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DC SPOTLIGHT: THE JOKER'S ASYLUM—SCARECROW | | Artist Juan Doe talks about his first Bat-foray and shares his process for producing such eye-popping pages
| | | By Rachel Molino | | Posted July 25, 2008 | |  | | In as much as Batman's Rogues Gallery holds the most psychotic and murderous villains in mainstream comics, it also holds some of the greatest potential for unique artistic interpretation, making the month-long, weekly one-shot series The Joker's Asylum a virtual sensory explosion.
The latest installment in the series—following books on Joker, Penguin and Poison Ivy—stars Scarecrow, a villain who, in his hallucinatory method of assault, holds massive potential for exciting art. One could choose no better artist to flesh out the book, written by Joe Harris, than Juan Doe.
A unique new presence in the world of comic art, the enigmatic Doe may be more myth than man, yet his stylized fusion of hand drawn and graphic art exudes such an original attitude that his works have begun to grant his mysterious persona a very distinctive artistic identity.
With his Joker's Asylum: Scarecrow from DC arriving this week, WizardUniverse.com had a rare chance to sit down with JD—in his fortified celestial bunker on the astral plane—and discuss his work.
WIZARDUNIVERSE.COM: Tell me about the Joker's Asylum: Scarecrow book.
JUAN DOE: It was a blast. That was written by Joe Harris, who I know he's done a couple of movies, "Tooth Fairy," which I saw and "The Tripper" which I saw.
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What did you think of those flicks? Scary?
They're like sort of B-horror movies, but they're really witty and they're smart and they're sharp. I like that; I'm a big fan of what you'd consider the B-horror stuff, the slasher films and everything. The Scarecrow script was pretty much laid out like that, like a teenage slasher film. That was pretty much the perspective from this particular girl who gets invited to the slumber party by the "Heathers"; you know, the popular chicks, and the whole point is basically that they're gonna con her into a bedroom where they've set up a video camera that they're all watching on a flat screen. And the whole point is to have the guy, 'cause there's like the whole set of teenagers—you have the classic jocks and the leader and her two minions—who torture the unpopular girls as school.
So, the point of view is from this girl Lindsey, and there are flashback scenes where she's talking to her school guidance counselor, and she's relating how she feels about it, about the party, and what's about to happen, because she knows that they're up to something, because they would never be that nice to her. And she gets all this sort of weird encouraging advice from this—you don't see his face actually, you just sort of see form his neck down but in the end it turns out this is Dr. Crane, who is the Scarecrow. So that's how he finds out about this slumber party going on, and half-way through the issue, he shows up and starts killing these teenagers one by one.
It was a lot of fun because the script was written very much in a tone that I totally got and understood about trying to make something horrifying. I was really just painting with these flat shapes and that's how I ended up figuring out the mood, and taking these characters that sort of look cute, or in some instances stylish, but it's embedded with the hues or dark overtones and there's definitely a lot of cool contrast and its definitely something I haven't tried before. But I ended up liking the results and it was a great project. The whole process I got to pencil, ink, color.
Were you inspired in your design of the Scarecrow by any take on him you really liked in the past?
Yeah I totally got reference from all of his incarnations. I usually get a broad spectrum from the earliest through the cartoon styles. Whatever reference I can get my hands on from DC, in regards to the character, and then from there I usually end up sketching. I'll do a couple of pages of conceptual faces like, okay, how would I draw Scarecrow, and just get a general idea. It's like sculpture; you work away at it. It depends how well you can translate how you're thinking about it to the paper. I think I'm lucky in that it's very visual for me, I see it so it's natural. I don't want to say easy, because it's never really easy, but it's very natural for me to tell a story visually, with words. So I definitely love the challenge of trying to make a story very scary but also fun and relatable.
| |  How did you enjoy working on Batman?
That's why I did the project. It's Batman and it's Batman-related, and although the story is very character-driven by the dynamics of this girl Lindsey and her school-peer tormenters, Batman shows up for the last half of the book, and that was great enough, because I got to draw the Batmobile and I got to draw the Bat-Signal, I got to draw a panel with Commissioner Gordon, and then a nice big shot of Batman, all bugged out looking, jumping at the Scarecrow. It was worth it for just that one big money shot of Batman. Batman is definitely one of my favorite characters, my favorite character from the DC camp of superheroes. It was an opportunity for me to do something I really, really dug.
How do you feel about Scarecrow as a character? Did you want him to scare you?
He was actually really awesome. He came out very natural for me once I got his look down I was able to play with anything I wanted in terms of putting them in these great—there are all these scenes that are very surreal, seen from the perspective of these kids, all f---ed up on his gas spray. So he like sprays this kid in the face and all his fears come out, so I got to illustrate—it was very much like Freddy Krueger and "Nightmare on Elm Street" as well. I tried to make him a character that was definitely scary and imposing and just badass, and he definitely f---ed with these kids man. I'll give it to Joe—that was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, you've got to have to victims to get your point across. It's great because it's also a one-shot and it's an exclusive story that exists on its own. And just being a part of the series is great as well, because of all the great creators that are involved, so I'm really happy to be on board.
| |  When I think of your style in comic book art, the one thing I always think of is in the Fantastic Four one-shot—Mr. Fantastic is the perfect person for you to draw, he adheres perfectly to your style—and I remember his hand stretched out full of popcorn, and how big it was in relation to the rest of him. I love anything exaggerated like that.
The FF book was definitely a through the fire book, where I put my heart and soul, from beginning to end it was like eight months, a very long time. Those characters are what allowed me to sort of get into what I consider the visual art form of these particular characters that I just loved growing up, that on a level for me was like, ‘Sh-, I can draw a comic book, that's super-awesome.' That's part of the joy is I do remember what it was like to be a kid, and just get complete joy out of a story or an artist and see the way they've brought it across and so I felt privileged to be able to do it at this level where I wanted full control I wanted the whole vision to come across from beginning to end, with this particular story, and try to bring it as close as I could to what I felt the essences of these characters were for me. So yeah Mr. Fantastic, holding popcorn, in the living room about to watch what was it? "Music and Lyrics"? It was a great opportunity to showcase what I felt were great and beautiful aesthetics of what I like about comics, so that particular story lent itself to reference the books that I remember growing up.
There's a charm in the old comics anywhere from the '50s up until the '80s, there's a certain charm about the comic book that maybe isn't completely there all the time today, because it's also evolving. I just did it from the spirit I felt as a kid, so it's almost like an animation. It's almost like a golden age reference to what the characters look like, each one is so distinct. I got to do fire, invisibility, rocks and the way that looks in different poses, the emotions; it was very character-driven. So was Joker's Asylum: Scarecrow very much driven on the impulses of the characters in situations that, from a certain perspective, are just part of real life, the same dilemmas that we go through, whether it's a teenage girl being bullied by the popular girls to the family dynamics of the Fantastic Four. So, I like that. It's not easy to do in storytelling. In comics, there's always the action stuff that's available, but just drawing characters in real situations and making it interesting is part of the challenge. | | 
To see how Juan Doe puts a page together, click here!
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