This year’s NYC Special Edition was a chance to get in some good one-on-one face time with some of the comic industry’s artists and writers. Some are known and some are bright up-and-comers. There were a few artists in attendance that caught Gamers Sphere’s eye, one of which was Jason Quinones.
Jason Quinones is a graduate of the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Arts where he dedicated three years to the intensive program in the art of creating comics, cartoon art, graphic art and animation. After graduating in 1995, he was able to quickly find work for a licensing company that Warner Bros. was going through. For several years, Jason’s job was to create art using the Looney Tunes characters from Warner Bros. that were used for character designs on t-shirts and various other clothing items for the Warner Bros. stores. So who knows you may have a piece of Jason Quinones art in your closet right now!
After the Warner Bros. store all closed up shop, Jason held several positions at various other licensing companies doing t-shirt graphics for Spider-Man, Warner Bros., Scooby-Doo and Batman. He is currently working for a company that creates t-shirt graphics exclusively for Wal-Mart for their Garanimals line.
After having worked for years doing artwork for other people, Jason wanted to create something that was all him, creatively speaking, and he wanted to take it into the world of comics. By his own admission, he had not broken into the comic realm earlier because, at the time, he felt his portfolio wasn’t strong enough coming out of school. So to motivate himself to create comics, cartoons, and comic strips more consistently, he created his own blog. After several years, he decided that it was time to create his first book. Rather than go through a big publishing house, Jason decided to self publish his first work, BEER & COOKIES, and sell it at comic conventions in 2012.
Since his runaway success with BEER & COOKIES, which is a MAD magazine type of read, Jason went on to self publish a sketchbook and he has created his own humor comic using his own original characters. Quinones states:
Although I do enjoy, read and collect several superhero comics, creatively I enjoy indie comics more specifically humorous, satirical comics, auto-bio or any comic that just tells a good story.
Well, we were able to catch up with Mr. Quinones during his very busy schedule to ask some questions about his schooling, who and what were some of his influences, what we can hope to see from him in the future, and what he likes to play in his spare time.
What was it like to attend the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art? How intense was the program that you studied? Can you give any specific examples?
The Kubert School was great! The most difficult educational experience of my life, but definitely well worth it because I learned a lot in my time there. They give you a lot of work to do with strict deadlines because they are training you to work under real world circumstances. It was a 3 year program, so by the final year, we had Joe Kubert himself as one of our teachers. In the field of comics, Joe was a giant in the industry having worked for all the major comic companies, most notably for DC on SGT. ROCK. In his later years, he continued illustrating comics top-tier characters for the major companies,creating his own original graphic novels while teaching full-time at the school! Joe had a strong work ethic and expected the same from his students. If you did something wrong, he had no problem sternly telling you how you messed up, but would follow that up with some great advice on how to correct that mistake and move forward.
I know you have mentioned that working with licensed properties is more difficult because of the strict standards which are in place. What are some examples of these standards and how do they make it more difficult?
With licensed properties like Batman or Spider-Man, the company owners are extremely particular as to how they are represented to the public. The companies have built these characters to look and behave a certain way, and that look or behavior cannot be deviated from in any way in any medium whether it be T-shirts, movies or comics. You read about the feuds some film directors have trying to bring certain comic book characters to life, and it’s usually because the director has a vision for the hero that is not what the company wants. I’ve worked for licensing companies where I’ve had to produce T-shirt graphics for Disney and Disney is extremely particular when it comes to their property. Before any art work goes into final production, it has to go through an approval process by the license holder. With a company like Disney, they won’t approve a piece of art if Mickey Mouse’s eyes is a millimeter too big. Having to worry about minutia like that when you’re trying to be creative can be debilitating to the creative process.
How long did it take you to develop your own personal art style? When did it develop, during your schooling or during your work afterward?
It took me a long time I guess. The school helped me to become a better cartoonist and a stronger sequential artist, but I still had a long way to go as far as developing a personal style. I started developing more artistically when I started an art blog as a way to get myself to produce more artwork. Since graduating from The Kubert School in 1995, I had been working full-time as a graphic artist creating T-shirt graphics for Warner Bros., Marvel, and Garanimals kids clothes, so I never spent much time creating artwork for myself. It wasn’t until I started that art blog around 2007 that I began doing art for myself again. The blog gave me a project and the necessity to create. Through the blog, I created original characters, single panel comic strips,multi page parody comics, and even autobiographical comics with a more serious tone, all of which helped me to develop what I believe is my own individual style. Which all culminated in me producing and self publishing my own comic BEER & COOKIES Comics Vol. 1. in 2012.
If asked, would you get seriously involved in more licensed product work like, let’s say, Batman or Deadpool whom I believe you could have some fun with?
If Marvel called and asked me to do my version of a Deadpool comic, I’d love to do that! I believe Deadpool, like Batman, is a broad enough character to be believably interpreted in many different art styles. I think I could illustrate my version of a “serious” Deadpool comic or a parody of a parody of a Deadpool comic and both versions would work.
What products are you currently involved in or have coming down the pipe? Is there anything we can look forward to seeing from you?
Currently, I’m just trying to get enough work together to produce BEER & COOKIES Vol. 2. Hopefully that’ll come sooner than later. It’d be great if I could get a publisher to really get the book out there and into comic stores, but I’ll probably self publish and sell them at comic cons and online like I did with BEER & COOKIES Vol. 1.
Have you worked with any of big publishing houses like Marvel, DC, or Dark Horse? Is there any of their properties that you would like to work on?
As much as I’d like to, I haven’t worked with Marvel or DC outside of producing Batman and Spider-Man T-shirts for them through various licensing companies. I’m not sure if my particular art style would work for most superhero books. Maybe I can pull off an issue of Batman where he’s going through some drug fueled fever dream induced by The Scarecrow’s toxin or if The Joker is having a surreal Batman themed nightmare! Or I think I could do a cool Bizarro spin-off comic.
Have there been any other artists or writers that have been a big influence to you or your work?
I grew up on MAD Magazine and newspaper comic strips, so I really like those guys’ art and sense of humor. My dad bought the newspaper everyday, so I’d go straight to the comics section to read Peanuts by Charles Schulz, Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson and The Far Side by Gary Larson whose surreal subversive humor is a huge influence on me. In MAD Magazine, I was really into the cartoons and comic strips of Don Martin, Sergio Aragones, and Mort Drucker’s artwork for the MAD movie parody comics were fantastic! I was always into comic book art and collected comic books on and off as a kid but it was in the early 90’s that I seriously got into collecting comics and finding my influences in that medium. Todd Mcfarlane’s Spider-Man #1 was what pulled me back into collecting. His earlier work on Amazing Spider-Man was great. Jim Lee’s X-MEN was great. Then, Todd and Jim and several other guys left Marvel Comics to create Image Comics. and I collected a lot of those books, especially Eric Larsen’s The Savage Dragon which is superhero comics in its purest form-huge, colorful, larger than life heroes in action and jumping off the page in every issue! Frank Miller’s art and writing on The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and all his early Daredevil work is still a huge influence for me. Even though that’s not the type of work I produce, personally I love his art style and sequential storytelling. Every time I pick up The Dark Knight Returns, I feel as if I can learn something new in regards to creating an image or telling a story. Currently, I read a lot of independent comics. Anything by Daniel Clowes ,Bob Fingerman or Adrian Tomine is usually good. Independent comics artists often write their own stuff so their work, whether it be humorous or not, seems more personal. I love Lowbrow Art as well. Lowbrow Artists are usually painters or poster print artists but the artists whose work I enjoy are heavily influenced by cartoons and comics like Robert Williams, Coop, Shag, and Mitch O’Connell.
If you could collaborate with any other artist or writer on a project who would you choose and why?
I’d like to work on a humor comic obviously. I’d like to bring back an ongoing Spider-Ham series for Marvel Comics. I love Kyle Baker’s work. He’s a great cartoonist. He did a run on Plastic Man for DC Comics that he wrote and drew which fit his animated style perfectly. Hilary Barta is an amazing cartoonist. He did a lot of work on a Marvel parody comic called WHAT THE?! that I loved as kid. He’s working with IDW Comics on The Garbage Pail Kids Comics now which is another book I’d really like to draw for.
It seems that there is a steady increase in the frequency of video games being made into comics. Do you play games at all and if so what are some of your favorites?
Unfortunately, I’m not much of a gamer. The gaming system I have at home now is the Nintendo Wii. I just play the bowling, boxing and tennis games that came with it. The physical interactivity required for those sports games makes it fun and I could always use the exercise. Before that, I had one of those joysticks that had a dozen or so old school, 8 bit Atari games on it like Pac-Man and Galaga built into it. Early 80’s Coin-Op Machines and Atari system games are my favorite. Centipede was a big favorite of mine as a kid in the arcade. Yar’s Revenge on the Atari system was pretty sick back in the day. We had a ColecoVision where I loved to play Donkey Kong on it. Then I had an NES system where I played all the newer classics like Super Mario Bros., Contra and Metroid. After that, I mostly played games on friends systems at their houses. Nowadays I prefer to watch others play the games. Video games today are so cinematic in scope, character development and game play, it’s like watching an interactive, live action movie!
On behalf of myself and Gamers Sphere, I want to personally thank Mr. Quinones for taking the time for this interview and answering our questions. If you want to see more of Jason’s work, you can check out his blog here, visit his Deviant Art page, or find him on Instagram, Tumblr or Facebook. Also, don’t forget to keep a watchful eye for BEER & COOKIES vol #2 when it becomes available and show your support for Jason and indie comic artists and writers.
The post Having Some Beer and Cookies With Comic Artist Jason Quinones: An Interview appeared first on Gamers Sphere.