birth_date: 1959-09-01 00:00:00
avg_rating: 3.77
name: Joe Jusko
about: (direct from artist's site: http://www.joejusko.com/biography.asp)Joe Jusko is undoubtedly one of the best known Fantasy, Pin-Up and Comic Artists in the world today. His career has spanned over 30 years, starting with the sale of his very first cover for Heavy Metal Magazine in 1977 at the age of 17. Since graduating that year from NYC's High School of Art &amp; Design, Joe has worked for almost every major comic book publisher, producing hundreds of images for both covers and interiors. His work has appeared on paperback book covers, calendars, posters, t-shirts, toy packaging and innumerable trading cards, most memorably the multi award winning 1992 Marvel Masterpieces Trading Cards. The popularity of that set has been credited with initiati (direct from artist's site: http://www.joejusko.com/biography.asp)Joe Jusko is undoubtedly one of the best known Fantasy, Pin-Up and Comic Artists in the world today. His career has spanned over 30 years, starting with the sale of his very first cover for Heavy Metal Magazine in 1977 at the age of 17. Since graduating that year from NYC's High School of Art &amp; Design, Joe has worked for almost every major comic book publisher, producing hundreds of images for both covers and interiors. His work has appeared on paperback book covers, calendars, posters, t-shirts, toy packaging and innumerable trading cards, most memorably the multi award winning 1992 Marvel Masterpieces Trading Cards. The popularity of that set has been credited with initiating the painted trading card boom of the 1990's, and led to his ground-breaking 1995 Art of Edgar Rice Burroughs trading cards. Those 125 paintings have made him the most prolific Burroughs artist ever, producing art based on almost every major book by the famed author.The son of a construction worker and a homemaker, Joe was born on September 1st, 1959 on the lower east side of New York City. Inspired at a very early age by watching his older brother Danny draw, and by a love of comic books which led to his discovery of the art of John Buscema, Joe knew even then what direction his life would take. He drew incessantly, using every spare moment to try to become as proficient as the artists he admired."All my friends were out playing baseball and football", says Joe, "but I just couldn't keep from drawing. I guess I made the right choice, because I don't think I'd be playing for the Yankees right now!"When it came time to choose a High School, his 8th grade teachers urged him to take the entry exam for Art &amp; Design, the only vocational High School in the country with a curriculum geared toward a career in commercial art. Formerly known as the School of Industrial Arts, it boasts a long list of accomplished alumni, including Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Josef Rubinstein, Mark Texiera, Jimmy Palmiotti and many, many diverse others, including singer Tony Bennett and actor Lawrence Hilton Jacobs, who played "Boom Boom Washington" on the 'Welcome Back, Kotter' TV show. Joe credits the teachers at Art &amp; Design (all former highly experienced commercial artists, including EC Comics great Bernie Krigstein) with teaching him the necessary fundamentals that brought an early polish and modicum of professionalism to his work.Graduating with the DC Comics Award of Excellence in Cartooning, Joe chose to forgo attending the colleges he was accepted to in order to explore the professional arena. It was a decision that in hindsight he has mixed feelings about, thinking that several more years of formal instruction would have saved him a lot of trial and error early in his career.A chance meeting with artist Howard Chaykin in a New York City comic shop led to a five month apprenticeship, during which time Joe sold his first cover painting to the afore mentioned Heavy Metal Magazine, which was the preeminent fantasy magazine of the time."I would have given them the cover to print", laughs Jusko, "but I gladly accepted the $250.00 they paid me!"Several more jobs at Heavy Metal gave him the fortitude to contact Rick Marshall, who was the magazine editor at Marvel Comics."I don't know what he saw in my work, but he gave me a Starlord cover to do that turned out to be one of the worst things they ever published! Quite honestly, I got lucky in that I broke in at a time when there weren't a lot of guys doing painted work in comics. If I tried to break in today, with the same amount of &gt;ahem&lt; accomplishment I showed then, I wouldn't get any work. The caliber of talent is so much higher today!"Nonetheless, that cover started a run at Marvel that has lasted to this day, .. continued at: http://www.joejusko.com/biography.asp ...more