Last week, Jimmy Palmiotti launched his 13th Kickstarter project as t
Jimmy Palmiotto is a Multi Award-winning creator with a wide range of experience in advertising, production, consulting, editorial, film writing, development and production, media presentation and video game development. Not only has he written for DC Comics (Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, Starfire) and Marvel (Marvel Knights) but he is the co-founder of such companies as Event Comics, Black Bull Media, and the current Paperfilms .
As I wrote up for the comic book site Comic-Watch:
After writing this article, I was very interested in finding out more about the project so I contacted Jimmy and asked if he would be willing to do an in-depth interview, to which he obliged.
How did you get into comics (Do you remember your first one or the one that hooked you?)
I don’t have a single specific comic I remember, but comics were all over the place when I was a kid. Having 3 other brothers, our house always had piles of them around. My uncle owned a barbershop and he had a ton and so on. I read anything…Archie’s, Superman, Horror, westerns, fantastic four…anything I could get my hands on. When I was 12 I made a deal with a card shop to let me go through the new books when they came in before he put them out on the rack and so on. I was and still am aggressive about my comic collecting. I love comics. I love making them and I love collecting them. I was hooked from day one and will probably die with a pile of long boxes that will stun, amaze, and scare all my relatives.
When did you start drawing/writing?
Drawing was something I did since I was about 3 years old and the writing came to me in my teens. Granted, the art was not very good and the writing worse, but I never gave up and kept at it…and it finally paid off. My thanks to a boatload of teachers and pros along the way that inspired me to keep pushing to get better. My learning curve is huge, but I feel each year I am getting a tiny bit better. I will never be a big name, but I will have constant work that I feel is pretty good fun.
Which creators influence your work?
I am inspired by anyone that tries to experiment with their talents and takes risks. I don’t always agree with them on everything personally, but I admire and respect them for stepping out of the conventional and taking their talent to places that are unexpected. My first inspiration in comics was the original Image comics guys, so much so that Joe Quesada and I did the same on a super smaller level with Event Comics.
Frank Miller is another guy that comes to mind as well as the Hernandez Brothers and two good friends of mine that were by my side during a lot of what I did continue to inspire me to this day, Billy Tucci and Brian Pulido. They have taken crowdfunding to new heights and constantly experiment and interact with their audiences, something I believe in fully. Like every single commercial is saying these days, we are all in this together.
What was the inspiration behind POP KILL? What would the elevator pitch be?
The simple pitch is two brothers who own competing soda companies hate each other so much they employ a lot of bad people to steal with each other and our story is about a mercenary hired to steal a secret from a scientist and get into a situation that causes a lot of grief for everyone involved. I like to say it’s a bit of the Thomas crown affair type story mixed with some sex, violence, and chaos.
It’s an adult story with nudity and bad language that makes sense to the story.
It was a few years ago but could you talk about the Adventures of Dutch Courage, you and the late/great Darwin Cooke did for Arcade Brewing? What was the inspiration and what was it like making a comic that was told on bottles of a beer six-pack
I was approached by the ARCADE BREWERY a few years back and was asked if I could contribute a story for their 6-Pack Stories line where a sequential comic strip was put on each of the 6-pack bottles. I had an idea for a character called DUTCH COURAGE that I have been floating around and asked my good friend Darwyn Cooke if he had any interest in helping me with the project. Just like Darwyn, anything that was a challenge he wanted to do and we were best of friends, so this was gonna be fun. We wrote the story, presented it to the company and they killed most of it, telling us we went too far and they could never get it approved. We did another take; a calmer take and it got passed and we got the green light to have Darwyn design, letter, and draw the project. Needless to say, he did a brilliant job, as he does with everything he touched and it was a huge success. I have a six-pack staring right at me from across the room. It was fun because we needed each bottle to stand on its own and connect at the same time if you got to read them in order. Silly fun and one of my favorite times working with Darwyn. I would love to one day bring Dutch back into the spotlight, but with Darwyn no longer with us, it will not be easy.
Until then I can empty the beers thinking about my lovely friend and hope wherever he is, he is kicking back with an endless supply, laughing his ass off.
Anything that you are currently working on aside from the Kickstarter that you can or want to mention.
I just finished up HARLEY QUINN AND THE BIRDS OF PREY for DC and other than the Kickstarters I have lined up, I have no other work. That said, I am putting the finishing touches on SEX AND VIOLENCE vol. 3, which will be bigger and wilder than the first two books I have done, and I have a graphic novel about a jungle girl coming after that. Although I am not doing anything for the big companies at the moment, it is a welcome break not to have to work on other properties.
I just don’t know how long that will last.
What are you currently reading that you would recommend?
My mainstay is Love & Rockets. I am a huge fan of both brothers and collect their art as well. MY pull box is every single #1 comic that comes out, so my pile of books is huge to read, but it is from this pile I decide if I want issue 2. I don’t have regular books I read, and with some extra time, I am catching up with the books I buy from each town I travel to. When you work on comics almost all day, it’s hard to jump into another’s books. I try to spend as much time socializing as I can and with my wife.
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Follow Jimmy on Twitter: @jpalmiotti
