Rob Prior is among the most talented artists you could ever hope to meet in our industry and is seemingly unaware of it with his extremely humble and laid back attitude. He's a refreshing personality in the industry that is not often seen on the convention circuit or in Hollywood for that matter. An irreverent artist known for his various works as much as he's known for his amazing ability to paint simultaneously with both hands. Prior has worked on various projects for Marvel, DC and Image. He’s illustrated works in Spawn, The Terminator, Lost Heroes and even a cover for a Star Trek comic titled Remembrance. Rob has an enormous resume working on film and TV series projects, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to various video games like The Hulk, Ghost Rider, Saints Row and The Darkness II, to name but a few.
I’ve had a great opportunity, not only to interview him, but to spend some time with him throughout the event at one point or another and during the after party he and Adam Simon were hosting while enjoying a few drinks among other amazingly talented people in the industry.
I got to speak to him about an upcoming film he’s producing, directing and illustrating titled Whisper along with his upcoming graphic novel, Blood Merchant as well as his varied other projects. I also got to find out about some of his other comic book based passions as we calmly delved into the inner reaches of this awesome artists mind.
We began, like most people do, exchanging stories about someone in our general circle. He began with Michael Rooker, so I shared my random encounter with Rooker, which occurred that morning regarding my massive laptop.
RP: […] That’s Michael…Totally Michael…That’s Michael to a ‘T’
CBM Manny: Totally Random! I was like WOW, it made my day.
RP: He’s really cool, I love Michael. I mean I’m friends with like 75% of the…[…]
CBM Manny: Yeah, you’re in the middle of a lot of this?
RP: You know it’s weird, because at first, a couple of them were like ‘Hey you’re doing movies’ and ‘hey I heard about your thing’ or whatever it is, then it became […] I started from the beginning and I was like it’s all good, I’m not coming to you because you’re a famous actor, don’t come to me because I’m a director. Let’s just hang out and have a beer. You know, keep things a bit casual before all out sales pitch.
CBM Manny: I agree, most folks don’t understand that this industry runs from who you know, not what you know. Otherwise they hit you with a car salesman pitch and you don’t want to deal with them.
RP: I get that shit all the time, I’m laid back, Adam is like an energy ball […] I’m just sort of I’m good, life’s good, I’m cool, glass of wine, let’s relax first and then, let’s go!
CBM Manny: I threw in your random “Let’s strangle puppies for movie deals” joke in Adam’s interview.
RP [Laughs]: I heard! Oh my god! Dude, you know [laughs] […] I heard that and I was dying!
CBM Manny: I totally had to use that, Strangle puppies for film deals! [Both laughing] So tell me about your life in our industry, comics, your movies, your insane resume to say the least.
RP: What I openly can talk about […] We’re doing Whisper in April, with an amazing writer on the project, Ty Erskin, whose script is absolutely genius. Basically I wanted to create a film that was like a living painting. How can I do a large painting on the screen? Well I make it a silent movie and Ty came to me with this idea. What about a silent…horror movie? I thought as long as its horror-thriller, I’m not interested doing a slasher film. I’m not interested in doing (you know) that kind of thing, it’s great but…
CBM Manny: Horror like Sixth Sense is a Horror film...[previous quote from Adam Simon RE: Whisper]
RP: Yeah, absolutely, it’s not but it is, it’s a psychological mind [frick]! That’s what I want it to be. I want it to be about the characters, how dysfunctional these people are and that they have to become a family to survive. But because it's silent I have to work harder […] Everybody thinks because its silent its easier, but it’s harder to get actors to emote. You can say hey I’m pissed, but can you show it?
So, that’s my challenge, I get to do landscapes and with my shooting style I get to do a giant moving painting and I get to do it about characters that can’t communicate it. It’s really a niche little [frick] up kind of thing. I love when I get to watch a movie and say ‘wow that’s [frick]ed up!’ If I can get grandmothers in the audience to say the word ‘[frick]!’ I win!
"If I can get grandmothers in the audience to say the word '[frick]!' I win!"
CBM Manny [Laugh]: I have to use that as a quote with your permission of course…I totally have to use that!
We spoke about the various other series he’s working on that are somewhat outside of the comic book industry, mostly with work at Warner Bros. like Red Brick Road and a few others he is technically not allowed to speak about yet.
RP [laughing]: Dude! Absolutely, Please do! Warner Bros is working with me on Red Brick Road that’s moving along great, based on a concept I created from the Wizard of Oz. Tim, I always [frick] up Tim’s last name, Tim Schlattmann, is our showrunner and was a showrunner on Dexter. He’s an amazing guy, Jeff Krelitz, Mark Wolper and Troy Lee and many others. All of those guys are producers on the project, we have a shit ton of [frick]ing producers on this. That’s going well.
Rob is in the process of working on a large amount of art for sale on top of working on these productions. His usual scenario, in the past, was working in the art department for various films and now pushing forward as a producer and director. He talks to me about being a part owner of Heavy Metal Magazine and how he is keeping himself ‘always hungry’. His relationship with Adam Simon and their growing ‘bromance’
He talked to me about some of his struggles with various producers, even though a bad experience with any number of people can exist, how he was capable of taking those experiences and pulling the positive out of them. One case was his connection to Adam Simon. Where he was struggling to not sully someone's name in the explanation so I relieved him by saying:
CBM Manny: It’s hard if you marry the wrong woman, you were in love and it seemed to be the right decision then it all goes south and horrible, but even though it was bad you made this wonderful baby! So you might be connected to this person that you dislike intensely but you gave birth to a completely new and wonderful person. So you're grateful to them anyway.
RP: Ooooh, YES! That’s exactly it. That really is it! I remember the introduction to Adam and he walks in and starts talking about comics right away, how he was such a Punisher nerd and I was hoping that damn ‘I hope this guy is cool’ […] We had a lot in common, even going back to when we were both fighters. I remember a point in my life I quit art to be a bouncer at a bar, that’s how much I loved fighting, something he’s done himself.
Adam is like an energizer bunny…although he puts that thing to shame. He makes the energizer bunny look like it's a paraplegic. It’s insane, I don’t have that kind of energy […]
CBM Manny: It’s probably why the relationship works? One of you is rooted like a calm oak while the other is blasting off into the sky. You keep him grounded and he gets you out of the studio!?
RP: Yeah and he’s funny and I’m not…he’s a funny mother[frick]er! It works and he’s become family. Because all of our work has combined. We don’t really need a whole lot of people, we can just do this ourselves. It’s a ride and we’ve been more about the work and if people want join in, awesome, come on--let's go! If not, oh well you know…[frick] you and your pig tails!
CBM Manny [Laughing almost crying]: Are there lot of pigtail folks (in your opinion) that need to be [frick]ed over in Hollywood?
RP [Still Laughing]: There sure are! […] We’re herding them, into fields full of them, all with pigtails. You know it really is true in Hollywood everyone is paid to say no. But when you can come to the table with everything we bring it’s harder to say no. […]
We continued our conversation with the various things they enjoy doing from directly being in contact with their fans on various social media to how he loves to be available to sign and give out his work. Various times throughout the weekend as I walked passed their booth in a mad hustle to complete my interviews and get my work done, I caught various moments where Rob would give away some of his amazing artwork to children. During the course of this interview a young man approached his booth and pointed out that Rob gave him an accidental extra original art piece and wanted to give back. Rob appreciated his honesty and told him to keep it and let his girlfriend (who wanted a different piece) to take the art she wanted as well. I even saw a wonderful little girl in cosplay take a photo with him just before the show ended and he gave her one of his two handed original pieces on Batman for free. "She was just too cute I had to give her some art."
It’s hard to measure this kind of talent and humility in Hollywood, let alone the Comic Book Industry. I know I’m getting close to the fluffy 'how awesome is this guy piece', but I wanted folks out there to really get a glimpse of Rob Prior and his excellent body of work. If you haven’t seen his art or found a chicken head in his original paintings you're not living life!
RP: You know I do all of my art shit and Adam acts and he’s an amazing actor, he writes and is able to pull a lot of sources together. Between us, we just decided we could do anything we wanted to do.
CBM Manny: Sounds like a pretty big bromance to me!
RP: It is […] you can set your mind to anything but it’s about how bad you want it. We want it bad.
CBM Manny: Tell me about your art…
RP [Chuckles]: LOTS OF ART!
CBM Manny: I grew up around artists like Victor Muniz who is well known in Miami and Pablo Donoso another amazing fine artist but your comic book art is amazing. Even they’d be in awe of your illustrations and comic art. I want to know more about your current project Blood Merchant?
RP: Oh thank you so much man, I’m doing my last graphic novel right now […], Blood Merchant. I’ll show you some of the pages from it, after the interview I'll show you some pieces. I didn’t write it but I’m doing it for a company, I like the story but the reason I came onboard, do you know who Rider Strong is? From Boy Meets World?
CBM Manny: Yes, I liked him in Cabin Fever.
RP: He and his brother wrote this amazing book and I had to illustrate it. Mike Benaroya came up with the story, producer from Lawless, tons and tons of movies, guy is amazing and I had to do it. Little did I know that it was going to be 160 [frick]ing plus pages of pain.
CBM Manny: How many pages are you in so far?
RP: About half way through and will be done in the next few months, by Christmas I want it done.
CBM Manny: Are you pulling out 2-4 pages a week?
RP: I’m going to try and knockout 20 pages in two weeks.
CBM Manny: WOW! I threw out a number from a project we were doing with Bo Hampton and that was 4 pages a week! 10 pages a week is your goal? Wow. That’s nuts.
RP: I can do it, if it’s all I have to do that week, I can do that plus more. Meetings are what tire me out. Over this weekend I’ll have completed multiple paintings. […]
We continued to talk about his other projects in illustrations, from a line of nerdy greeting cards, to some gallery showings coming up where he has 47 large paintings on display. Including his current comic book and science fiction based paintings on various pop culture characters. From Doctor Who to Star Wars, Wolverine and many others. He also talked to me briefly about his on-stage painting with Tech N9ne during their performances aside from the various art based projects he’s done with the musical group
RP: Tech N9ne, They're great people, but they lied to me! [chuckles]
CBM Manny: Oh really?
RP: I have stage fright…really big stage fright. They told me don’t worry because the light will be in my eyes and I wouldn’t be able to see anyone and I was terrified of being on stage.
But I’m getting ready to go on stage. He looks at me and say brother don’t worry you’ll be fine you won’t see any of them in the audience. He lied, looked me straight in the face and lied [chuckles]. I walked out there and saw thousands of people and I was saying, ‘oh [frick]!’ I turn around and I’m thinking to myself I can’t do this. I remember she had her arms crossed and looked at me with a face suggesting go out and do it! But she says she was just there smiling going eh, eh, eh. I thought she was going to kill me. So I went out there and did it. I ended up painting a 4 foot by 8 foot painting in an hour and a half. I’ve done that several times with Tech. We have a huge leather bound art book coming out for that too. Painting on stage is magic with those guys […]
CBM Manny: All of it, this kind of quality work [pointing to the various paintings I was surrounded by in his booth]?
RP: Oh yeah, I always strive to do my best, no matter what. No matter what it takes out of me. So being on stage with him. Awesome! I love being on stage with him.
CBM Manny: Are there going to be any trailers for Whisper anytime soon? Anything I can pull from at the moment to post for our CBM readers?
RP: You will be the first! I will make sure you have it before anyone else. We’re going to start leaking some material soon, I’m going to go the route that I’m comfortable with, which is my fans and social media first. Before the big marketing campaign. I’m going to start doing some posters soon. I’ll make sure you have whatever we leak first, [frick] those other bastards…
CBM Manny [laughs]: Awesome! [frick] those other bastards, in the pigtails! [Facetiously]
RP [laughing]: Absolutely, [frick] those other pigtail bastards, you get it first!
CBM Manny: Real quick because we’re the last here as the building closes down around us. It’s been amazing hanging out with you this weekend and to get to interview you. What project in comics, if you had your choice would you like to illustrate?
RP: And do anything I’d want to do? I’ll tell you exactly and I’d want to write it to, I work on stories, I love to do stories as well as the illustrations. Dead Man or Spectre!
CBM Manny: Spectre, yes, great choice!
RP: You know it’s been great to read those characters. But I don’t think we’ve really delved into them, they haven’t really been developed yet. I’d want to put a twist on Spectre and give him some new life. He’s complex. How do you write for God.
CBM Manny: Right! He’s pretty much god or rather his vengeance, his wrath. How would you develop characters that complex and give them a twist? It would not be easy.
RP: I think you gotta think of a new set of stories where both Spectre and Dead Man are together, but you do dual storylines. One side of the book would be Spectre and the other Dead Man and they eventually converge. I’d do this like a 4 book series and do two separate off-shoot books after. […]
CBM Manny: Very George RR Martin of you.
RP: Yes! He has that signature style. You’d tell the stories from other perspectives, like Batman observing this whole [frick]ing thing. Bring a completely new take on the characters. Both of these are my favorite comic characters too. Man, I’d kill that shit! That would be what I’d do.
CBM Manny [chuckle]: Anything you wanted to add for our CBM Readers?
RP: Brother thank you for your time.
CBM Manny: No thank you! I wanted to sit down with you throughout the weekend and even though we got to hang out Friday we didn’t have the chance to formally record and speak. So I’m glad I found a small window today for us to chat.
RP: Are you here tomorrow [Sunday]?
CBM Manny: Absolutely, I’ll be reporting on everything I can get my little Cuban hands on.
RP: Awesome, come by the after party, we’ll hang, we’ll chat some more and we’ll get Adam to talk more about his deep man love of the Punisher.
CBM Manny [laughs]: Sounds like a plan!
Rob Prior is one of my favorite indie as well as mainstream modern comic artists. His work speaks for itself. I wasn’t planning on seeing him this weekend but was delighted that he was at Wizard World and I was able to pick his brain on the myriad projects he has lined up. Look up his art, his comic art, his stage shows and his upcoming movie and TV series,
Whisper and
Red Brick Road which you’ll eventually see me post info for; also look up his many appearances at events where he loves to connect with his comic book fans. If he's coming to an event near you, hit him up at his twitter
@prior2art his
RobPriorOfficial and his website
www.robprior.com for more info on everything in the universe according to Rob Prior. As always hit the giant red thumb, this time i'm sure it will make Rob happy in the pants just as much as it does me.