Friday, March 29

Jill Thompson, illustrator and cartoonist: “Everything I wanted to be as a child disappeared to be an artist”

One of the narrowest streets in the city of Seville hides the best comic book store in the world. Is named Nostromo, and it is considered this way by the San Diego Comic On, where each year it is established which will be the best store in the entire planet of its style. The usual peace of one of those streets in the Andalusian capital where nothing usually happens was broken last Friday by a endless queue of guys and girls (not necessarily very young) who wanted to meet an American woman: Jill Thompson.

And it’s not trivial. This artist is known around the world thanks to her comic characters that have earned her nine Eisner awards, the most important awards in the sector, but she assures, just before receiving dozens of fans, that, despite her international recognition , meeting his admirers “is something incomparable”.

long list of characters

The author of characters Sandman by Neil Gaiman, and his own series Scary Godmotherwho has also participated in The Invisibles, Swamp Thing or in wonder-womandid not want it to be a signature of copies to use, but even gave them through a raffle drawings of one of her characters made by her that same afternoon, specifically of the protagonist of The Witch Godmothersomething that for a fan has an incalculable value.

For Thompson it was the first meeting with the Andalusian public, and she claimed to feel “very excited to see the huge queue of people outside, in the street”, because “despite the awards, seeing the response of the people in an act like this produces an unrepeatable sensation”.

Queues from very early

There were already queues from early afternoon to get a signed copy from an author who began her career in comics working for publishers like First Comics and Now Comics in the 1980s, and went on to become the artist on Wonder Woman, from DC Comics, in 1990, in addition to being one of the most important women in the comic industry of the last 30 years.

After her stage with the superheroine, she participated in one of the most famous series of the ninth art, Sandman, by the English writer Neil Gaiman, a work that has had its adaptation to a television series this year, and of which he confessed that, once he returns home, “it is one of the pending tasks that I have to do”. In fact, he revealed that “although it may be a secret”, he is working on the merchandise of this work, among a large number of pending issues in his study.

All this will alternate with Death: at death’s doorbased on the famous character of Sandman either The Witch Godmother winner of an Eisner for the best work and turned into an animated series in the United States. And that, in a career that has continued to rise with his participation in other series that today are considered some of the masterpieces of American comics, such as The Invisiblesby Grant Morrison; fablesby Bill Willigham, or transmetropolitanby Warren Ellis.

“I wanted to be a dancer or an archaeologist”

Jill Thompson is one of those people who exudes happiness for what she does, who, following the old saying, gets paid not to work, but to do what she likes, because years ago she found her true vocation: “All my life, from a very young age, , I knew I wanted to do something related to art, although I also wanted to be a dancer or an archaeologist and more, but in the end they all ended up disappearing, and I ended up being an artist”.

With this premise, when he returns home he will be commissioned for two covers, new stories for The Witch Godmother and even a wish: “I want to paint things that I have seen traveling the world, and that I feel like drawing with my style”.





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