one. It was the same emotional cycle — defeat, angry train ride home, wondering if I was ever going to make this work. I only did two pieces for him, but that first job felt huge. I made about 300 bucks. I think I spent more on the train. Then I got some color work for a really great magazine that focused Joe Vaux: I was super lucky. A lot of my youth was being dragged to my parents' art shows or their friends' art shows. It was just part of my life. I got to see a lot of things. It didn't mean much to me then, but the exposure was awesome. I wouldn't be who I am without it. Birdy: When did you start exploring your imagination with your art? Joe Vaux: D&D was kind of a launch point in some ways. Drawing your character or a monster you might encounter. My drawing style took a lot longer to develop. I was better with color early on, but it took me a while to get comfortable and create something I was interested in. Sculpting and building came more naturally. Along with D&D, I'd build little dioramas, castles, pathways. They were more for taking pictures, putting those miniatures into scenes. But the illustrator Joe didn't really emerge until late college. Maybe I'm just a slow learner, or maybe I wasn't being instructed in a way that worked for me. Birdy: Or maybe you just had a bigger scope. Joe Vaux: Maybe. I had a lot of grand ideas, and when I tried to execute them as drawings, they didn't come out the way I imagined. That's probably the frustration a lot of people feel. And when you're surrounding yourself with work by professionals it's humbling. I just kept at it. I knew time would help. I know people who dropped out of high school and went straight into the industry, but I needed those four years, and then some. I needed that extra time to blossom. Birdy: At what point did you find your voice — the Joe Vaux style? Joe Vaux: My style really didn't materialize until after college. There were no more assignments except the ones I gave myself and I realized I had to keep making things. Along with a few illustration jobs and trying to grease the wheels at DC Comics, I'd do little paintings of characters and send them in. That's when things started happening. It was more mixed media then. There was this balance between a punk attitude — not worrying too much about perfection, keeping it free and energetic — while refining and tightening certain areas. That was probably when I started figuring out how I wanted my images to look instead of simply completing assignments. Birdy: What was it like getting into the industry as a professional artist? Joe Vaux: I pounded the pavement in New York City, dropping off portfolios all over. Steven Heller at The New York Times gave me a chance. He needed a black-and-white spot illustration for the back of the book review section. The deadlines were insanely early. He gave me the job on a Monday and said, "Give me some options tomorrow." There was no email. I had to physically bring them in by 7 a.m. I'd get home from the city around 1 p.m. then think through ideas and start drawing. I did three drawings and he didn't like any of them. He said, "I'll give you one more day. Try again.” So I did three more, and thankfully he liked No. 150 on environmental travel. Soon after that, I met Ralph Bakshi. He was really the bridge into animation and my first consistent job. Meanwhile, I was still trying to get into DC Comics. There was a really nice guy there who eventually he gave me a shot, but I honestly didn't know what to do with it. I didn't have friends in the industry who could explain the process. The assignment was to color a four-page Lobo comic. He handed me printouts of the original art. I remember thinking, Do I just paint directly on these? I was too shy to ask. I didn't have a computer or scanner, so digital wasn't an option. I ended up watercoloring them. It looked like complete shit. But Ralph Bakshi was different. He was more of an artist's artist. He liked messy work, paint, rough edges, my sense of color, things that were a little edgier. That became a consistent gig. He was doing shorts for what eventually became Cartoon Network, though it was still Hanna-Barbera. They had this program where animators could pitch original shows and produce three- or five-minute shorts. That's where things like Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls came from. Ralph had two insane projects. They were kind of bluesy, kind of jazzy about this weird rubbery character with a cockroach friend who played saxophone called Malcom and Melvin. He never gave me scripts or outlines. There was almost no direction. But one thing I've always been good at is delivering work on time. Whether it was great or not, I don't know, but I got the job done. That relationship evolved over about a year. Then he pitched a show to HBO called Spicy City. It used his rubbery character designs in these Blade Runner-style stories. He told me, "They want to do it. They're opening a studio in LA. I'm not going, but I'll put in a good word for you.” That’s what brought me out here. When I got to HBO, they initially put me on Spawn. I thought, Okay, I'll try to keep up. The people there were fantastic, willing to help me learn. It was almost like graduate school. Birdy: Being thrown into the deep end by great mentors is just the best. Is this what led you to Family Guy? Joe Vaux: So I worked at HBO with a bunch of different people. They hired this one guy, Alfred Gimeno. He was one of those young prodigytypes. He could draw right out of the womb. He worked on a lot of classic old-school animation like Scooby-Doo. HBO started looking at graphic novels and various edgy comics because they wanted to make adult animation. They hired Alfred to figure out how to turn those comics and pitch materials into possible shows. He's a super bubbly guy and helped me through a couple of projects there. Once HBO kind of crumbled as an animation entity, he ended up working on Dilbert. The show was on UPN at the time, competing with The Simpsons. It was primetime adult animation. My boss on that show became the main producer on Family Guy. I worked with her for two and a half years and when Family Guy came back, they gave me an opportunity. I started as a revisionist, correcting directors' notes, things like that. Twenty-two years later, I'm directing. It's been a great place to work. PUNISHER
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