ROMO 2, Week 24 (Part Deux)

This was on at the CartoonMuseum Basel Centre For Narrative Art, https://cartoonmuseum.ch/

(Let’s face it, every country should have one)

Jose, alongside his countryman, the Wizard that is OZ (Oscar Zarate), my sensei and comics master, continues to be a seminal influence on my life, work, and life’s work.

Nearly forty years ago now (!), back in about 1989-90, alongside my Husband-in-Comics Woodrow Phoenix (we shared studio for 26 years in total, up until 2016, and yes it felt like being married), and caricature supremo Carl Flint (aka ‘Carol Funt’), we were lucky enough to start our studio-journey sharing space with Oscar Z in Camden. And, during our time there, for about six weeks during one glorious summer we got to enjoy having Jose Muñoz in alongside us too. Now, this was a Big Deal even back then: Jose, although never that popular in commercial terms (pfah), is and always was what’s called an ‘Artist’s Artist’, almost universally recognised and internationally lauded as The Very Best of the The Best, a craftsman in our trade recognised and considered almost above all others - his work on another level.

Literally so, in our case. The Camden studio was on two levels and with Oscar and Jose working side by side on the upper, mezzanine floor - right above our heads.

Here’s the original art for one of those pages from back in those days, for the album that would eventually be published as Billie Holiday, a biograph of the jazz legend. Now this one IS in English translation so you’ve no excuse not to pick up a copy.

You could not only hear the violence of Jose’s dip-pen strokes on the thick, textured cartridge paper: drops of spattered Black Indian ink would on occasion rain down on us, on our heads, our clothes and sometimes our own artwork. But we didn’t really mind. It was akin to being blessed, sprinkled with Holy Water, we all revered Jose so much (and Oscar too, of course, who, however, worked more modestly and quietly)!

Most evenings, after our seniors and betters had left for the night (we pulled long sessions back in them days: mostly because you had to - making comics is super labour-intensive, never have any illusions about that), we would creep upstairs to sneak a peek or two and marvel at the day’s pages. This one above among them.

Imagine the charge, then, all of some 36 years later, to see some of those very same pages as we’d once held, displayed in their rightful glory on the gallery walls in such a major European exhibition as this one. You have to love that cat’s fluffy arse, innit.

‘DRINK, PLEASE’! A toast! (photos by Vyla Rollins or myself, for the most part)

Now, why do I make such a fuss and a pint - I mean a point of this, and on your time? Well, take a look at this page from Jose and tell me that you don’t see a sort of Romani prototype of ROMO included there… I do!

Plus, I can assure you, what I am trying my best to achieve in my current crop of pages for ROMO the WolfBoy Book Two: The Fall and Rise of Springheeled Tom, is a new and looser style for me, a less-linear and more tone-based one that I saw reflected back at me in some of his more recent illustrations:

Images by and © Jose Munoz.

A masterclass in atmospheric line and tone - he’s still teaching me new things. These portraits here are a preview of sorts of the kind of effects I am currently pursuing on my drawing tablet and within the Procreate programme. Never really a painter (too heavy handed, I would maul and swiftly ruin almost any brush, and blunder around in the ink like an angry toddler), here I like the half-deliberate and yet semi-random effects i can get: even if - and ironically so - they are digital and not or no longer analog. A first for me. My artwork has up until now always been resolutely hand-drawn (‘Home Grown and Hand Mad’). It feels very much like a Brave New Frontier that I traverse and explore every working day. Will it work? I don’t know. We will see.

I mean, no comparison. Really. But I’m trying. I’m trying! (Many would agree, but not in the nice way). WiP - A Work in Progress page from recent weeks’ output.

Finally for this double-header of an episode, yet another interview (I’m deliberately doing my best to get the word out there!). This time with Substack’s very own Kilian Melloy. You can find it and have a read and a looksee at it by following this link:

Hope that works! Thank you to Kilian for his friendship, patience and keen perception.