Comics With No Purpose: a Jeff Jank Interview
by Antonio Solinas

 

     Hi Jeff. Many of our readers might not bee too informed about your work. Do you want to introduce yourself?

     I live in Los Angeles and draw pictures half the time and “art direct” a record label the other half of the time. These things overlap of course.
My name is Jeff Jank. That’s not my real name. The story about my name is long and super boring, so just I’ll just lie and say it’s the name the C.I.A. has given me to protect my real identity.

     When did you first become interested in illustration and when did you decide to become a professional illustrator?

     Strange as it might sound, I’m usually surprised when someone refers to me as an illustrator even though that’s what I do quite often in my day to day work. Although drawing has been one of my main activities since I was a child, I found myself doing this job through a few twists and turns, by luck or by accident. There are so many illustrators better than me that I’m forced to find my own niche with each drawing project.

     What are your influences? Are there any influences that people might not pick up immediately?

     Movies, French movies, Italian, American, pretty much the entire history of cinema has some influence on what I do directly or indirectly. However, I’ve never been a big fan of animated movies. There’s a revolving door of 20 or 30 artists that I’m always going back to reading about or reviewing their work - Marcel Duchamp, Goya, Raymond Pettibone, Francis Bacon - I’m influenced by them. And I’m influenced by pretty girls.

     How did you hook up with the people at Stones Throw?

    I’ve known the founder Chris (Peanut Butter Wolf) for a long time. Years before Stones Throw we were working on music or music-related things together. People see Chris as a DJ or record producer but to me, a big talent of his is pulling a lot of creative people into his business & social sphere to work projects together. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why we have this label. The label manager Egon and I joined on around the same time, so it was just us three doing the label out of a house. I’ve always thought of it as a long-running creative project rather than a job.

     Stones Throw records have got a very strong musical identity. How do you approach the package design of the records?

     Different every single time. I don’t do all the packages. Some of them I work with other artists, and a couple of them I don’t mess with at all. In the packages I do, the music itself and artist’s personality are always the thing I focus on. I don’t try to give any of the records a pre-determined Stones Throw identity. Some of them are drawn, some are photo-based, etc.

     You switch effortlessly between a very “graphic” approach (like the Quasimoto covers) and a more “official” design style (like the Madlib Invades Blue Note project). Do you have a favourite style?

     I like the scrubby Quasimoto drawings best. They’re by no means consistent in an of themselves though. I’ve tried to keep them a little consistent, but I’m simply not disciplined enough for that. There’s a proud tradition of unprofessional-looking illustration in hip hop music - drawn covers for Scholly D and Digital Underground in the 80’s are perfect examples.
      The Madlib joint on Blue Note was fun because it was a chance to employ that classic Reid Miles style that so many people have duplicated, but always for records that are not jazz, and not on blue note. Although I like to use a lot of rough drawings and dirty, soiled paper for Madlib’s records, I’m really a fan of slick, uncluttered packages with classy typography.

     You created the graphic image of Quasimoto: how did it come about? Did you get any input from Madlib?

     I adapted that image after it was first created by Keith Beats aka DJ Design who is also an old friend. He drew three of those guys in different colors for an early Quasimoto single. I remember him telling me they represented the three members of Madlib’s other group Lootpack. It was such an odd cover that I was inspired to continue it. When Madlib recorded the song Bad Character I used one of those three characters to represent Quasimoto’s evil teenager side that he talks about in the song. Quas himself, as an alias of Madlib, is actually “the unseen” represented by the ghostly figure that is seen driving the Cadillac on that album - you were literally not suppose to see Quasimoto. It was the audience who identified the short furry character as Quasimoto himself, and with later releases we sort of just went along with that.
      Madlib didn’t have direct input on the art verbally but the music is a direct influence on everything. I identified with the humor and this sense of lonely suburban sprawl in the music on the first album, and the more frenzied adult-oriented problems of the second album.

     You are also involved in music projects (Captain Funkaho, for example). Why do you think so many people in illustration have a strong interest in music?

     It’s all expression - writing, music, art, etc. They’re not as separated as they sometimes seem.

     What is your favourite cover of yours? And the one you like less?

     Dudley Perkins’ A Lil’ Light is a favorite, meaning the package as a whole not just the cover. It’s got a simple illustrated silhouette, ripped paper, pages from my journal, a movie still, some computer graphic design, and a couple photos. I think they’re all appropriate for the record, and it’s exactly what I was feeling about that album.
      The things I like less are usually one or two details about a design or illustration. They tend to keep me up at night and bug me much longer than they should.

     We know you are not into comics anymore. Do you remember what the last comic you read was?

     I’ve always been into comics, but my interests change. I saw underground comics of the 70s before I saw the superhero stuff. I drew my own series of Star Wars just because I wanted to participate in the myth. Even at that age though, I didn’t separate drawing from storytelling - it’s just as much about ideas and story telling as illustration.
      My dad use to have a company installing solar heating into private homes and he’d draw comics about him and his co-workers going to clients houses and running amok all over them and pissing off their roofs. He had me help him on a few. That’s a pretty good way to learn comics as a kid, right on the job. Later on I got back into the underground comics in the 90s, artists like Dame Darcy. I loved the comics but rarely read them. I like them either really good looking, or really funny.
      Oh, and to answer your question, I can’t remember the last comic I read.

     Do you want to tell us something about your Hookie and Baba comic characters?

     I started drawing Hookie and Baba as an outlet for my frustration of living in big concrete box in Oakland. Fixed format: 5 panels, drawn quickly, and the outcome of panel 5 is unknown to me when I’m on panels 1-2. I used to have it so that one of them always sabotages, tricks or murders the other, but I relaxed that rule. Influenced by Spy V Spy, Freak Bros, and the short lewd strips by Ivan Brunetti. Also influenced by my man Scott Crackrock’s Carter, a self-published comic he used to do in Florida. Carter showed me the joy of a good comic that had no punch-line... Or no purpose, for that matter.

      Any hopes for a trade paperback of Hookie and Baba?

     Hookie and Baba is strictly some photocopies and hand-distribution. I wouldn’t have it any other way - they’d be too incriminating when I run for President in 2016.

      What are your current projects?

     I’m currently working on a plan to do twice as many covers for Stones Throw as last year, but in half the time. I don’t know how to do this yet, but I’m workin’ on it.

     The question we always ask: what would be the three comics a genuine comic fan should have on his shelf?

     The Bible, Herodotus’s The Histories, and something from Kirby or Crumb.

     And since you are connected to Stones Throw, what would be the three records a genuine hip hop fan should have?

     Two copies of Super Duck Breaks, and a third for backup.