Artist Interview #1: Johnny Kaje

As part of this blog I am going to interview a different artist monthly to get interesting and amazing answers, and to show some samples of their art.

To kick off this monthly event I am interviewing artist Johnny Kaje. Kaje is a dear friend of mine that I have known since my first year of college and I admire all that I see this person create, and its never a let down because everything has a quick/sharp wit and a tongue-in-cheek quality that always makes me smile. I hope you find the answers as insightful and enjoyable as I have, and that you enjoy the samples that Kaje has supplied me for this article.

Johnny Kaje has a blog that I am an avid follower of, and would suggest you check it out too. I have provided links on the sidebar at the right and at the very bottom of this blog. Enjoy!!!

Q: What is the driving force/inspiration behind your work?

A: Pure raging hatred. Moonlight in summer. Nonsensical phrases. Echos of the ancient world. Unemployment. Roadkill. Patriarchy and all the other archies. Eliminationist rhetoric. Butch women and pretty boys. Anchovy/pepperoni pizza.

 

  

Q: Could you describe your style?

A: It’s hard to describe your own style, isn’t it? I prefer to trust snarky cynical comic bloggers for a more honest assessment.
Oh wait! I am a snarky cynical comic blogger! I would describe it as--- amateurish at the moment. Rushed chicken scratches with horrible ink jobs. But I’m learning!
 
Q: What artists do you like the most? Like to read/follow? Why?

A: Oh lordyloo. There’s so many—Diane DiMassa, James Gurney, Ricardo Delgado, William Stout, Peter Chung, Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin, Phil Foglio, Jeff Smith, Amanda Connor, Tom Siddel. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. I prefer artists who are either crazy technical, or crazy zealous, or both.

Q: In your opinion, what’s most important about comics? Story, character, art?
A: This is a bit like asking what’s the most important part about a house. The roof? The foundation? The look of the place? They are all intertwined. Story and character, some might say, are even interchangeable. Art is slightly less important, but it’s still a visual medium, so it’s not much so.
I have a different rubric as to what’s important in a comic. Is it something I haven’t seen before? Does it stick with me after I read it? Most importantly of all, does the creator (or creative team) have passion?
Some English professors and other sundry types will repeat the phrase “everything has been done before”, thus emboldening every young chap who wants to make his own interchangeable brooding white anti-hero. This is horseshit. There is so much out there that hasn’t even been touched upon! Especially when it comes to the stories of marginalized people—try making your brooding anti-hero a different race, or sex, or sexual orientation, or weight, or something, and see what that does. Comics are still somewhat “underground” compared to television and bestselling novels, and thus they’re one of the best mediums for groundbreaking material. And groundbreaking stuff sticks in your mind. Which leads to the second point!
These same sundry literary types drill character arcs and plot points into your head. Which is good! Don’t get me wrong. You need to have a grasp of these things to create. But am I the only one who likes it when you read something that makes NO FREAKING SENSE on your first read-through? When I first read a Tank Girl comic when I was younger, I had never been exposed to British slang or pop culture— all this talk of “loos” and Dame Edna and “bundles” was like a foreign language---and I think that made me like it more. It was some weird trippy poetry to this rural Missouri tween. I like things that make no sense because then you’re forced to MAKE sense of it. That’s why I love things like Rocky Horror Picture Show, Aeon Flux, Tank Girl—they’re like “Screw character arcs! Just enjoy the fireworks!”
The final and most important point, passion, is why I prefer independent comics, especially homemade photocopier zine-type comics, to more mainstream affairs. Take Diane DiMassa’s work. At first glance, her style looks crude and unprofessional. We’re not drawing “THE MARVEL WAY” here, folks.
But what she does have is passion. That passion flows through her pen and onto the paper and makes her chicken scratch style more emotive and relatable then the stiff, but technically adept, artwork of your typical DC comic.

Q: What about comics do you like the most?
A: You don’t have to employ that pesky “imagination” like when you read normal books. I thought MTV was supposed to eliminate that? What a snafu!
For serious, though, I like how they engage both the left and right brain. Some people are more visual, some aren’t; comics bridge the gap between both.

Q: Being a formally trained graphic artist, do you think comics is a viable form of art?
A: There really isn’t any reason to exclude comics as art aside from elitist prejudice against the medium. Just as some ideas only work as poems, or films, or paintings; so are some ideas best expressed in comic form. Watchmen is the clichéd example, but it became a cliché because it’s so true. People say that that comic is “cinematic,” but that’s not true at all. (I believe Mr. Snyder proved that definitively last year. OH SNAP.) It’s only cinematic for stretches, but it’s also crammed with supplemental material, captions and notes upon notes. In other words…a comic.

Q: How did comics aid in your education, or vice versa?
A: It certainly helps make life on a dry campus more tolerable.

Q: What’s your future goal? Do you want to create comics professionally?
A: I would love to but since so many are pursuing comics now, it’ll probably just remain a hobby. I personally hope I’ll die in a hail of gunfire after causing a whole lot of irreparable property damage.

*Have a good day, thank you!*