LUKE ROSS ON JONAH HEX

[MattBrady]

Last Wizardworld convention - Wizardworld LA that is – DC Comic announced a new Jonah Hex series by the writing team of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. We talked to the duo then about the series, which at the time didn’t have an interior artist attached. Now, just a couple of days before the next Wizardworld convention - Wizardworld: Philadelphia - it does. DC Comics has confirmed it’s Luke Ross, and Newsarama got an early look at some of his pages and spent a few minutes chatting up the Brazilian artist.

Newsarama: Luke, first of all and to start at the beginning, can you tell us how did you landed this gig? Were you actively looking for something different like this?

Luke Ross: Stephen Wacker, who was one of my editors for the six-issue arc I did for Green Lantern offered the book to me. Initially I said I couldn’t do it because of my commitment to Samurai: Heaven & Earth and Dark Horse. But Steve was persistent, calling me with more information about the project and telling me they really would like to have me involved, so I gave it some more thought and realized it was a great opportunity for having some fun.

NRAMA: What about the opportunity appealed to you? Was it something about doing a Western, Jimmy and Justin, something about Jonah Hex?

LR: The main reason I took the book is because it’s a Western, I love the genre and specially the old classic movies with John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, especially Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in West, etc…So, I saw it as a great opportunity to draw my first Western.

NRAMA: How familiar with the character were you before this? And what appeals to you, specifically, about Jonah Hex?

LR: Actually I wasn’t too familiar with Jonah Hex, but Stephen sent me some books with some great Michael Fleisher stories and I did my own initial research on the Internet to get to know more about the character and his history.

Visually the combination of his hideous and normal visage is something that greatly appeals to me. If explored well that can contribute a lot to the stories, reinforcing the duality of his character, contrasting moments of cruelty when dealing with his enemies with gestures of kindness for those he knows are innocent. That’s an aspect I would like to explore better graphically.

NRAMA: With Jonah Hex on the heels of Samurai, it seems that perhaps you're looking to stay out of the superhero genre … would that be accurate?

And if so, why? What appeals to you about working on projects without capes and tights right now?

LR: I think that’s just the natural way things are happening in my career, it’s not really intentional. After many years of working in the superhero genre, of course you get used to that and naturally develop a kind of grammar that works exclusively for that genre. Most times that’s so ingrained in the way you draw and tell a story that it’s almost impossible to tell a story in a different genre without making your habits evident.

A few years ago I worked on a Vertigo book, American Century, which was my first attempt at a non-superhero book. I worked hard to avoid the habits I learned in my years drawing the super-fellas, and of course following Howard Chaykin’s layouts was the best of the class for developing new storytelling techniques possible.

After that I was invited to join CrossGen where I had a chance to draw many non-superhero books and work with great storytellers like Ron Marz, Butch Guice, Bart Sears and many others that I respect and admire. I learned a lot just being around them. After seeing the cool and diverse stories being told there, I was naturally filled with great enthusiasm to work in other genres.

When I went back to superhero books working with Ron Marz on Green Lantern, we decided to work together on a creator-owned project, then Ron presented me a concept for Samurai. Dark Horse saw it and loved the project, so once again we were working on something without superpowers.

And again...here I am, now on a western book. I don’t want to stay out of the genre necessarily, I love doing superhero books, but I’ll try to keep taking opportunities that sound challenging to me when they appear.

NRAMA: Speaking of challenges, is tackling something like Hex more challenging in a sense, than working on a series with a more fantastic setting?

LR: I think a book like Jonah Hex is more challenging because it needs to be more accurate to a time period than a setting I’m free to create from my imagination.

NRAMA: I've often heard that a horse is one of the hardest things to draw accurately - is that true?

LR: Yeah, I always had problems drawing horses and animals in general, but the Internet makes drawing things more accurately much easier as search engines provide all the photo referencing you need with a press of the “Enter” key.

NRAMA: Tell us about the style you're developing for this project – from the pages we’ve seen it looks very fluid with plenty of graytones added already...

When did you develop this style? This is similar to what you’re doing on Samurai, right?

LR: When we were working on the presentation pieces of Samurai: Heaven & Earth for Dark Horse, my colorist Jason Keith suggested that we color the pieces straight over the pencils. I loved the idea and when he showed me what he did over my pencils, my reaction was “WOW!” I loved it and immediately showed it to Ron and our editor Dave Land (my editor) who both has the same reaction I did, so we decided to go with that style for the book.

What happened after that was a natural improvement of the style as I gained more experience working with it. The graytones are an "experiment" I did to help highlight the volume of the figures. Once I didn’t have the black shapes of the ink to work around, playing with the graytones of the pencil was possible. I was curious how that would work with Jason’s colors, and we’ve become very happy with the results because of “painted” aspect it wound up taking on.
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NRAMA: The right side of Jonah's face - what is going on there? How do you tackle that without making it too gross?

LR: Shadows are my "ally" … to avoid showing his "not so handsome" side all the time.

NRAMA: What so far, has been in the script that's been very challenging for you? And what's been an unexpected pleasure in the process?

LR: Being accurate to the 19th century with all the things you have to draw seems to be the most challenging for me so far. Researching is one of the most enjoyable parts of my work, but it demands a lot of my time making it a challenge to keep everything within the deadline.

What’s been a real pleasure for me is creating the supporting characters. That’s been very challenging as well but Jimmy and Justin have given me a lot of freedom to create the secondary cast the way I think they have to be.
NRAMA: Do you have any larger goals for the series, such as really giving the character your mark, your style...?

LR: What I intend to do is have a lot of fun and helping Jimmy and Justin tell new Jonah Hex stories the best way we can, so readers wind up with a cool book in their hands.

[Comic-Reader]

Looks really good. I was strictly a superhero fan in the 1970s, so I never really bought the original Jonah Hex series, but I've always heard good things about this character.

Hopefully, DC will do an Archives series of the original Jonah comic or at least some trade paperbacks for those of us who missed it the first time (and I'm willing to bet that includes most of today's comics readers).

[AndrewP]

Should be awesome...I'm an admitted fan of Justin & Jimmy, and Samurai: Heaven and Earth was without a doubt one of the prettiest books of the year.

[cactusmaac]

Good to see Mr Ross has recovered from his illness.

Looking forward to more of his work after collecting WotR, GL and Samurai.

[Bakema NL]

When we were working on the presentation pieces of Samurai: Heaven & Earth for Dark Horse, my colorist Jason Keith suggested that we color the pieces straight over the pencils. I loved the idea and when he showed me what he did over my pencils, my reaction was “WOW!”

Good experiment, it's certainly wow. This Jonah Hex artwork looks great too. I was never into the character, but you make it a tempting book when it looks like this.

[MicroZone]

sign me up for a year's subscription please.

[jmarshall]

Jonah is pretty obviously based on Clint here, circa TGTBATU. Seems like there is more and more of that going around these days, basing the looks of characters on known actors. I think it works pretty good here. After all, Jonah Hex is very similar to the Outlaw Josey Wales, one of Clint's best westerns.

[COREMARK]

I can't wait for this series, Jonah Hex is a great character. Ross' artwork looks very nice as well, I thought he did a great job on Green Lantern.

[mookie blaylock]

This is the book that will be replacing Firestorm on my pull ist. What a great preview. Can't wait.

[nighwing2001]

ok....got a few questions here. One is this a DCU book or a Vertigo book? Two...if this is a Vertigo book is it going to follow the two awesome Tim Truman books or just ignore them? If it's a DCU book is it going to ignore the Vertigo stuff and follow the continutiy of all (yes including Hex since it's still in continuity according to everything I've heard) the previous DCU stuff. Or is it going to follow everything previous. OR......is it going to just start the character over from scratch? I'll still buy it but just wondering where the past (or future as in HEX) of this character fits in with this version.

any info would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

[Kolimar]

Have mercy, please... My wallet is already empty. What do you want? The hospital won't take my blood anymore.

[lex luthor]

Originally posted by jmarshall
Jonah is pretty obviously based on Clint here, circa TGTBATU. Seems like there is more and more of that going around these days, basing the looks of characters on known actors. I think it works pretty good here. After all, Jonah Hex is very similar to the Outlaw Josey Wales, one of Clint's best westerns.

I'm not a fan of morphing Clint Eastwoods face onto Jonah Hex (just me). With that said, this art looks amazing, like a storyboard for a Sam Peckinpah western. I cannot wait to get my hands on this.

[holtom2000]

I always like how Jonah Hex and others could end up in the JLofA... where I had most of my exposure to the character.
Ah, the miracles of time travel

[elnino]

hehe, James Dean and a two-faced Dirty Harry!

[adamcasey]

This looks like an awesome book with great art. I can't wait!

[.:lemmiwinks]

these pages look AWESOME wow! i shouldnt be adding to my pull list but i'm very tempted to pick this title up!

[wilee4]

ssssooooooooo psyched for this series!!!! hex has been one of my favorite characters since i was a kid

[Rorshoq]

Bad new for all you Jonah Hex fans...I'm going to sue their ASSES off! They stole my ex girlfriends face and used it for Jonah!

[stlfan79]

Sounds bad-ass, have always loved Mr. Hex. I'll check out the first couple issues and decide based on art. If it is Luke Ross Green Lantern art i will stay on, if it is like his Crossgen stuff I will drop it.

[Kevin T. Brown]

Originally posted by Rorshoq
Bad new for all you Jonah Hex fans...I'm going to sue their ASSES off! They stole my ex girlfriends face and used it for Jonah!

Your ex looks like Clint..??

[Michael C Lorah]

the art looks really nice. clear and emotive, lots of atmosphere. Ross has shown himself to be a pretty versatile artist from what I've seen. Hopefully, the stories will live up to the visuals!

[Userama]

Originally posted by nighwing2001
ok....got a few questions here. One is this a DCU book or a Vertigo book? Two...if this is a Vertigo book is it going to follow the two awesome Tim Truman books or just ignore them? If it's a DCU book is it going to ignore the Vertigo stuff and follow the continutiy of all (yes including Hex since it's still in continuity according to everything I've heard) the previous DCU stuff. Or is it going to follow everything previous. OR......is it going to just start the character over from scratch? I'll still buy it but just wondering where the past (or future as in HEX) of this character fits in with this version.

any info would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

As was stated in a previous interview, this won't follow any continuity per se but will be a kind of "Legends of.." book, treating Jonah as a mythic, timeless character and discussing adventures from different points in his life. Which is just as well; we know how he lives, we know how he dies, we know what happens to the corpse afterwards...there's plenty of room in between.

Jonah Hex is one of my favorite characters. This looks like it will be an excellent treatment; I'm almost upset because I want to keep the character in those cherished Micheal Fleisher books I've dug out of quarter bins, but some modern storytelling couldn't hurt ol' Jonah.

[christosgage]

This is going to rock hard! Wait until you find out the names of some of the cover artists they have lined up...

In answer to someone's question about continuity, my understanding is that the creative team is making an effort to make this accessible to new readers and non-traditional comics readers by having stories that are self-contained in each issue. So, and again this is just what I gather from talking to Jimmy and Justin, previous continuity is not being written off, but neither is it being focused on, any more that you have to have seen one Clint Eastwood "Man With No Name" movie to appreciate the others.

[Captain Jim]

How cool is this? One of my favorite artists on one of my favorite characters! This sure made my day!



Can't be good news for Samurai, though.

[Captain Jim]

Originally posted by nighwing2001
ok....got a few questions here. One is this a DCU book or a Vertigo book? Two...if this is a Vertigo book is it going to follow the two awesome Tim Truman books or just ignore them? If it's a DCU book is it going to ignore the Vertigo stuff and follow the continutiy of all (yes including Hex since it's still in continuity according to everything I've heard) the previous DCU stuff. Or is it going to follow everything previous. OR......is it going to just start the character over from scratch? I'll still buy it but just wondering where the past (or future as in HEX) of this character fits in with this version.

The original article made it clear this is NOT a Vertigo book. I certainly hope it ignores the Truman minis. Great art, but that wasn't the Jonah I knew. Jonah Hex was never meant to be a supernatural character, and I don't need profanity every other panel in my entertainment, thank you.