Friday, August 22, 2008

An Interview with Chaz Truog

Chiaroscuro: The Private Lives of Leonardo Recently, I mentioned working on a Zuda pitch called Planet X and how artist Chaz Truog was turning in some great pages. Well, today I would like to further introduce you to Chaz with this interview we conducted via email.

Jim Shelley: Chaz, of all the projects you've worked on in the past, which are you the most proud of?

Chaz Truog: Animal Man #5: "The Coyote Gospel", was my favorite from that series.

I was very proud of the fact that art from Chiaroscuro: The Private Lives of Leonardo da Vinci was on display in the Seattle Art Museum's show: "Leonardo Lives", alongside art from famous artists like Warhol, Rembrandt, and Leonardo himself; and that the series was nominated for an Eisner Award.

My favorite individual piece of art was a cover I did for Mailbu Comics' Planet of the Apes series.


JS: Who would you say are some people that influence your art?

CT: The two biggest influences on my art have been Frank Thorne (Red Sonja, Ghita of Alizarr) and John Buscema.

I met Buscema briefly in what turned out to be his final convention appearance in 2001. I've been coresponding with Thorne since '94, he's currently doing a lot of work for Playboy, he's in his seventies and going strong!

JS: I've posted numerous ads on Digital Webbing in the past, but this was the first time I've ever gotten a response from you. Was there something about the Digital Webbing ad that interested you in the project?

John Carter of MarsCT: I've wanted to do a John Carter-type book since I read the Marvel Comics version thirty years ago, before anybody was born.

JS: So far, how would you describe your experience working on Planet X?

CT: Fun! I enjoy inking my own work.

JS: What other projects have you worked on recently?

CT: I've been working on a few comics projects (the up-coming Octobriana), various local freelance gigs, and I just picked up a few sculpture commissions.

JS: You have a lot of experience with print comics, but is this your first web comic project?

CT: Yes. The main difference is thinking in terms of horizontal composition, as opposed to the vertical compositions of print comics.

JS: On http://www.chaztruog.com/ you mention that you also have acted. How long have you been doing that?


PlanetFallCT: I've done plays in high school and college, and I've had a chace to do a few local independant films: Go to Hell (1999) and Planetfall (2005), among others. Check them out on Netflix!

JS: Are you acting in anything currently?

CT: I'm acting right now! LOL, as the kids say.

JS: Thank you!

3 comments:

Richard said...

Mr. Truog was the artist on two of my favorite comics series of all time...but his current work blows that old stuff out of the water. It's astonishingly good, and I think more old fans who haven't seen what he's been doing lately are going to be as knocked out as I am.

Anonymous said...

We certainly hope so! Chaz's work on Planet X has been great, and its been great to get to work with an artist of his caliber.

Jim Shelley said...

RAB, I think you'll be really pleased when you see the pages Chaz had drawn for Planet X!

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