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WIZARD Q&A: GOLDEN LOBSTER COMICS' JOSHUA EMERICK | | Artist Joshua Emerick talks about his upcoming comic with San Franciso death-metal monsters Death Angel and about making a name for himself in the comics world. | | | By Mike McHugh | | Posted 5/19/2008 | |  | | If attended Pittsburgh Comicon you may have been lucky enough to meet artist Joshua Emerick at his table. True, you probably never heard his name before, but Joshua's work speaks for itself. His career began with Beatlology magazine, where his cartoons and covers of the Fab Four garnered praise from no less than the Beatles' producer George Martin and cover artist Klaus Voorman. Eventually, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame put his work on display for eight months next to the John Lennon exhibit.
Ever since his Beatles breakout, Joshua has focused his work on rock art. He's worked for bands like Sonic Youth and Social Distortion, and he even wrote a comic with skate punkers CKY. He's also received high profile commissions by the estate of Hunter S. Thompson, and Sir Paul McCartney himself asked Joshua to make personal lithographs of the legend to distribute to the VIPs on Macca's 2002 return tour.
| |  Despite his impressive resume, Joshua still is not a big name in comics. He works a day job as a chef, and when he's not too busy with his son Oscar Elvis Emerick, Joshua draws. But he won't be small time for long. With his upcoming comic collaboration with the metal-tacular Death Angel, his new publishing company Golden Lobster (formed with members of Death Angel), and big name contacts like Brian Posehn and Rob Zombie, Joshua hopes to break out of the kitchen and start rocking in the comic world full time.
WIZARD: So how much can you tell me about the Death Angel project?
EMERICK: The Death Angel project started from when I did the CKY comic book. And what happened was that Darren Miller, who was the lead singer for CKY, also had a death metal band and the record label he's working through let me know that Death Angel was doing a comic book. And I was like, "Yeah! I'll do it!" cause a lot of my work to date has been a lot of rock pieces. I've done a lot of artwork for the Beatles' magazines, for Sonic Youth, Social Distortion, I did CKY's tour shirts and their comic books.
In the Death Angel comic, how collaborative was it? How many writers did you have working with you?
EMERICK: I brought in the writer that I grew up with. We used to make comics when we were kids and we stayed close friends and he did the CKY book for me. We did a couple things for Cartoon Network for proposals for shows. I kept him on with me when I got a new writer who came in. He's a stand up comedian and he's helping on the book as well. And Dennis Pepa, the bass player [of Death Angel], he's actually the one I've been talking to the most, though. He's the one we're forming the comic book company with.
You mentioned bringing in a comedian. Is the comic going to be like a "Metalocalypse" thing where you're making fun of metal while also celebrating it?
EMERICK: Pretty much, yeah. The first series has a lot to do with how music is being taken over by corporate music offices and everything. But when it comes to the one-liners and punch lines, that's where the comedian comes in and adds his flavor to it.
So it's a struggle with the corporatization of rock and roll?
EMERICK: Yeah, what happens is since they're called Death Angel, we have the Angel of Death—the Grim Reaper—come in and he knocks them all off. And somehow they go to an alternate universe. It's kind of like "Akira," based in the future where everything's a mess: a post-apocalyptic setting. And there's the main villain, Ludwig, and ironically he's death. He's the one controlling this thing called the "Sonic Beatdown," that's one of Death Angel's new singles that they released. I guess it's the B note that he's controlling and using to take control of the world pretty much. And Death Angel is going to come in and try to make things better and help people out.
Help people out by rocking?
EMERICK: [Laughs] Pretty much, yeah! [Laughs] They're pretty much going to get together as a team and they're gonna make the "Sonic Beatdown" instrument turn against the leader and try to reverse everything and try to bring harmony back to the world. There's all kinds of mech robots, there's machines that are half robot, half human, half animal.
That sounds pretty awesome!
EMERICK: Yeah, the writers did a really good job on this one. I'm really happy with it and I'm halfway done with the book now with penciling and inking. And I'm just really happy with it now.
You said you're working with a bunch of people, from your writer to a comedian to the band's bass player. Are all the projects that you do for bands usually this collaborative?
EMERICK: Pretty much. As far as CKY, I was friends with them and wanted to get together and do stuff for merch with them, and then we started talking about the comics. That's when we got my friend who wrote with me for a long time, and pulled in a couple local people and worked with the band really, really closely. I talked to them almost everyday, like I do with Death Angel. As far as Death Angel, what we were going to do was complete the book and shop it around. But instead of shopping the book around and just taking a cut or percentage, we thought we'd just do our own publishing company and put the book out ourselves.
Are you going to release the comic in tandem with a Death Angel album?
EMERICK: Their album actually came out at the end of February and they're re-releasing it with a DVD towards the end of summer. So there's going to be a DVD with extras, like the filming of the making of the comic. They're going to get together and maybe write a whole new single, and we're going to release the book again with the DVD and the album and have a flip through the single to work with the comic. And that will be the only way to get the song, through the hardcover comic edition.
You said you've worked with some other bands—Sonic Youth, CKY, Social Distortion. How do you take an artist's music and translate it into a visual medium? How do you bring it to life like that? Do you have any underlying concept?
EMERICK: I found a style I really like working with now. When I did a lot of stuff for the Beatles, it was a lot of complex pen and ink style and really detailed. And it wasn't until I started doing the more cartoony stuff that a lot of the names like Mike Ness from Social Distortion got really into it. I just basically get a lot of references out, study their pictures, and always listen to the music while I'm drawing them. I'm really inspired by Genndy... what's his last name? I can't pronounce it. He did Clone Wars on Cartoon Network; he did Samurai Jack. I try to get a feel like he does, try to make things simple but still detailed. And I try to capture what the people are through their music and try to put it down on paper on the drawing.
That guy's name is Genndy Tartakovsky.
EMERICK: Yeah that's right! [Laughs] I never could say it right!
Yeah, I had to look it up. I forgot how to pronounce it.
EMERICK: Yeah I really like his work and I like what he does. And compared to what I did for Paul McCartney and all that, it's such a different style. It's pretty much night and day. But it seems to be working right now. I'm getting a lot more attention with that style right now and I'm hoping to run with it.
Do you ever get star struck meeting all these rock stars?
EMERICK: With Paul, definitely [Laughs]! My wife, she is the huge Sonic Youth fan, and when I did their shirt for them, we got backstage passes. My wife's been a fan of them for like 15 years and when we went backstage, we thought there'd be a party and here it was just Thurston Moore and Kim [Gordon], his wife, and I don't think my wife said a word. Me, I like them and everything, but I'm not really into them like she was where I was able to carry on a conversation for a good 45 minutes and have a couple drinks with them.
So what is your own music taste? What do you like to listen to?
EMERICK: A lot of it is Beatle related, that's what got me into working with the Apple and everything. I like a lot of punk. Definitely a lot of punk. It's sad to say with doing Death Angel's comics, I'm getting used to the death metal. It's growing on me. [Laughs]
Is all this your full time job?
EMERICK: I'm hoping! I'm pretty close to it. I'm a chef besides that, but I'm hoping that with this book and the exposure we're going to get that this will be it. We don't plan on putting out a ton of titles each year, but what we do put out, we want to believe in it. I don't know if you've heard of the "Basket Case" movies?
No, I haven't.
EMERICK: They're B-horror movies. Frank Henenlotter is the director, the guy who did "Frankenhooker."
Oh yeah, I know that movie!
EMERICK: He's in the middle of talking to us right now about letting us use Basket Case. And Rob Zombie's going write the forward to our Death Angel book.
Has he been involved in the project at all?
EMERICK: Not yet. I know he's seen samples, like shirts and posters I did for the band, and he really likes what I've done so far. I mean, even if it's one issue or whatever he wants to do, we'd really like to have him for an issue. And I don't know if you've heard of the comedian Brian Posehn?
Oh yeah. Definitely.
EMERICK: He's best friends with Dennis, the bass player from Death Angel. And he might write an afterward or do something with us for that.
He's a pretty funny guy as far as I'm concerned!
EMERICK: Yeah he's really funny, and he's put a couple comics out with Image, too.
So you're just getting immersed in this whole new comic world, and do you think it will pay off in the long run?
EMERICK: I'm hoping. With CKY it was exciting because I thought the whole Bam Margera thing would really help it. But CKY had a bunch of problems and ended up breaking up again. But I think with Death Angel and the connections that they have in San Francisco, they've mentioned me in a ton of interviews worldwide so far and they're being really supportive of my art and what we're trying to do. I'm hoping that this one will be the one that starts something good for us. It helps too that Dennis' brother-in-law owns one of the biggest printing companies in the United States, so we're going to get a killer deal in printing books.
That's a pretty good connection to have in this business.
EMERICK: Yeah, he's knocking like $4,000 off orders for us. That'll come in handy whenever we start rolling here.
You said that you're a chef for your full time job, so how did you break into drawing? Did you just know the right people and they liked it?
EMERICK: I remember when I was 17—I'm 32 right now—I had an interview up at Marvel Comics and they told me that I have to learn a lot more. I've been up through Marvel and DC a few times through my early twenties and I've always been a big fan of music and always did comics, so I just started to combine the two, and that's when I started to do a lot of stuff for rock and roll people. There's this magazine called Beatlology and I did the covers for it and ran a strip in there with the Beatles. I just combined the two.
That's not a bad way to break into it.
EMERICK: Yeah, there's a ton of these bands that are putting out books now. Some of there are good, some of them I feel aren't too good. [Laughs]
So is your ultimate dream to work at Marvel or DC or one of the big comic companies?
EMERICK: I'd love to do maybe a couple one-shots with them. I really want to focus on our company Golden Lobster and just do a couple of books that we believe in. I don't know if you've ever heard of Rodney Bingenheimer...?
Nope.
EMERICK: He's one of the original K-Rock DJs. He's a legend and he hangs out at the IHOP in Hollywood all the time. They did a movie on him called "The Mayor of the Sunset Strip," and he's known everybody from Elvis to you name it, and he discovered a lot of punk bands. He's a really cool guy and has a ton of stories, and I was thinking about doing a book on him just based in IHOP with ton of dialogue, a ton of really witty dialogue. Just off the wall stuff that you don't think that a good comic would be, but it would be a really good comic.
So you're just constantly going against what you'd perceive from a comic, just doing comics in a rock and roll way?
EMERICK: Definitely. I would love to do some of the mainstream books here and there with the style I use now. But there's a lot more stuff that I'd personally want to put out and I'd like to see it go to print before I do any of that.
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