INTERVIEW: Juan Doe
Interview conducted by Jonathan Ellis

Born and raised In New York, Juan Doe is an artist whose work strikes its viewer with blasts of propaganda and pop culture developed with a keen eye for graphic design, using humour to convey strong political assertions. A contemporary artist with an eye for entertainment. His style fuses popular culture, form and an almost machine-like perfection in the use of acrylics.

Juan Doe is a rare breed of modern artist, and he's bringing his vision to comics, starting with the cover art for Marvel's X-MEN: THE 198 mini-series. We spoke with Juan about his artistic style, the symbolism of popular culture, developing his skills and of course, what lies ahead for Juan in the realm of comics.


How did you originally land the gig for this series of covers? Did Marvel pursue you or did you pursue them?

Fortunately, it came down to the old adage of being in the right place at the right time. I had been curious about doing some cover work for a while; it was a rare feeling to have since I don't do commercial work nor have the desire to do so anymore. What interested me was the variety of art that had been gracing comic covers for a few years now. I saw an employment of techniques and skills on certain books that were quite an elevation to the larger percentage of covers that I thought stuck to the blueprint-the proverbial character pin-up. It encouraged me to contact someone in the industry since I truly wanted to experiment in the medium.

My initial foray was an inquiry into Vertigo, which resulted in a very positive reaction with the possibility of some future work. I also put out a feeler to Marvel and within a couple of weeks I got a call pitching me on this project. The irony was that Mike Marts, who as it turned out I had briefly met at a flag football game in Canada about 10 years ago, was the one to contact me. I never made the connection until I saw him. He didn't remember me distinctly but it was certainly a telling sign of a serendipitous mechanism at work.

The style of the 198 covers, like many of your works, stems from a mix of propaganda posters and street art. Was this the approach you were asked to take with the covers theme?

The way it worked out was a bit more natural. I met with Mike, exchanged pleasantries and he pitched me the idea. We instantly brainstormed and I mapped out the first few covers and how we could execute them. We decided to base it in the roots of a propaganda campaign, each cover with a theme inherit to the story: "uprising," "revolution" and "death." We were working with some powerful ideas and were definitely on the same page. I loved David Hines' outline and the character of the project. Afterwards, it was just about sitting down and actualizing something.

They never asked me to do anything specific or draw a certain way; I believe they wanted a truly fresh approach, so I had free reign, a blank canvas for every piece. I thought that was really bold of them to allow me that much exploration, but it worked out great. I was able to design and interpret the whole cover, right down to designing the logo and type treatment. In the end, I think that my previous works in other arenas encouraged Marvel to use me for this project but there was no template for what the work should look like. That was a very exciting condition to work under-it allowed for a very natural vision to come through.

Not only are you inspired by propaganda and poster art but you also seem to have converted it into your own style. Do you feel this is what you've come to be known best for?

I don't believe I'm known for any one thing. As an artist I've always felt it to be a crime to be proficient in one area of art and deficient in another.

When an artist solidifies himself in a particular style or genre of working, he becomes known for that and it helps create a familiarity with the viewers of the work and the artist that created it. The artist becomes popularized for one thing or another and may continue to work on that brand of making art until they reach certain levels of expression that may otherwise be impossible. This is not always the case. Personally, I've always avoided trying to segment my art into a particular style. For me it creates stagnation-I need to explore all avenues of making art. There are groups of people who simply know me as a painter, street-artist or wordsmith; others remember my animation and retro-comic works. And even still others have no idea what I do but they know I'm some kind of artist with an eclectic sense of humor.

As for the way I create, it's very much a calling. Whatever I feel like exploring at that moment in my life I will. At this juncture it happens to be comic books, tomorrow it could be a 20-foot 3-D installation in Zurich. I'm not beholden by anything, be it economics, status or any of the carrots that are perpetually dangled in front of creators.

The one thing I've accepted as an artist is to never settle in anything no matter how good you may be. If I find myself mastering something it probably means I'll be moving on to something else. I have no style, just consecrations of art.

Do you feel your art could have evolved the way it has had you been raised anywhere other then New York?

Probably not, but I don't think it would've changed my approach to making art. If the opportunity to be an artist would've been there in any corner of the earth I probably would've naturally found my way to it. It just happens that NYC is a tremendously unique city with billions of scenarios and variables that are incalculable and incomparable to any part of the world. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's always a positive experience. Along with a lot of great energy in NY you also have quadruple the amount of negative influences. The tread to truly explore and create art in NY is extremely crowded with millions of "artists" trying to latch on to some obscure and unrealistic identification of artist. An artist is an artist, wherever they may be from.

As for comic influences, aside from the old OJ ads, who in particular inspires you? I see a little bit of Bill Sienkiewicz in your work.

It's probably a question of who I'm interested in right now. I've rediscovered a universe of masters that go unheard of in the mainstream. I'm obsessing over guys like Winsor McCay, Milton Caniff, Alex Toth, Harvey Kurtzman, Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Wally Wood, Russ Manning, Jack Cole-a whole era of pulp-sci-fi golden age cover artists and a bunch of other old-school cats sprinkled with a couple of contemporary artists that hold it down. I'm also a big fan of anything retro in comics-there's a charm in them that's completely lost on the books of today.

I've always admired Sienkiewicz's work. As a youngster, his art had a powerful impact on my life. I remember seeing his work at the Society of Illustrators and relating to myself how exciting it was to see his pictures, mostly because you would never know what the pieces would look like or what new technique he would employ. He brought deft skills and an incredible palette of imagination to the table. Plus, he could flat out draw.

How about background? Did you attend art school?

No, fortunately, for myself it was probably a good thing. I'm not very good at learning from others. I choose to explore on my own and learn whatever I can through self-realization and introspection.

I was never much of a people person so school in any form wasn't very appealing to me. I learned plenty from the chalk on the blackboard of the street. If you don't want to be an outline, be a definitive point of origin. That's what I did, each time I wanted to learn something, anything, I would transpose my self into that world to the level of obsessive, until I became one with it. Sounds all metaphysical and shit but what can I say, it's how I learned and continue to learn.

Do you find people can respond to your work because of pop culture saturation where in the symbolism you integrate to your work is ingrained in the viewers mind, or perhaps it's a mix of both youth and awareness wherein the viewer can just as quickly catch a shot at Colin Powell as they could name an obscure character from Street Fighter?

That is a very excellent and complex question.

I don't openly spend a lot of time trying to figure out the relationship between the creation and the observer. We are living in an age where information and knowledge has become as cheap and accessible as toilet paper. Everyone knows a little bit of everything but not quite proficient in any one thing. This creates a frenetic experience as to how we as a modern culture and society view and interpret our world and our ideas. The artist, regardless of medium, can express this more succinctly than probably any other individual. This is the era of the mash-up, the remix; our collective perspective on life is being sampled in every possible way. Take music: Danger Mouse's' The Grey Album is a testament to this. Who would've ever put Jay-Z and the Beatles in the same sentence? Well someone did and it flipped the possibilities for all of us. In art, it could be the same thing. We see a movement in pictorial representation where images are composed of other images to create maybe a deeper resonance for the piece. People from all walks of life may recognize these images or symbols and relate it to their lives in some way. As I look at my work and my interests, overall I realize that I am a siphon for all of this.

I always work with ideas that I find interesting, be it Sartre [Jean-Paul Sartre] or "South Park," there is relevance in everything. This is probably the greatest example of how I've been able to connect with a variety of people and climb a multitude of social ladders, going up and down with relative ease. My work is replete with references that beckon my life, and my experience as a human being. I'm sure it's the same with a lot of people. We all, after all, do share a collective existence.

How about your art process? Are you the type who prefers to have a brush in your hand or do you find yourself working more and more in the realms of Photoshop and Wacom tablets?

I take pride in trying to be as proficient in art using the tools of old and the tools of new. Photoshop is probably the oil paint of the 21st century. I have no problem believing that artists like DaVinci, Sargeant or Boticelli would have been rocking the Adobe products so I have no beef with it either. At the same time, I've spent my entire life painting and drawing and experimenting with everything from silk-screening to frescoes. My whole body of work is an example of this and that combination of both universes has created a synergy I never imagined. Many times I find that if I'm working strictly in the digital realm for a sustained period of time, then switch over to the handskillz, I've improved as a draftsman exponentially. This back and forth between analog and digital and improving each time has proven very effective in allowing me to grow overall as a brush man and Wacom manipulator.

DEAD MONEY, side project or definitely something with a future?

Dead Money, unfortunately, is a dead project. It was a collaboration between After Hours Press and myself. In fact, it was one of the first examples of my meshing the universes I'm familiar with into this format of cover work. It was supposed to be a painted graphic novel but it appears that the idea we thought was so unique and original had already been done in a similar way. When we found that out, the project died right on the spot.

Now that you've started with the covers at Marvel, will you be moving into any upcoming sequential projects?

Inconsequently my next cover is for a book called IMPOSSIBLE TALES from the very same After Hours Press. It will be an ode to the pulp sci-fi covers of old, very different than what I did on the 198 covers. As far as sequential work, I'll be returning to finishing the self-published anthology, BAZOOKA JOSE: THE ENLIGHTENED MIADVENTURES OF FORTY MONTANA. It's a collaborative funny strip of epic calamity between a tremendous creator, Tootsie Cornrolls, and myself.

It follows the reincarnated adventures of a certain '80s drug dealer shot in a hail of bullets over a small misunderstanding, Ju' know? We have about three years worth of material that we're publishing as a large format book. It won't be out for another year or so but in the meantime all the episodes will be available at Bazookajose.com.

As far as other work, I'm taking a wait-and-see approach, I would only do a sequential run if the project was something that resonated deeply with me; it can't be a straight-up gig. Plus, out of all the inherit art forms we have in the world, telling a proper story on a magnanimous level in the form of sequential art is probably one of the most difficult endeavors to take on. I wouldn't take that lightly. You'll still be seeing covers from me I'm sure, from everywhere imaginable, I just wouldn't expect them.



For more on Juan doe be sure to visit Juan Doe.com.

 

Jonathan Ellis is Co-Editor in Chief for PopImage


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