EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 14 © 2016 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

56 become the accepted norm today. They will always be comic book characters to me and painting them in a very hyper-realistic manner loses the magic that made them seem special and magical to me as a kid.” His influences over the years have come from myriad places. “Early on I was influenced by all the usual ones you’d suspect: Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Enric, Sanjulian, Bob Larkin, James Bama. All the genre guys who worked within my field. As time goes on, and my interests widened, so did my influences. I began to look at ’50s & ’60s paperback and magazine artists like Robert McGinnis, Al Parker, Robert Maguire, Ron Lesser, and wildlife painters such as John Seerey-Lester, Simon Combes and Guy Coheleach. The worst thing an artist can do is close his eyes to anything outside of his own discipline.” ● ● You can see more of Joe’s work on his official website: www.joejusko.com or on his DeviantArt page: joejusko.deviantart.com and follow him on Twitter at: twitter.com/joejusko ABOVE: The Oz/Wonderland Chronicles (2006), acrylics on board, from the series of the same name, a modern take on the tales of Alice and Dorothy. RIGHT: Peace on Earth (2001), acrylic on board. “Painted shortly after 9/11 as my personal Christmas card in 2001 symbolizing mankind and nature coexisting as one.”