my facility back together.

figma: What projects do you have coming up, you mentioned the Karin Taylor thing...
Joe: Doing the Karin Taylor thing... I'm doing a fully painted Lady Pendragon story, about 20 pages for that. I'm doing a GenX and Nick Fury covers for paperbacks. Various things actually. Mark Waid and I are in the early stages of talking about a giant Kingdom Come sized project.

figma: Wow, that would be nice.
Joe: It would be interesting. It's another one of those projects that take a year or so to do.

 

Vampirella: Bloodlust A scene from Vampirella: Bloodlust, published by Harris Comics in '97. A 48-page two-parter that starts on Drakulon, her home world, which is essentially Hell; where sinners go, and vampires come from. Jusko paints every page in gorgeous detail along with talented writer James Robinson.

figma: It's kind of interesting, recently I was following Black Panther and when Mark Texiera took off from it I was thinking "Wow, the artwork's going to go down", but then suddenly there you are!
Joe: Yeah, um... I don't know what I was thinking! I was kind of intimidated when I took it over. Mark and Jimmy needed someone to take over for a few issues, and I love Chris's stories, and I just love his storytelling. I think it's just sardonic enough to have an edge to it, and I love what they were doing with the book.

figma: Yeah, I think you did a great job with it. How is it doing sequential art, I mean, keeping up that detail...
Joe: It's tedious, only because my attention span is really short. Which is why I prefer doing single images. Y'know, doing the same characters over and over and over again... there are guys who can do that, and that's how they secure their mind. I had a ball with first issue. I loved every page of it. The second issue... I was like, alright... y'know, I'm getting a little bored with this. By the third issue, I mean, it was like pulling teeth. If the books were late, it was my fault. I wasn't ready, I really had a brain drain doing the same characters to be honest with you.

figma: Did they have special processes that they used?
Joe: Basically, the paintings actually done in actually done in black and white. And then what they do is, they have this process in the computer where they change the grays and color and render on top of it. What I did is I went more with just a real detailed wash, watercolor technique, which is okay 'cause its really heavily colored anyway. And, I think it's interesting. The final look is interesting, but it was a little dark and muddy to me. There was too much going on underneath, and they never really quite lost that.

figma: Exactly, you could kind of feel that in there. It seems like they're doing that a lot lately, different people doing it all around.
Joe: If it's done right, it's a real nice look. I'm happy with a lot of what was done, but they weren't my color choices or color sets, I would have made different color choices in certain places.

figma: Did you make any of the color suggestions at all?
Joe: I made a few, and they weren't necessarily adhered to, but y'know, that's their job. I did my job, I really can't sit there and tell somebody else what to do. And there were color choices that I saw in there and thought "Wow, that was really worth doin'" and I was really happy with. That's what you give up when you're working on comicbooks, its a collaborative effort. You don't have that level of technical of control, even the retouches.

figma: Heh! All mine!
Joe: Exactly! It's like the final product I take the blame or the praise for. So, I really can't fault anybody.

figma: I guess, further in this vein, how do you feel about the affect of computers with your work?
Joe: I'm probably the most computer illiterate artist on the face of the Earth!

figma: I've heard that from a lot of artists, some really great artists.
Joe: Painters... painters especially sort of have this phobia about the computer. I remember a few years ago when Fleer started their Fleer Flair cards, and they were all of that computer generated stuff. And it was like, they thought it was going to make hand-painting artwork obsolete, history... and the stuff was just so garish, and blurry, and out of focus. The novelty of it wore off really quickly. Suddenly, everybody that had a mouse in their hand thought they were a painter, and it doesn't quite work that way.

figma: --Especially if they had some photo that they thought they could take and manipulate...
Joe: Right, and you saw that they didn't really understand color. So people want to see individual brush strokes, and technique and style. Y'know, and it took a year... a year and a half or so before people got the hankering for hand painted work again. Guys like Dorian and myself are probably never going to be out of work [ed. Be sure to check out our other interview with Dorian Cleavenger]. It's an individual style and you know what you're getting when you buy that.

figma: Especially, there's nothing that beats looking at the original artwork and knowing that "someone touched that", looking at each individual raise of the canvas.
Joe: Yeah, there are a couple of guys who do a really great sort of like collaborations of hand-painted work and computer generated stuff. A guy named Dave Mattingley, and science fiction artist, does great cgi stuff, along with the painted art. You can't tell where the painting is and the cgi stuff is. Really, I'm... I'm determined to get one! Just to learn how to use it.

figma: I guess the last question is, how do you see computers and the Internet affecting the artist community as a whole?
Joe: It's already had a big affect. Like eBay as far as artwork being available, and me being made available to people who would never have access. I deal with a couple of art dealers, and one guy had some really big plans and stuff like that, but still there are people that can just click right on to a computer and just actually see something. Sales of artwork through the computer right now is really starting to rise.

figma: Have you considered an online art gallery?
Joe: Well, I got someone designing a website for me now. You really have to have one these days. To keep people informed of what you're doing, and what to look for. It's great marketing tool, it really is. While, I seem to have a phobia against computers, I just really haven't had time to get one, I haven't needed one before.

figma: So do you have an e-mail address or...?
Joe: Not yet, like I said, I still don't own a computer, but I've promised myself by the end of the year, I will have one in my house!

figma: Great, that's pretty much it. Thanks a lot!
Joe: Hey, no problem!

Some online art galleries featuring Joe Jusko:
Expressions in Art by Joe Jusko / Emerald Plane Walker
THR Gallery / Joe Jusko's Edgar Rice Borough's Collection