We’ve done a lot about a book called “Sheltered” here at Multiversity. You may know about it: we gave a first look at the teaser for the series, we gave you the first preview of the book and we’ve talked about it with writer Ed Brisson.
So to continue our love train for “Sheltered,” today we sit down with Johnnie Christmas, artist extraordinaire of the series, to talk about his history in comics, Continuum, “Sheltered” and just what a mad man Brisson truly is.
So since we’ve never chatted on the site before, lets start out with the most easy difficult question we have: why comics?
Comics are really unique. A visual mass medium that doesn’t require a small army of people to execute an artistic vision. They’re a super direct form of storytelling.
Mostly though, I just love comics,
Approximately what was the moment in your life where you decided you wanted to work in comics for a living?
I remember sitting on the school bus reading Uncanny X-Men #276 as a kid. I didn’t know who Jim Lee was but I knew I wanted to do what he was doing. By the time we got off the bus I knew I’d be an artist.
Who are some of your biggest influences, and to what end do you think your work reflects there?
Otomo Katsuhiro, Jaime Hernandez, Mike Mignola, R.M. Guera… this list goes on for 3 minutes, believe me. Gustav Klimt, Marc Chagall… The funny thing is, people say they can’t see my influences in my work, I guess I internalize what it is I like about their pacing, or composition, or the way they draw ankles, or what have you, and it gets ground up and repurposed in some way that’s not too obvious. Jillian Tamaki is another huge influence, “Skim” was the catalyst for me moving to brush inking.
What’s your preferred medium when it comes to illustrating? Are you a traditional ink and paper guy, or have you put your feet into the digital world at all?
Traditional all the way. Matt, I love paper and brushes, if you cut me open I’d probably bleed ink! I love the process of creating traditionally almost as much as I love the finished page.
The day might come when I switch to digital, but I doubt it.
Where did you get your start as an illustrator?
I’ve been drawing since forever. I attended an art high school in Miami then I got a BFA at Pratt Institute (Brooklyn) for Illustration. After graduation, I went into the world of graphic design and didn’t come back to drawing for a long while.
How did you end up working with Ed Brisson?
Ed had a studio down the hall from me and we quickly struck up a friendship. He told me he was switching gears to start writing more and gave me a copy of Murder Book, which sat on my unread stack for awhile. When I finally read it I was really quite impressed, so much so that I wanted to work with him on a Murder Book story.
I sent him an email that said something like, “Murder Book is cool, if you’re ever looking for an artist to collaborate with…”
His reply was like, “I’ll make you regret you ever sent me this email!”
We started putting together a pitch soon after that.
“Sheltered” is your first big work for a company like Image. As someone relatively unknown, is it fair to say that getting the book greenlit was probably a huge weight off your shoulders?
Yes! It really is nice to have a series to grow and expand on. Telling stories over 5 or 10 pages is excellent training, but after awhile you want more room to tell a more immersive and nuanced story.
What is the working relationship like for “Sheltered”? When we interviewed Ed he mentioned that you to chat quite frequently back and forth, with one particularly grisly moment being “your” fault. Is this basically the case for the book as a whole?
Now I picture Ed standing in a poorly lit foyer, wearing a stained shirt, holding a Miller Light, red-faced and screaming, “You brought this on yourself!”
Continued belowIt’s not my fault, by the way. Yeah we talk a lot and it’s a really easy-going collaboration, we’re throwing things back and forth all the time and give each other lots of room to fly. The moment in question grew out of a rare moment of both of us sticking so firmly to our guns that we ended up shooting each other in the foot, ha ha!. The story wins out in the end though, it’s going to be absolutely masterful comic book storytelling, but yes, grisly.
Obviously “Sheltered” is a bit dark in terms of its “children killing parents” story, but is there anything in it so far that you’ve been uncomfortable to draw?
We’ve been pretty classy, so far, about keeping the most horrific stuff off panel. I maintain that that sort of thing is more powerful when you don’t see it. Like that seen in Se7en (SPOILER ALERT!) when Morgan Freeman finds a certain leading lady’s head in a box. It messed me up, but I never saw the head, only Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt’s reaction to it.
I also see you’ve done work on a tie-in comic for a Canadian sci-fi TV show that hasn’t aired outside of Canada yet called Continuum. Obviously it seems like that has a specific audience in mind (sci-fi fans and Canadians!), but how did that opportunity come about?
Yeah, for a TV Show is called Continuum. Ed and Morgan Jeske were editors on that. I was on a list of names they submitted and luckily the producers liked my stuff. it was a fun assignment.
In terms of how you view them, what would you say is the difference for you between working on a comic you own and co-created and working on a comic for a show? Is there anything in particular you take into consideration or do differently for either?
Working on a property you don’t own is like being the president’s speech writer, you put yourself in someone else’s head and execute their vision in, hopefully, a new and exciting way. With something you own and create you can really push the limits and make it as satisfying as it could be. If it feels right to me and Ed, then it goes in the book.
So outside of “Sheltered” and “Continuum,” what else would you like to do in comics? Any creator-owned series you’re itching to get off the ground?
Oh absolutely, I’ve got lots of stories I want to tell! For now, though, I’m fully committed to SHELTERED, we’ve got an exciting story, a great creative team, and an incredible publisher who’s fully in our corner. This is a wonderful luxury!
