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The following is part 1of an interview that Jim
did for an American magazine called Mile High Futures.
Through time I will include the full interview along with many others.
Jim Fitzpatrick interviewed by Leanne C. Harper November Issue-
Mile High Futures
L.H Could you give us some biography please
Jim I'm more a straight artist than a comic strip artist. The sort of work I do appears , as in Germany on art calendars published by the same people who publish Marc Chagall and Salvador Dali. The fascination with America , of course, is that it is a totally different market. I've been a comic collector since I was about eleven or twelve. All the art heroes I have are American comic book artists. Seriously, I grew up with Jack Kirby and Hal Foster. I'm a self taught artist so I learned to draw by copying American Comics. That's where all the influence comes from. That's why when I come to a place like this ( San Diego Comics Convention ) it is an incredible sensation, an incredible trip, because I get to meet all the people that I admire.
I was out last night with people like Dave Stevens and Mike Kaluta. These are artists that I really enjoy. It's a totally different sensation when I go to Germany. I'm going to Frankfurt in October . There you mix with an artistic elite. which is also great fun because they are still the same type of people. But it is not as much fun from my point of view because I didn't grow up that way
My work has brought me into it, whereas I grew up with the American influence. To a European , especially an Irishman, America is where everything happens. whereas to an American , I suppose , Europe is where everything came from. I seem to be able to cross that bridge quite easily and come and go as I please in both directions. It's a great way to be.
L.C: You are known in the U.S. particularly for being the premier Celtic artist. How do you characterise your work?
Jim: My work is always described , and always has been described as Celtic art. It's a phrase I can live with quite easily. There are reasons why I don't like the title, but I live with it now. I'm so used to it, it doesn't even bother me . it suits me because it describes me, I suppose, by what outsiders think that I am, which is a Celt, an Irishman, doing something that is different and is related to the Irish heritage and the Irish culture. I try to expand the consciousness of the Irish heritage and the Irish culture abroad through my work. I also try and do it within Ireland. Because the people I'm dealing with in my book , the tribes called the Tuatha De Danann, are, even in Ireland , probably very very remote and hardly known .
All my books are about the myths and legends of that part of Irish Mythology called the early Irish Mythological cycle. In Ireland even , it is pretty remote . So in America it is probably even more remote. I think myself that my work fits comfortably into the idiom of comics and people who like comics . Simply because it has so much American comic book influence in it. I work in a linear style which means that I draw in line and then colour. I have grown up to draw like that from looking at American comics where that is almost the method of work and also from Japanese woodblock prints. They use exactly the same style . I'm also influenced by French art nouveau and people like Mucha and Beardsley and the pre- Raphaelite movement, but not to any great extent. I am essentially a linear artist, I am essentially a Celtic artist for want of a better word , and it suits me fine.
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