OnSeed: Hi! Please tell us a little about yourself first?
John: Where to start...I'm 27 years old, father of two, husband of one, a comic book artist, and I'm considering a new business venture where I allow the use of my bank account to rich African princes in need of hiding their great fortunes in exchange for a small percentage of their vast wealth. I'd say things are looking up for me.

OS: How did you first start dabbling in art?
JR: Honestly, I don't ever remember a point in my life where I was dabbling in art. I've always been full-on, both feet. I remember drawing and coloring a lot as a kid. I think all little kids do it, but I never stopped. In junior high school, I distinctly remember having draw-offs against other rival "art kids" of popular comic book characters. In high school, I drew through almost every class. I was never popular, but I do remember girls wanting me to draw fake tattoos on their arms during study hall. I started coloring comic book pages for a near by studio when I was 16 years old. I haven't always been good at art, but it's been one of the priorities in my life for as long as I can remember.


OS: A lot of kids out there would kill to grow up and do what you're doing. Did you also always want to work with the Comic Industry?
JR: It was this or being a professional basketball player and I wasn't getting any offers for basketball, so here I am. Seriously though, I've never really been that picky about which industry I work in, so long as my job is creating art.

OS: What comic books inspired you as a kid?
JR: I never even knew of a comic book store as a kid, so it's really easy to name off most of the books I owned. Mostly, it was DC. I used to occasionally get a Superman comic from the grocery store when I went with my mom. I remember buying an old copy of Deadpool and some of the 2099 books from a kid I went to middle school with. At one point, my Aunt had a boyfriend who was really into Brigade and Youngblood and he gave me some of those as well. I also distinctly remember begging to go to Pizza Hut back when they had an X-men promotion in the early 90's, so I had a couple of those as well.




OS: What projects are you working on currently/have finished recently?
JR: Right now, "This Hollow World" occupies the majority of my time. It's a huge story that takes place on a global scale. Nick Nunziata of chud.com is writing it and I've had a little input here and there along the way. This will be my first book to see print that I've done the drawings and the coloring in, and the story is just massive. There's so much happening in so many different places with so much at stake. It's probably way more than a rookie illustrator should even consider committing to. Hopefully I'm not failing miserably.
Aside from that, I'm also making up some mock movie posters for various movie pitches and they're quite a bit of fun. Most of the work I'm doing right now, won't see print for some time, so I'm hoping everyone doesn't forget who I am until then.

OS: Any projects that you specifically remember enjoying working on a lot?
JR: The first professional job I ever did was coloring pages from a Toy Story comic book that Disney put out through Acclaim. The excitement of the first time doing something that would see print was amazing. For the same studio, I used to color pages from DC's JLA comic. That was always a blast and something that I really poured myself into to do my absolute best work.

OS: We're seeing a lot of changes in style & content in contemporary comic art. Where do you think this is heading?

JR: I hope it's leading to a bigger variety in subject matter and approach. I'd like to see more people drawing influence from sources outside of comics to write and draw stories in ways that may be foreign to current mainstream comics. I also like that more series are being collected into larger books these days. I like getting an entire story at once, rather than small monthly installments.


OS: How much of an influence do you think comic books have on the world today in terms of thought, politics, racism, etc?
JR: Absolutely none, except for a small number of die-hard fans with no grasp on reality. For one, we've been reduced a niche industry, and not a very un-influential one at that. I would imagine some of those issues have an effect on the stories being told in comics though, simply because they happen in the world we live in and everyone draws from their own experiences to some extent, when writing, even if you're writing about super-powered heroes in costumes.

OS: Tell us a little about your new project - 'This Hollow World'.
JR: Well, like I said before, it's huge. Nick Nunziata is writing it and doing a fantastic job so far. We're just now getting into the meat of the story and things are going to start happening on a global scale. Humanity is going to be confronted with an enemy it has never seen and didn't even know existed, so it will really be anything goes. It will be a literal world war three.

OS: Digital or Natural Media - which way do you swing?
JR: Digital, but I try to limit the digital tools I use to what the viewer can relate to. I like my work to keep a hand-made look to it whenever possible.

OS: Your tools of the Trade?
JR: Photoshop, Painter, Sketchup, sometimes Poser. Those are the programs I find myself using the most often, but I'm open to anything that will help me do the job.

OS: Do you visit any websites, read any magazines etc for inspiration, news etc?
JR: Constantly. I'm subscribed to nearly 100 RSS feeds from artists' blogs whom I admire.

OS: Contemporary artists and illustrators that you respect?
JR: Like I said, there's just SO many. To name a few that I've been looking at the past week or so: Simon Bisley, Ben Templesmith, Ashley Wood, Dan Luvisi, Frank Miller, Steve Epting, Ariel Olivetti, Eric Canete, and others I'm just forgetting.

OS: There are a lot of online tee shirt companies that have sprung up suddenly. Do you think this is just a passing fad or are they actually doing some good work?
JR: I don't know, really. I'm so far removed from what "normal people" do, I couldn't even say. It seems like 90% of everything sucks, so if they can manage to stay in the other 10%, they've got a better shot at it than most of the others, I assume.

OS: What threads are you in right NOW?
JR: Ha...right now, I'm wearing one of my many Black t-shirts; this one has a skull and crossed swords, my blue jeans, and ADIDAS shoes. I hardly ever leave the house, so I dress for myself. I look nearly the same almost all the time.