ALEX ROSS INTERVIEW, JULY 18, 1997
Alex Ross, The Rembrandt of Comics

by Another Universe

Interviewed at the Chicago Comicon

Alex Ross is the painter of Marvels and Kingdom Come, in their own ways defining moments for the Big Two comic companies. He attended the Chicago Comicon in the company of his brother and his father, Clark Norman Ross, who was the model for the heroic pastor Norman McCay in Kingdom Come. Local TV interviewed Alex and Clark on Saturday, and MANIA was there.

Reporter: What has been your favorite project so far?

Alex Ross: Oh boy, it's tough to say. There were so many things that were really started with the ability to work on both Marvels and Kingdom Come; they both were very passionate works and you know, to build together, in some cases relive all of the things that I loved as a child, was equal between the projects. In Kingdom Come I was trying much more to personalize things as I involved much more personal ideas and put in my certain attitudes on ways we should present DC's characters. And I was able to do that to an extent too with Marvels, but this was taking it a step further. So I don't know; they're both pretty much on the same par. But Uncle Sam has been a very hard project to do, and it's the passion that went into that is a pained one, so hopefully the stress and anxiety should be showing somewhere in the pages.

Reporter: Clark, the fact that you're here with your son at this convention says to me that you must be very supportive of your son and very proud of his work.

Clark Ross: Oh, yes, very much so. He started as a small child with drawing and he has been one of these people who's been completely focused. I offered him the opportunity to go to college; I told him we would manage it somehow, and he wanted to go to art school.

Alex Ross: I made the wrong decision.

Reporter: I think there are many who would disagree with you.

Alex Ross: I can't read or write ...

Reporter: Alex, I assume you just completed Uncle Sam?

Alex Ross: No, I'm still finishing it.

Reporter: Oh, you're still working on it.

Alex Ross: Yes, it is a November release, so I still have time on it.

Reporter: I was curious where do you plan on going after this. I mean, many would say you have gone to the top of your field. You've done everyone in Marvel, you've done everyone in DC, you've done a Vertigo book which many consider to be a very high honor; where do you go from here?

Alex Ross: Well, I can't get away from the fact that the thing that I enjoy doing the most is drawing Superman, which is something that I can't get out of my head. And I really want to do something with him. I have a pitch in to DC about doing something for the 60th anniversary; thereby, also, I'm hoping to go on to do projects with the 60th anniversary of the characters of Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel.

Reporter: In my estimation, your painting is the best I've ever seen. I can honestly say that. I've never seen better designs on people, I've never seen a better balance between the mystical aspect and the human aspect and the mechanical aspects. What are your influences? Your father has already said that you started as a small child.

Clark Ross: The genetics from my wife, we have traced that through, there runs this talent that goes through her family. And his older sister has also got it.

Reporter: Anything you would like to add to that?

Alex Ross: I wouldn't say I tried to focus on style or one person in particular, but I guess the face that I was exposed to when I was a kid was Norman Rockwell and Andrew Lewis, particularly, which was a phenomenal influence on Steve Rude. We share that in common. and certainly I've always been following and enjoying the work of most painters, and a lot of the newer guys like Dan Brereton, those guys are all friends of mine, so I am kind of in a trenches with a cool breed of painters who ... I don't think that my talent by any means exceeds theirs. I mean if they hadn't gotten high marks with a lot of people ... I've been I think savvy enough to know what people really are into in this business and frankly if you're in the media now, the genre that the people like and the characters that they like and bring the most out of that, you'll get the attention that I have, I guess.

Reporter: I already said that you were my favorite artist...

Alex Ross: You're wrong, wrong!

Reporter: Who is your favorite painter?

Oh geez, you mean comics? I don't know; there have been so many different things, that I been doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. If I wanted to be doing something really different, then I would do it. But I still greatly admire the works of people like Dave McKean; at least I think the line of artists that preceded me really have a lot to understand. And there are things they do that I don't even come near on a lot of creative levels.

Reporter: You've worked with Kurt Busiek and you've worked with Mark Waid...those are my two favorite writers in comics... so I guess my question is who you found really easy to work with, as far as a writer, someone to help you to bounce ideas off of. What kind of experience have you had with writers?

Alex Ross: Well, mostly positive things, because I've gotten to work with people I had no idea the talents of, and they turned out to be perfectly appropriate writers. Like when I worked with Kurt, I had no idea he would be such a talented writer. He was a struggling writer at the time, and just by circumstance we wound up as a pair.

Alex Ross: And with Mark, he was recommended to me without me being exposed to his work, and of course he has turned out to be one of the most passionate writers in comics.

Alex Ross: Overall it's been pretty positive; I just don't like any of them personally.

Let the record show that Alex Ross was smiling when he said that.