by Casey Ontiveros

John Paul Leon has had a long career in the comic industry, starting off at Dark Horse, then moving to Milestone to work on Static, and finally working on the Wintermen for Wildstorm. His work evokes a sense of Alex Toth, with sparse uses of negative space to get the idea across without having to draw every single wrinkle.

We here at Your Mom's Basement took time from a very busy J.P. Leon to interview him. We are very fortunate for this and to get some interesting news about theBLVD.

YMB. For those that don't know your work (I doubt there will be many here who don't know what you have done in the past), can you give us a quick run down of your personal favorites that you have done in the past?

JPL. I'm probably best known for my penciling work on Earth X a few years back. Also as the original artist of Static from the old Milestone days in the early 90s. As far as personal favorites, I'm pretty fond of the book I'm working on now for Wildstorm, The Winter Men. I also look back fondly at my run on Challengers of the Unknown in the mid 90s. Those that are really curious are invited to browse my site at http://www.johnpaulleon.com/

YMB. Static was one of the reasons, at least for myself, to pick up Earth X and Challengers of the Unknown (the few back issues I could find), it was probably one of the best things to come out of the mid-nineties boom and in some people's opinion, out of Milestone, would you like another return to the character if given the chance?

JPL.Thanks. I don't know. I did return to the character in 2000 for the Static Shock mini. Although artistically it was a very difficult series to get out for me I enjoyed returning to the Milestone world form a very different artistic perspective than I had from when I first started out. What I'm trying to say in a very convoluted way is that I was a different artist in 2000 than in 1994. This made the material fresh for me again. That was fun. What was no fun was that I just couldn't make a damn line then without whiting it out and repeating it over and over. Everything just looked like shit to me at the time and the boards ended up weighing five pounds each because there was so much damn white-out on the page. I was very unhappy while doing it and afterwards, looking at it.

YMB. Why didn't you return to the Earth X franchise?

JPL. Didn't want to jump back into that story again right after doing Earth X. Felt I had done it, for better or worse, and Universe X, for me, would have just been more of the same.

YMB. There are a few readers here who absolutely love Wintermen. In fact, there are a lot of people who loved the Wintermen. Pros and fans alike, it has a style unlike a lot of comics out there right now. With the planned Special that's suppose to come out, do you feel like it's doing justice to the series, wrapping it up in that way, when the higher ups at DC/Wildstorm cut it down to 6?

JPL. Thank you for that. I'm glad people are liking the book at least! I think the special will be satisfying to everyone but it is a little compressed. I'm working on it now and, although I think it all works, it would have been nice to do the full eight issues. The story is very textured and we were planning on devoting an entire issue to the Siberian, a character who we haven't met yet, so a lot of his importance to the overall picture has been compromised. That's unfortunate. But the special issue will make for a dense read. Hopefully one day we will see a collection.

YMB. How much research did you have to do for the Russian text and some of the locations for the Wintermen?

JPL. The locations and Russian imagery reference has been pretty thorough. I have a lot of books and old National Geographics all over my studio. I've been living with this stuff for a few years now! Google images has also been very helpful. In any story, authenticity is very important. The illusion of authenticity at least! Moreso in this book I felt, because not only do you want people to believe this stuff is existing in the real world, or at least a world very similar to our own, but the location is crucial to the story. We wanted to try and take the reader into this world of contemporary Russia so that the texture of that world becomes almost more important than the plot of the story.

As far as the Russian text goes, we have been lucky enough to be working with John Workman as our letterer. John was able to enlist the help of an old friend, Mark Pennington to do the transliterations into Cyrillic text. I believe Mark used to do Russian translations for the Navy but I may be wrong about that. Anyway, I think Mark's help with this has really added a whole other texture to the book. It wouldn't be the same without his help. Thanks again, Mark!

YMB. I was actually keeping an eye out for places that I'd been to in Moscow and checking the written words. I was impressed beyond belief how much detail was placed into everything.

JPL. That's good to hear. I worry constantly that I'm missing so much that is crucial to the place since I've never been to Moscow. Sometimes I have the experience that after having had to draw something, a prop or location, I actually encounter it in real life and then realize I missed it when I drew it. Just missed it. Didn't do it justice. So I wake up nights thinking I'm not doing justice to contemporary Moscow. It's too late now. I know if I ever go there I will be kicking myself nonstop for missing that and that and that!

YMB. The BLVD virtual studio that you hold with Bernard Chang, Sean Chen, Tommy Lee Edward and Trevor Goring, and this has made me wonder, how does it work? Are there rapid IMs between the five of you about ideas you have or scans being sent back and forth to ask if it looks right because there is a twinge of doubt that there is something off with the image that you and your studiomates are working on?

JPL. You got it.
Also, we try and print up a sketchbook each year and set up at conventions together.
This sort of covers the next question too... We will be doing another sketchbook by San Diego this year. Also, and this is pretty exciting for us, we're honored to have Walter Simonson joining us this time around as a guest of theBLVD.

YMB. That's pretty amazing to have Walter Simonson joining you on the third Sketchbook. Are there still plans to release this book through BOOM! again or will you release it independently like the first one was released?

JPL. We will be printing this one ourselves although the format will probably be similar to the second volume. Square bound, comic book size.

YMB. Your art has a very realistic feel to it. I can't imagine how you play with the people to make them seem as personable as you do? When working, on anything, what is that one thing that you enjoy capturing over anything else?

JPL. The thing that excites me the most is when something comes off in a way that is not what I had expected that adds something to the story. It's tough to verbalize. It can be something as simple as a prop or location, or a facial expression combined with a piece of dialogue that is not what you might expect. When I read a script I usually get a first impression of what I think I should draw in a scene. Usually if I find that this first impression is simply a knee jerk reaction that is supplying the most obvious , generic choice , I will try to deliberately not do that! I mean, comics are generally so filled with stereotypes, who needs more of that!? It is a challenge to try to be at once specific and simple, without falling back on the trappings of symbolism.

YMB. You've done a great deal of work for the Batman Begins film, how did it feel creating a new artistic direction for Batman for the screen?

JPL. All the work I did for Batman Begins was for DC licensing. Similar to what I did for Superman. So this was not actually conceptual work for the film but working from existing model sheets, photographs, and on location at Shepperton Studios in England. We had access to the sets and costumes. That part of it was great. We got to see first hand the level of detail and thought that went into the film. When I say we I mean, DC flew out several artists to England for an intense one week work session at Shepperton. There was myself and Tommy Lee Edwards, Scott McDaniel, Mark Stutzman, and James Hodgkins. It was a great experience.

YMB. Are you also doing work for the new Batman movie that Christopher Nolan is directing?

JPL. As of yet I haven't been contacted for this one.

YMB. You did some work on the new Superman Returns books. How much was give and take on the amount of interpretation that you were allowed to do with the material?

JPL. Well, there wasn't much give and take. Licensing work tends to be pretty restrictive in that they want you to stay as close to the reference material as possible. I guess the thinking behind it is to try to appeal to as large an audience as possible. So with something like the character turn arounds they want you to be very faithful to the photos. I guess this makes sense because other artists will be working off your drawings and you wouldn't want to be too "interpretive" with it.
The children's books were a little different. I was allowed a little more room with drawing the actual characters but the stories themselves were very controlled. For instance, I did the illustrations for the sound story book published by Meredith books. If you've seen the film you know that there is a Kryptonian island that is featured towards the end of the picture, as well as the crystals that Lex uses to hatch his land-grab scheme. All this was in the initial script Brandon Snider turned in but was eventually cut to save these "reveals" for the film. The book could have been much better.

YMB. This really goes with the question of adaptations for license materials like the Superman material that you worked on: Do they give you a rough cut of the movie so you know what the movie will be like so you can get familiar imagery to the products that people are purchasing from what they've seen.

JPL. Actually they provided me with photographs. Scenes from the actual movie as well as studio photographs of the actors in costume.

YMB. Are you still using traditional mediums (pencil, pen, inks) or have you started to try drawing on a computer?

JPL. Yes. All hand drawn in pencil, then ink. The old fashioned way. Don't think I could get used to doing art directly on the computer. I am not friendly with them. There is a physicality to drawing that I could not get on a computer. I always feel, on the rare occasion when I color something, that the piece doesn't truly exist if it's just in the machine. I need to have it on paper.

But I scan things in and look at them on the monitor all the time. I think this has affected the way I work, what I think about while I work, in some way, though I can't say for sure how. MB similar to when artists first started to see reproductions or copies of their own work. Looking at something on a screen is different than looking at a copy, and that is different than looking at an original. David Hockney has written a couple of interesting books on this subject. Also the fact that, on the machine, you can blow something up that was minuscule in the actual drawing to the full size of the monitor is interesting. You can look at large sections and it gives a different perspective.

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