[Jose VILLARRUBIA was born in Madrid, Spain. He comes from an artistic family: his father had an advertising agency and his mother, Luz Jimenez- Momediano, an art gallery. She is now a documentary photographer. Two of Jose's brothers, Alvaro and Alejandro, are established photographers as well. After attending the Escuelade San Fernando at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, he moved to Baltimore in 1980. There he completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Magna Cum Laude, from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Towson University. Since then his fine art photographs have been exhibited internationally. Currently he resides in Baltimore and teaches in several art schools in the area and his fine-art photographs can be found in the Baltimore Museum of Art, as well as in several others collections. In comics, he is best known for the coloring of Jae Lee’s Hellshock (Image) and for the wonderful digital painting art of Veils (Vertigo). Actually he is working for Alan Moore’s ABC line for whom he has realized a photographic sequence in Promethea #7 and several covers for upcoming books.]

ULTRAZINE: Which relation you see between painting and comics?

VILLARRUBIA: Painting is a method of two-dimensional representation. Comics are two-dimensional images presented sequentially. So painting is one of the methods that are available for creating these images. Others include drawing, photography, collage, digital art and mixed media.

ULTRAZINE: Comics are a hybrid medium, which balance do you think is needed between words and pictures?

VILLARRUBIA: It depends. "Arzach" by Moebius has no words, and is a perfect comic. "From Hell" by Alan Moore are very wordy, but also a masterpiece. The balance between words and pictures is a very individual decision and I don't believe there's such a thing as perfect balance. Would you ask how much dialog is perfect for a movie or how many lyrics in an opera? Comics are no different from any other medium that combines the visual with words.

ULTRAZINE: You teach in an Art School, what will you say to a student who asks you how to start in the comic medium?

VILLARRUBIA: I give them advice about presenting their work in a professional manner, using professional materials and attending comic book conventions to meet editors, artists and writers, specially the San Diego ComiCon. I also warn them that in the United States the industry is imploding, so there are less and less opportunities.

ULTRAZINE:Talking about digital painting, do you think it is the future of comics?

VILLARRUBIA: No, I don't think so. I think it is too difficult to do and not enough creators seem interested. Comics have not changed much technically in the hundred years or so that they have been around, even though reproduction has greatly improved. All these time they have been drawn in pencil first, traced with ink and colored photomechanically. I don't think that they'll change that much any time soon. After all, as much as a revelation as the book "Marvels" was in introducing fully painted comics to mainstream readers, it didn't really become the future of comics. And that's because not many people in comics can paint as well as Alex Ross.

ULTRAZINE: It seems Scott McCloud in his upcoming "Reinventing Comics" will say that computer art and, in general, the new digital techniques will be the natural instruments for the evolution of the medium. What is your opinion on this statement and what do you think of the web comics experiments of Scott McCloud (www.scottmccloud.com)?

VILLARRUBIA: This book hasn't come out yet, but I will be very curious to read what he has to say. With all his limitations, I consider his previous book, "Understanding Comics", the most in depth analysis of the medium that anyone has ever attempted, so I am very interested about what he thinks about the future. In terms of what I've seen on line, I must say that the slow downloading speeds still make it a fairly unappealing experience, but I know all this is going to change. As much as I love going on line, reading a comic book printed and bound is a much more pleasurable experience for me than staring into a computer screen. But this may be a generational deformation and I can see how it can change.

ULTRAZINE: Could you give us some details about your regular digital painting method, from drawn art to scanning resolution, software tools, medium time to create an image, general problems to be solved…?

VILLARRUBIA: First I get the story in script form. Then I draw it in pencil as layouts, which I later use as a storyboard for shooting the photographs of the models. After shooting the models in costume I scan their pictures and combine them in Adobe Photoshop with digital, photographic, painted and collaged backgrounds. I then adjust the color and add the details.

There is no average time to make a page. I would say a few days, and that can be between three and ten or so.

There are many problems: first to find models that look like the characters, second make the costumes, third make the props, fourth find the elements that the writer wants included, fifth find the elements that you want included and sixth making it all look like it belongs together, despite the fact that it is a mismatch of visual information.

ULTRAZINE: I find the most value of your digital art is its naturalness and lightness. Do you ever think to the trouble that digital images used in comics could appear a little “cold”, a little unnatural?

VILLARRUBIA: Thank you. Yes, I think in particular CGI characters look fairly robotic. And digital coloring can have a very airbrushed and slick feeling. It is one of the dangers of Adobe Photoshop. The other is to create images that are too layered and not clear.

ULTRAZINE: Do not think that in some way comics could use digital techniques as special effects in replacement, make up, for improving the true heart of the medium, which is storytelling?

VILLARRUBIA: Sure, I think that all methods of image making are valid and could and should be used in comics. I have always enjoyed reading comics that incorporated different kinds of imagery. Digital art is just the latest of a series of tools that can be applied to the art of comics.

ULTRAZINE: Digital painting is only an aspect, there is even CGI (I am thinking to The Dome book by Dave Gibbons…) and the webisodes (web + episodes), like the 7^th Portal from Stan Lee Media. What do you think of these applications?

VILLARRUBIA: I thought that the Gibbons book was very ambitious, but was limited by the current aesthetic of computed generated imagery, especially when it comes to the human figure. As I said before, I haven't paid much attention to comics on line, but that is because of the current speed of the downloads.

ULTRAZINE: I have read Dave McKean saying that with the possibility for everyone to use the same digital software tools it is very easy to imitate the style of a certain artist and this is a big problem.  For example there are many images copied from his "Brief Lives" cover and in general emulating his style and mood. What do you think?

VILLARRUBIA: This is true, but it is very hard to make great digital images. It is relatively easy to make flashy stuff, but hard to make great art. Look at how much is out there and how little is truly great. I have never been worried about anyone imitating my style, and when it has happened I always have taken it as a compliment.

ULTRAZINE: What do you think of the stuff of some digital artist such as Dave McKean, Ashley Wood? Do you have some other preferences?

VILLARRUBIA: McKean is brilliant. I own five originals by him, including a page from "Mr. Punch". He has incorporated more mediums into storytelling more successfully than anyone else. And he's also a hell of a writer. Cages is an absolute masterpiece, a breathtaking wonder.

Ashley Wood is tremendously gifted. His work has evolved dramatically over the past few years.

Some of my favorite digital artists are Matt Mahurin, Greg Spalenka, Jean Paul Goude, David Lee, John Reuter, Nick Knight, Jean Baptiste Mondino, Javier Vallhonrat and my brother Alvaro (www.alvaro-villarrubia.com). None of them do comics, but they would be phenomenal if they tried.

ULTRAZINE: You have dedicated your work in "Veils" to Richard Corben, what does he represent for your? If I don’t doubt he has been one of the pioneer in digital coloring.

VILLARRUBIA: Not just coloring, but the medium in general. Corben is a true visionary and original voice in a field weighted down by imitations of imitations. He is truly bold and daring! His fumetti "Ogre" was the first (and almost only!) successful fantasy comic done in photographs. To put it simply, he is, in my opinion, a genius.

ULTRAZINE: What do you feel about coloring a book by another artist? How do you find the right feeling for the color scheme? Absolutely wonderful your colors for the second run of "Hellshock"!!!

VILLARRUBIA: Coloring Jae (Lee) is great. We are very good friends, and over the years, I have learned to know his likes and dislikes. He has also learned to draw in a way that I prefer to color his work. I am having a great time coloring "The Sentry", our new series for Marvel Knights.

ULTRAZINE: Old style color techniques, with its naiveté and its direct influence on Pop Art, versus the color wizardry of today "digital chameleons", who wins?

VILLARRUBIA: Each period has its own charms and its own masters. Klaus Janson and Tom Palmer used to be terrific colorists in the old method. Laura Depuy and Homer Reyes have done fantastic digital coloring. Nobody wins…stalemate!

ULTRAZINE: Do you like the beauty of black and white art? Personally, for example, I think a Mignola page is better in black and white than in color. Is there some art you think that should not be colored?

VILLARRUBIA: Of course I like the beauty of black and white art: Dino Battaglia, Jose Muñoz, Max, Alex Toth, David Mazzuchelli, Charles Burns and so many other artists come to mind whose work is perfect in black and white. Whether art should be colored or not should be the artist decision. I would never want to make that decision for another artist.

I just met John Paul Leon, and his stunning art for "Earth X" is going to be reprinted oversize and in black and white in the collected edition. But I thought it looked very nice colored as well… So I think it should really be his choice.

ULTRAZINE: Do you think it is possible in today market to try to experiment in comics?

VILLARRUBIA: Not only possible, I think it is essential for their survival. Traditional comics have been failing miserably in attracting new readers. If comics don't experiment and grow they will continue do die the slow death that has been upon them in the United States.

ULTRAZINE: What you think could be the most experimental thing to do in comics?

VILLARRUBIA: In America to explore genres other than superheroes and to incorporate styles of representation from other fields (Illustration, fine art, fashion, etc…). In Europe I think that comics are much more experimental already.

ULTRAZINE: A last question. Recently you worked with Alan Moore who I consider “the Shakespeare of comics”, “the Kubrick of sequential art”. Moreover, as a reader, I have the impression Moore is one of the few artists in the comic field who has still enthusiasm for the medium and tries to do his best in creating intelligent stories. Which is your personal opinion on Moore?

VILLARRUBIA: Working with Moore has been incredible. I have been following his work ever since I picked up an issue of Swamp Thing, and since then he has been my favorite writer. I feel that Moore has brought a level of literary quality to medium never seen before him and rarely after. His worked had touched me in more occasions than anyone else, and to be able to illustrate one of his pieces has been thrilling. I just received an e-mail from a reader who told me that the page I did in the story that shows Dennis in the straight jacket made her cry. This has been the greatest compliment that anyone has given me on my work on that story, and now I know that I was able to preserve and expand Moore's original vision.