John Pearson

Who are you?

My name is John Pearson. I was always drawn to comics, which is a very age old story, but it was 2000 AD in the UK that I remember seeing these pretty weird things, this mixed medium styles. Looking into more things, I realized comics they’re not all superheroes, and they can be a bit weird and a bit dark and nasty.

What have been your biggest inspirations for your craft?

I studied fine art, and I’ve always liked people like Francis Bacon. I was drawn to expressionism as a way to express mood and emotion, but I’ve mixed [it] with different styles. So I think what I always try to do in comics is think about the mood of the piece, rather than just what it’s showing what the character is feeling, or what I want the viewer to feel. So my style kind of changes quite a bit. It’s quite fluid, and I have a lot of divergent approaches to what I do. But that makes it really interesting is I never quite know what the page might look like. I know the mood that I want, and style of how I’m gonna get there. It’s kind of a journey.

What’s going through your head as you work on this current piece?

I’m kind of going over at the minute and might have been some black contrast for it. So I’m putting black on this side to contrast with the highlights of the face, and then white on that side of the shadows. So at the minute I’m kind of going to build this on top with some black, bring out some white.

I like the cinematic palettes. Cinema is, I suppose, one of my main influences for my color style. But that kind of goes hand in hand with this idea of motion is one of the key factors. So if you think about emotional intensity, then you’re going to want a lot kind of interesting, right? Kind of poets are looking at disorderly, especially for what I do, which is like a lot of horror stuff or a lot of weird and more unusual stuff.

Where can people find you?

You can find me online at johnpearson.co.uk. I can also be found with @JohnJPearson and my Instagram.