The Legendary Joe Rubinstein lends his talents to BotW
April 20, 2009 by admin
Filed under Bane of the Werewolf
If your a long time comic fan, the name Joe Rubenstein will bring back memories of epic battles between the most evil villains and larger-than-life heroes alike.
Joe truly needs no introduction and to list his credits would simply overload our servers! He has been cited to have embellished (inked) more pencilers in the comic book industry than any other artist present (remember The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe?) and more than likely, at some point, he worked on that favorite story of yours that has refused to be forgotten (Captain America versus Baron Blood comes to mind - Cap #253-254 or how about the first Wolverine mini-series with Frank Miller?). Today you can see his amazing work grace the Green Arrow series from DC with writer/artist Mike Grell -AND- you can now find him here at Silver Phoenix Entertainment!
We are very excited to have you with us Joe!
Be sure to check out Joe’s interviews online. Here are but a few:
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Question: How did you first get bit by the comics bug?
Joe Rubinstein: I came to this country from Israel when I was five years old. My cousin, who was three years older, had a comic book collection. Since I didn’t read the language, I looked at the pictures. Like a lot of kids, I then started to draw the pictures, and fortunately that never wore off. I went to the High School of Art and Design, which was a vocational school in New York, and there I found other comic book people to study with–the most famous was probably Bernie Krigstein, who was one of the great innovators at EC Comics. Then when I was seventeen, I was sick of school and I didn’t want to go to college. So I did up some inking samples, and I think I got, like, three jobs on the first day. I’ve pretty much been doing it ever since. I mainly read superhero comics, like everybody else, though I did read Dracula because the Gene Colan artwork was so beautiful, and Swamp Thing because of Bernie Wrightson and all that. For a while there, Marvel came out with all these monster books like Frankenstein and Werewolf by Night.
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First off, I’d like to say that it really is an honor to have the chance to ask you some questions about your career and your current projects. You’ve been inking comics professionally since around 1978, I believe? Growing up on comics, it seemed like every other book I read back in the 80’s until now has had your name in it. To what do you credit your staying-power in the industry?
Thank you. You’re very flattering. It was actually 1975 - I was 17 when I got 3 jobs in one day. I was Dick Giordano’s assistant when I was 13. I also assisted Jack Abel and Wally Wood, and got to observe other greats like Russ Heath in Dick Giordano’s studio. I work hard, try to be responsible with my deadlines, and above all else, I try to be responsive to the work in front of me and not homogenize it all into one look. That is the philosophy I got from Dick Giordano. Scott Williams has told me that he thinks that this has actually hurt my career, because people/editors weren’t quite sure what they were getting back. Jimmy Palmotti called me once to say an Eric Larson job (a Spider-Man Vs Wolverine 3 part series in Marvel Comics Presents) was mis-credited to me. I HAD inked it
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JR: That’s why I inked a thing called, “The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.” I did it on and off for twenty years. Mark Grunwald, I don’t know what I’d inked for Mark beforehand, but Mark was a nice guy, and he said, “We’re going to do this thing like an encyclopedia called “The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe,” and why don’t you ink these three pieces and we’ll see how it looks.” I don’t remember what they were, but it seems like one was maybe a Dave Cockrum Nightcrawler piece. So I brought it back and he said, “Okay, good. How many of them do you want do ink?” “All of them. Why would I want to give any of this away? Just give it to me.” And he did, but you know what? I think I made his life a much easier place, because as he’s balancing 46 different pencilers for this book, he knows to send it to one inker. One inker who has proven he can alter his approach so that it will still look like Kerry Gammill and Bill Sienkiewicz and Al Milgrom when it’s done, but still have a unifying feeling to it. As a matter of fact, I was sitting there one day inking four pieces simultaneously, that’s how I work, because I don’t want to worry about wet ink smearing, so I just ink some of this, I go to that one, I go back to this one, I go to this one, and I have like four pieces in front of me and they were possibly a Bill Sienkiewicz, an Al Milgrom, a Frank Miller and a John Buscema. So I’m inking on this one, I’m inking on that one, and I suddenly get to this realization similar to when you’re reading and you suddenly are aware of the fact that each word is a word instead of a concept. “And_he_went…” And I looked at this and I thought to myself, “How am I doing this? Because the pencilers were sort of the four points of the compass, stylistically. On one I’m using a real short, kind of dot-dash stroke. I’m inking this that way. Milgrom used a big, fat thick pencil with a long stroke; I’d pick up a brush. Sienkiewicz is short and kinetic, I used that. So it’s not like I have so much of a plan as I allow myself to be open for the stimuli to tell me what kind of a stroke happened. Which is, by the way, in comic books nowadays….. a lot of the work is done where a page is mailed to you electronically, and then you print it out in a light blue ink, which is non-reproducible, and then you ink it in the regular manner, and you e- mail it back. Well, I do that. I do that a lot, but I prefer not to, only because I believe there is a physical energy on the page, from the penciler, which I can feel, which is, of course, totally lost in the reproduction. Because, when you feel a penciler’s hand go from left to right, and you can see the dent in the paper, or how his hand sort of smeared it slightly as his hand went across it, I get the understanding that he went left to right. Maybe I should make my stroke left to right. I can see where he used the side of his thumb to smear this in. Maybe I should use a bigger brush or something. So I just try to be sympathetic and responsive to my stimuli.
Take a look at Joe’s websites:
Also take a look at the first of many contributions by Joe Rubenstein in the pictures gallery!
Haven Distributors pick up Bane of the Werewolf
April 20, 2009 by admin
Filed under Bane of the Werewolf
As the first issue for Bane of the Werewolf went to press, we were informed that Diamond will not be carrying the second installment as planned. This was largely due to an advertising blunder on our part that we are currently rectifying. Hey, we’re all human right? Live and learn.
The new Diamond benchmark may have had little or no effect on the exclusion as this did not seem to be the focus of our discussions.
However, there can be no room for doubt that Diamond’s cut back has effected independent publishers across the board. For more info click here The new benchmark was a necessary business decision for Diamond’s profitability. Understandable in today’s economy.
Bane of the Werewolf has been dropped from Previews, nevertheless, stay firm monster fans, BotW will continue to be purchasable online at www.silverphoenix.net. The second issue is still due out at the end May and will be available for sale at that time.
Haven Distributors has picked up the second book and we are in negotiations with two other distributors as well. More to come as it occurs.
