INTERVIEW - Rob Guillory, Artist: Chew
Geek Syndicate
popped up and asked Brandon, “Hey, I’m looking for an artist for this crazy bird flu cannibal book. Do you know anyone?” and Brandon referred me based off the strength of what I did with him at Tokyo Pop. We met in July of 2008 at San Diego ComicCon and we started working together about a month later on CHEW. GS: So, how is it working with Layman? How is he? RG: Layman is really, really laid back. One of the benefits of working with someone for as long as we’ve been working together, I mean, we’ve been working together almost four years, is that we’ve developed a shorthand to where I know what he wants and he knows what I like. So, he basically just gives me a script and that’s pretty much it. Like, he shoots me a script, and I just send him the inked pages, and he does the lettering on top of it, and eventually I do the colors at the end. That’s really it. It’s super, super laid back. Usually we chat online at some point during the day. Usually it’s just small talk about LEGOS and Warcraft or something. But, that’s pretty much it. It’s really, really easy to work with John. That’s really why I can’t see working with any other writer in my career because it’s just that easy with him. GS: That’s good to have a relationship like that; working so close together. So, how is it working for Image? Do you feel like you have a little more freedom since it’s an independent publisher?
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started in the comic book industry? RG: Well, just to backtrack, to go way, way back, I’m from Lafayette, Louisiana, where there isn’t really much of a comic scene. I mean, there is a scene kind of popping up now, but initially not a lot going on with the comic scene at all. It wasn’t until my first year of college in 2000 that I really started thinking of comics as a real career. I started going to conventions and that kind of thing and started making contacts, and generating work and kind of honing my craft. It really wasn’t until about 2008, 2009-ish to do comics parttime. And then around that time, I was doing some stuff for Tokyo Pop, which never got published, and that eventually led to CHEW in 2008. So yeah, that’s kind of how it happened. It was basically just an eight or nine year process of being rejected over and over again, and slowly building momentum and it just ended up here. GS: Do you want to elaborate a little bit more on how you involved on CHEW? RG: Yeah, well, like I said, I was doing a project for Tokyo Pop with a guy named Brandon Jerwa. Brandon’s great. We did this thing for the Pilot Program for Tokyo Pop that never got published, and it totally just went south and we ended up breaking ties with Tokyo Pop. Right around the time this went down, if I recall, maybe a month or two after, John Layman, who was a mutual friend with Brandon Jerwa, kind of
Chew, published by Image Comics is set in a world where the consumption of bird meat is made illegal following a catastrophic outbreak of Bird Flu that killed twenty-three million American citizens. the comic follows the story of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agent Tony Chu. Chu is no ordinary agent however. He’s a Cibopath which means he gains psychic insights from anything he eats! The comic is approaching it’s thirtieth issue now, and Geek Syndicate caught up with series artist, Rob Guillory. GS: I have with me now ?I??? ??????????????
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