PD: I’ve been reading a lot of the Marvel
Essentials. I open the Howard the Duck and
you inked that. The same with Dr. Strange and so many
books. Did Marvel use you to teach up and coming
pencilers?
KJ: No, never. I was not very good in that period
and really had nothing to teach anyone. I was too busy
learning. Marvel did use me to save a lot of the
pencils that were coming into the office. They would
often give me jobs that were under par and told me to
fix them. And most of those stories will never see a
reprint [laughs]. Those were often some of my favorite
jobs.
PD: With inking, a lot of people say you followed
Tom Palmer’s lead away from the Joe Sinnott/Murphy
Anderson style to a darker image reminiscent of the
greats of the past like George Roussos and early
Kubert. Was this intentional?
KJ: I think that early on in one’s artistic
development, conscious choices are impossible. I
simply gravitated to a certain “look” that
resonated for me. In terms of other artists, that
specific “dark” look that you refer to was
probably more influenced by Wally Wood than Tom
Palmer. Chronologically, Wood was already more than
half way through his career before Tom arrived. And in
fact, Wood himself influenced Tom quite a bit. Woody
had an amazing ability to isolate and work with black
and white shapes. His compositional use of blacks
guaranteed a focal point in every panel. He
manipulated space to great storytelling advantage. I
also loved his texture and detail.
The other big influence on my work was movies, of
course. I especially learned a lot from the noir films
of the 40’s and 50’s. Because they were filmed in
black and white, the shadows and texture were used to
greater dramatic advantage by directors and
cinematographers. With the advent of color, film had
to adopt a different approach, more of a middle ground
than the extremes of black and white.
I also try to capture visually what I hear and
enjoy in music. The songs of John Lennon during the
White Album and Abbey Road have influenced me greatly.
Bowie, Eno, the Smiths, Television, a whole list of
musicians and groups have influenced what I try to do
in comics.
PD: What did you pull away from mentoring with Dick
Giordano?
I learned two very critical things from Dick. He
was the first person to introduce me to the concept of
“less is more.” Young inkers can have a tendency
to throw every bit of detail into their work. The
notion of economy or impressionism is not yet
developed. If you study the arc of an artist’s life
and work, it often turns out that the simplest most
effective work is done at the end of their process.
They have learned what is important to show and what
is not. Alex Toth is a prime example of that. Kubert
also.
The other thing I learned from Dick Giordano was a
sense of professionalism. Meeting your deadlines,
cleaning the pages, discipline, etc, are all important
in this industry. I have a feeling that without those
qualities; I might not have survived because my work
by itself wasn’t particularly good until I got to
Daredevil. My attitude toward the business side of the
comics industry really saved my ass.
PD: Well, you do talk about personality in your
book. You must have a good one to do work for so long,
but did you mean, for example, that it’s good to
have a good personality when a bunch of creators and
editors are all hanging out in a bar?
KJ: It doesn’t hurt to have social skills, but
no, that’s the antithesis of what I meant. What you
are referring to is commonly called “sucking up”.
That requires a lot of pretending and fakery. I don’t
think I’ve done too much of that in my career. If I
feel myself prone to doing that with someone I
actually will terminate or distance myself from that
relationship. I couldn’t live my life doing stuff
like that. Sucking up implies a certain amount of
deceit and that’s not how I operate. What I meant
when I spoke about personality was the ability to know
oneself. The ability to be honest about yourself with
yourself. Knowing where your weak spots are and
working on them.
When I was younger I had a very hard time with
criticism. At a certain point I realized that, took
responsibility for it and consciously worked that weak
point through until I became more comfortable with
critiques. I’ve seen a surprisingly high number of
very talented students sabotage their careers because
of persecution complexes or out of control egos or any
number of issues. And I’ve seen less talented
students succeed because they may possess a certain
persistence to their personality. So I don’t mean
personality in the sense of being charming but in the
sense of knowing yourself, being honest with yourself,
developing characteristics like persistence and
discipline.
PD: When did you start drawing?
KJ: I was always drawing or coloring but I started
drawing comics and telling stories about a year after
my family moved to the U.S. I was about five or six. I
learned how to read and speak English from comics.
PD: Have you done much commercial work?
KJ: A tiny bit but not enough to really mention. My
first love was storytelling and I found drawing french
fries pretty tedious.
PD: How did you first get into the business?
KJ: After two years of pounding on the doors of
Marvel and DC, Marvel hired me to do some office work.
They were reprinting some of their worst stories from
the fifties in some black and white anthology and they
asked me if I could apply zip-a-tone to the stats to
give them some depth and texture. Of course, I said
yes. They were paying me $2.50 a page.
PD: Yuck.
KJ: Are you kidding? I had a blast. I was in
Marvel! I was sharing office space with Rich Buckler
who had seen my portfolio and he asked me to ink the Black
Panther series that was written by Don McGregor.
Rich was the one who went to Roy to ask him if I could
ink the book. I think Roy was more than happy not to
take responsibility for hiring me [laughs]. The second
penciler I inked was Gil Kane so you could imagine how
excited I was. I remember in great detail working on
those early jobs. It was a lot of fun.
PD: How fast do you pencil?
About a page a day - I’ve been on monthly
schedules and was able to pencil and ink a book a
month [on Gothic], so a page a day for pencils
is reasonable. Right now I’m working on a Batman
story with Greg Rucka that I think will be released in
early 2003. At the moment, it’s in the Long
Halloween format.
PD: Are you inking that as well?
KJ: Yes, and coloring it, too.
PD: What do you enjoy more, penciling or inking?
KJ: Drawing and composing pages is a real ongoing
challenge. Inking is easier. I may enjoy the fun and
ease of applying ink to paper but I really crave the
challenge of penciling, so I would say, penciling.
Even more so, writing and then penciling a story is an
incomparable experience. I just finished a short
8-page story where I did that for Comiculture
-a magazine edited by Steve Buccellato. It should be
out in time for San Diego Con or thereabouts. The
experience of writing and then drawing a story is
almost surreal. The process is so fluid and
spontaneous it’s almost a whole other experience.
PD: Writing is something you have not done that
much.
KJ: I have no sense of being able to write say…a
typical monthly super-hero book. I just don’t have
any interest in writing someone else’s character on
an ongoing basis. I have to be able to find a way to
emotionally hook up to the protagonist or the story
and it has to mean something personally. So I’m much
more comfortable writing a character from scratch. Or
at the very least writing a story whose subject
interests me. Like the Batman Black and White
story I did a few years ago.
PD: Have any of your pupils from SVA gone onto
successful comic artists?
KJ: Oh, sure. There’s been a handful. Some have
gone on to working in comics behind the scenes in
production or editing. They’ll reveal themselves if
they want to.
PD: What happened between you and Frank Miller? The
rumor always was that you got upset that you didn’t
get enough credit for The Dark Knight Returns.
KJ: Well, that really wasn’t the case because I
didn’t ever feel that I needed more acknowledgements
on Dark Knight. I was happy with my work and I
thought I did a good job, but that project owed much
more to Frank than to myself. But I always thought
that I had a pretty good amount to do with the success
of Daredevil.
I’ll give you an example of what can be annoying.
In Comic Book Artist #19, Jon Cooke writes, “Daredevil
is once again a crime comic, reaching storytelling
heights [under the able hands of writer Brian Michael
Bendis and accomplished artist Alex Maleev] unseen
since the days of Frank Miller. The Incredible Hulk,
now shed of any super-hero trappings, has been smartly
remade into a Fugitive-type series by the accomplished
team of Bruce Jones and artist John Romita Jr. [not to
mention CBA pal Tom Palmer’s inks].”
First of all I agree with the statement totally -
Bendis and Maleev are indeed doing the best run
on DD since the days when Frank and I were
doing the book. And The Hulk has turned into a
terrific book with the current team. But if you are
going to go out of your way to mention the inks of Tom
Palmer, who deserves every accolade, on The
Hulk, isn’t it logical to mention the guy who
was at different points the penciler, inker and
colorist on Daredevil? And for the last year,
all three? I don’t think it is too much trouble to
rephrase the sentence to say “…unseen since the
days of Frank Miller and Klaus Janson.” Frank and I
are fine. It’s this notion in the comic media and
amongst fans that can be irritating.
