Interview: Jacen Burrows on Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis and ‘Crossed’
Artist Jacen Burrows has already had an impressive career in a relatively short amount of time. His talent, bold visual style and penchant for the darker, more sinister aspects of life have already earned him a place collaborating with some of the most popular and successful writers working in comics today.
Some of these writers include Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis and Alan Moore on projects such as Dark Blue, Scars, The Courtyard and 303. More recently, he’s worked on Chronicles of Wormwood with Ennis.
And, just yesterday at Wizard World in LA, it was announced that he’s doing a brand-new project with Ennis called Crossed — described by Avatar Press’ William Christensen as "a story about the worst people can possibly be, as a group of good people attempt to survive in a world of pure evil."
ComicMix caught up with Burrows at Wizard World LA to get some more details on Crossed, his other work with writers like Warren Ellis, what artists he admires and much more.
COMICMIX: Jason, thanks for taking the time to talk with me. Let’s get right into it with a little background. When did you first start drawing?
JACEN BURROWS: I’ve been drawing from the beginning. Three years old I was doing more drawing than anything else. And I think everyone does that. All kids draw but it was just the thing I happened to stick with because everyone would tell me I was good at it so I never stopped. When other kids were outside doing things I was inside working on my drawing. So, its kinda my curse.
CMix: Your parents encouraged you?
JB: Oh yeah, they were like "do what you want" and let me do my thing. Early on I had a tendency to draw the things that were fun to me, like war scenes with tanks and dead bodies.
Teachers would freak out and my mom would come in and tell them I was just being creative. Later, when I had art teachers, they would say it’s all perfectly normal.
CMix: You liked that kind of thing? Monsters, severed heads, etc?
JB: Yeah, I had a nice healthy obsession with drawing monsters, werewolves and things like that. It’s the fun stuff.