RIDING WITH JONAH HEX: JOHN HIGGINS

[MattBrady]

With issue #28 due in stores this week, we continue our series of conversations with the artists on DC’s Jonah Hex. This issue, John Higgins joins writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti on a story of revenge gone horribly wrong – something that forces Hex to step in and set things right.

Newsarama: John, give us a little bit of background information - where you live, your start in the business, some of the highlights of your work…bring us up to date for the readers

John Higgins: I am now back living in the UK after a couple of years living and working in the USA, I love most all of the work I do as a comic artist and have been very lucky to work with some of the best writers in the business, I started freelance work on that great British comic 2000AD while I still working in a Medical Art department in London in the first job I got after two years at Art College. I was also doing any illustrative work that I could find before I went fully freelance, from magazine editorial illustrations to book covers but comics were what I had always wanted to do. Around this time 1986 I was asked to color a maxi-series for DC called Watchmen, so it was a very interesting time.

But the last couple of years have also been very good to me for interesting comic projects with highlights being digitally re-mastering the coloring on the Watchmen for DC comics, working with Dave Gibbons on an old British character Thunderbolt Jaxon for Wildstorm, The Hills Have Eyes graphic novel was a baptism of fire for my new studio set up but I enjoyed the end result. And probably the Jonah Hex I have just completed with Jimmy and Justin, I am a huge fan of Sergio Leone and of the American West, so to do a Western was so much fun (and having the movies of Sergio Leone playing on in the background meant I even had the music of Ennio Morricone to put me in the mood)

NRAMA: Were you a fan of the character or was the issue your first introduction to Jonah?

JH: I have enjoyed revisiting Jonah Hex over the years just because you never knew what to expect and some of my favorite artists have worked on this title such as Neil Adams and José Luis García-López.

NRAMA: How is illustrating a book like this different from what people usually expect from you?

JH: I would like to think I can still surprise people by doing something like Jonah Hex even though I do not think people have me bracketed as a one style artist, I have done most genres of comic from horror to science fiction, so doing characters in buckskin and dirty denim seems like another good genre example I can put into my portfolio.

NRAMA: Is penciling and inking your own work easier or harder than having an inker do it?

JH: I think it is easier as you can just suggest at pencil stage certain textures without drawing every line, were as anyone else inking your lines would not be able to do those textures so I would have to spend a lot longer penciling if I was inked. I have had a number of very talented inkers working on my pencils in the past but always felt I had not found that one ink artist who was completely in synch with what I was trying to do but I am still looking. There are some penciller and inker teams that so much more than the sum of two. The classic Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott team spring to mind.

NRAMA: That said then, do you consider yourself more an artist or an illustrator?

JH: I am a comic artist, but when I do other forms of art I consider my self an illustrator!

NRAMA: Give us your thoughts about the benefits and challenges of being an artist on both comic books and graphic novels.

JH: I think that having the space of a graphic novel to tell a story creates a story beat which can give a different sense of emphasis and is very satisfying as an artist to have more space to explore that particular world. The monthly book has a more immediate impact for the reader so the story beat is shorter and the story is not so complex if it is completed in one issue.

NRAMA: Every artist has a personal 'creative process' ... can you explain yours?

JH: My creative process starts every day at 7am, and usually starts with me looking at the blank piece of paper after reading the script, I break into a cold sweat, stand up, lower the chair and sit back down, reread the script and look at the blank page again, pick up a black pen, draw a square, stand up and scratch my butt and raise the chair, sit down and add more squares, I then very, very roughly plot the story, drawing in shapes with no detail. Then roughly enlarge the pages and put more detail in and finalize the panel shape, I then draw and ink the panels onto the art board. Once that is done and I have the layout of that page sorted out, I can then compose all the elements I need into that scene. Then it is the fun part, of making the characters come alive and the scene unfold which I still find the best thing about being a comic artist.

NRAMA: Tell us about your colorist on this issue of Jonah Hex.

JH: Sally Hurst has been working at Turmoil Colour Studios for the last couple of years, as an artist and designer in her own right it was interesting to educate her in the ways of the comic strip, when I told Dave Gibbons I had “Taught her all I knew and she was off and running with it” he said, “What did you do for the rest of the day” what a cheeky comics super star he is! She now works on all aspects of comic production from blacking in, to when she scans the finished page into the computer and starts the coloring, I have the fun part of doing the finishing off with non of the hard sweat part. I would recommend a Sally to everyone.

NRAMA: Why do you think it's important to have a book like Jonah Hex out on the stands these days?

JH: Superhero books are the publishing juggernaut that has rolled through comic publishing since Superman first appeared 1938 so fashions come and go but the superhero carries on, I feel you have to give alternative genres to appeal to everyone who might be interested in comics, in some ways Jonah Hex is in a field of one and it is a constant surprise to see how Jimmy and Justin explore this characters twisted sense of justice.

NRAMA: This your second time working with Justin and Jimmy. The first was The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning from Fox Atomic. How is this book different that that project and how is their work different from some of the other writers you have worked with, if there are any differences?

JH: What Jimmy and Justin have that is the same as the better professional script writers is a concise way of story telling, their is no extra fat on the script, its lean and to the point, as the artist I do not have to carve away the excess before I get to the meat of the story, (sounding like a member of the Sawney Bean clan there!) it saves so much time and for an artist working to deadline that is paramount. The difference on the books is mainly due to the length I suppose and as Hex is an ongoing character there is not the character background that was needed in the graphic novel. But the important thing for me as an artist is they are not lazy writers, in each script I felt every scene was new and appropriate and it was not a rehashing of the same scene over and over again.

NRAMA: What is the greatest compliment anyone has ever paid to you regarding your artwork?

JH: Can I buy that page?

NRAMA: What about the greatest insult?

JH: I never remember them! Actually I do remember one time I went to a publishers for an SF book cover (book companies tend to be snobby about comics, “not real illustration” is their usual unconsidered opinion) and in my portfolio I had one of my first pieces of published comic work, I had very little work so had to pad out my portfolio. The commissioning editor said “I don’t know how you get paid to do this!” I didn’t get that job, but a couple of years later he rang me about work and I was too busy and had great satisfaction turning him down.

NRAMA: How should an artist respond to both compliments and insults?

JH: Turn the other cheek, for both! A big wet kiss or a spitball in the eye! Compliment them for being so intelligent and perceptive and probably good looking, try to educate them into seeing the error of their sheer blind stupidity and ignorance!

Previously:

RIDING WITH JONAH HEX: GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI

RIDING WITH JONAH HEX: JORDI BERNET

[Beetle Bomb]

You gotta wonder if Clint Eastwood's ever seen his likeness in comic form. I bet he'd dig Jonah Hex nowadays.

[sgtpepere]

Jonah Hex is one of the best titles DC has in store. Sure it ain't super-heroes, but art is always terrific and stories strong and often self-contained. Too bad it doesn't sell better.

People should read Jonah Hex even if they don't like watching western movies. I know I don't watch them and like Hex nonetheless.

[scottmdavis]

its too bad CLint is too old toplay HEx in a live action movie

[PatrickWedge]

Jonah Hex is still one of the best books out there for its one and done stories. It is always at the top of my read pile when it comes out. Please keep this book going DC, show it some love!!!!

[kalorama]

Higgins is an outstanding artists, one of the under-appreciated talents in the comics business today.

[eloso]

NEAL Adams, not Neil.

[dwf]

Jonah Hex is my favorite title coming out from DC! I'm glad to see it getting such a wide range of talented artists on board. Keep going strong!

[Contramundi]

really great comic..this and Loveless

[jedifish]

Just curious, but is that cover an homage to Incredible Hulk #340?

[SledgeHammer]

It's true, more people should read Jonah Hex. Definitely one of the most consistently high quality books on the stands these days.

[Templar1305]

I loved Thunderbolt Jaxon!!!!

I can't wait to see Higgins on Hex....

Well, that came out badly, but y'all know whut I mean....

What would be really cool would be a crossover between Dynamite and DC featuring Hex, the Lone Ranger and the Man With No Name....

Toss in Scalphunter and El Diablo too!