Ken Meyer Jr was recently kind enough to spare some of his valuable time. I took the opportunity to ask him about his art. Although as is customary for SHIFT interview I ask a little about the gentleman first.
Paul: Could you say if you have a favourite sports team or a meal you make you are especially good at making? Or both?
Ken: So my favourite sports team? To start with, I play a lot of tennis, so my sports figures would more likely be there. Recently, Jannik Sinner and wildcards like Alexander Bublik. In the past John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova. As for food, I don't cook much, I make a good spaghetti...or at least I love it!
Paul: I like to start at the very beginning. What were the very first comics or trading cards you recall enjoying? How old might you have been? Were they expensive?
Ken: It all started with comics. I started reading and collecting comics probably around the age of 8 or so...around 1965 maybe? I remember titles like Sea Devils by Russ Heath, for example. Just your average 12 cent comics! That is where I started to learn how to draw.
Paul: As a professional artist are you self taught or did you receive a formal education as such?
Ken: Well, I did go to college right after high school...but it was a small college and I was a terrible student (as in, I didn't go to classes often enough). After the first 4 (mostly wasted years), I went to a larger school to get my gpa up, then stopped, and mostly learned on the job for the next 20 odd years. Mostly self taught. I went back to school (at an art school) in 2004 and it helped some in several ways...but, by that time, I had learned a ton on my own.
Paul: In those days many writers and artists submitted their art or writing in the post. Did you receive many rejection letters or were you immediately lucky? Or were there published art projects at that time?
Ken: Oh boy, I had tons of rejections, but I also had a lot of positive experiences, partly because I started in the smaller arenas, like role playing games (White Wolf, for example), or comics (independent companies like Caliber). I even rejected two things because I did not think I was ready; a painted Green Lantern series and a new instalment in the Sabre character, by Don McGregor (he asked me himself, which was amazing). There were other rejections, such as work I did for the World of Warcraft game, etc.
Paul: The inevitable question is this. What was your very first published profession work? How did it happen and how did it feel?
Ken: Well, dunno about the FIRST, but one of the very first was a drawing I had done of Bruce Lee, later inked by comic artist, Brent Anderson, and published in a convention book (BayCon). We had been corresponding since the fanzine days and, at that time, he had just started doing professional work for Marvel. I had work published in fanzines before that, in the mid seventies. Around the same time I think, I had some fan art published in issue 8 of Captain Canuck, that felt great too.
Paul: Glancing at your website your paintings vary in subject wildly. From Prince, Columbo and The Walking Dead. Obviously you are very versatile, but do you have a particular genre you enjoy illustrating?
Ken: The genre I have sort of fallen into is horror. That is mainly because I have always liked strong, dramatic lighting and shadows. I tend to like organic subjects in general...people, the outdoors, etc. I also really love music and film, so I have done a lot of paintings of both. For musicians, many times, I have done a piece to take to a live show to try to meet the musician...it has worked most of the time, except when it was a huge artist like U2 or Springsteen.
Paul: As a journalist I have to ask who did you meet anyone famous and did it work? Do you have any photos?
Ken: Yes, I met a bunch of my favourite musicians...mostly mid level acts like Bruce Cockburn, Don McLean, Jonathan Brooke, David Gray, Peter Himmelman, Ani DiFranco, Tori Amos, Loudon Wainwright III, Ben Folds, etc...
Ken: No, I never did learn to play any of the games...I think, by that time, my extracurricular activities (tennis, etc) had sorta been set in stone and I didn't have the time or brainpower to learn those games. I wish I did.
Paul: What are you working on currently? What projects pay the bills for you? Are they fun?
Ken: To be honest lately, it is somewhat all over the place. I do private commissions in the form of portraits, pet portraits, book covers, custom work for Magic players (altered cards, custom tokens, etc), etc. Plus, there are a lot of Magic tournaments I go to, to sell my work, on average, one a month. Most are in the states, but a few are overseas or in Canada. I try to enjoy what I am doing all the time...luckily, I haven't had to have the dreaded "drawing refrigerators" experience.
Ken: Back when commercial illustration was much more common (traditional illustration, that is), the most menial job you could get would be in some ad agency illustration refrigerators, toilets and the like for ad campaigns.
Paul: Oh I see. I did not know that. Thank you. What are your plans for the future?
Ken: ah, okay....let's see...to be honest, I should, but I don't plan too far in the future, other than lining up MTG tournaments (right now, I have 6 between now and January). I kinda like the way my life is right now (lots of tennis, commissions and events, but I can always and need to add more), to be honest. California is just a bit expensive, so there is a chance I might move somewhere else, but no real plans yet. Just want to keep getting better in everything!
Paul: Thank you for you time sir.