Why So Blu?

Austin Comic Con: Artist Rob Guillory

Even after taking home an Eisner Award for Best Ongoing Series, I’m still going to argue that the documented work of Tony Chu does not get nearly enough credit. Chew, written by John Layman and drawn by Rob Guillory, has had significant ongoing success; enough to draw (no pun intended) artist Guillory to the 2013 Austin Comic Con. The master with a marker filled me in a few details on the future of Chew as well as his own future works.

For starters, Rob Guillory made his imprint on the weekend convention before even setting foot in the place. There were a variety of variant covers of The Walking Dead (issue #1) given out to patrons, one of which was drawn by Guillory. The issues were in big demand as one vendor even offered up a $10 credit at his store in exchange for the issue.

The first thing I asked the artist was where things are at with the popular series from Image/Skybound. Minutes after I bought the hardbound edition of Volume 3, Guillory informed me that book marks the halfway point of the series. Keep in mind I knew nothing of this prior to meeting him so the news came much to my surprise.

WSB: Rob, you mentioned we just reached the halfway point of the series. Tell us more about that.
RG: Well we just finished issue #38 a couple of weeks ago, so yeah, we’re almost two-thirds of the way there.

WSB: How much longer do you expect to be working on it? Obviously there are 22 issues, but what kind of time frame can you put that in?
RG: Realistically I can handled about 8 or 9 issues a year. It’ll be probably another three years. I mean it’s gonna be more than 22. There’s only 22 of Chew, but we’re gonna have 2 or 3 more of Pollo one-shots, so that won’t be in the numbers (of remaining Chew). It’ll be extra stuff, so it’ll probably closer to 25.

WSB: Now is the storyline pretty much already mapped out?
RG: Yeah, we had certain milestones from the beginning that we’re hitting. We leave a lot open just to keep it interesting, but the milestones, we knew what was going to happen in issue #15, in #30, in #45, we know the important stuff, so yeah, it’s mapped out. We know how it ends and everything.

WSB: Okay, so we got about a couple more years and three more hard bounds to go?
RG: Yeah, yeah. Probably two and a half to three years, three more hardcovers, yeah that’s it.

WSB: Any projects after Chew in the works right now?
RG: Yeah, I can’t talk about them though. Some creator-owned stuff, probably some stuff with Marvel too. I don’t know. That’s a long time for me, so we’ll see.

WSB: Thank you very much for your time!
RG: Yeah, no problem!