A day came last month when I asked Rey Ortega (previously mentioned) if he wanted to do an interview. He agreed, because I flashed him the bedroom eyes, and since those are pretty close to the serial killer eyes, it’s hard to say no. The next day I noticed that he had an interview up on Fecal Face. Bummer. Most of my interviews ask pretty much the same thing, so I had to find a way to not be entirely redundant. I came up with the following interview at 2 in the AM. Lucky for all of you Rey is busy and I am lazy, which means that it took a while for the interview to actually make it this far. Even less redundancy. Just a little warning, there isn’t much about art in this interview. Honestly, it’s better because of that. All the retardedness you can handle after the jump.

1. Name, Rank, Training?

Rey Philip Ortega, I’m a level 25 chaotic neutral half-orc thief.

2. How do you like Canada?

I like Canada well enough, although I would like to see more of it. Everything you’ve heard about it is true, polite people, bacon, Wolverine, igloos and bacon.

3. Why are you an artist? What brought you here?

I guess you could say it’s my ‘calling’, but the truth is it’s hard to imagine doing anything else but creating stuff. As if doing something other than art would be a betrayal to some cosmic force, lets say….Galactus. [ed. note: In 2005 a friend and I started The International Church of Galactus. For more details on the church and how to become a member, hit yourself in the face with a hardbound Marvel comics anthology.]

4. Let’s have a guidance counselor question. If you could do anything, anything at all, what would it be, and why?

That’s easy, I’d be Indiana Jones, and failing that, his little asian pal Short Round. I like adventure and punching nazi’s in the face.

5. Which country would you describe yourself as?

Denmark, home to Vikings, Lego, and according to Wikipedia is “The happiest place in the World” (take that, Disney Land!). A brutal sea-faring savage who’s hobbies include playing with small plastic bricks.

6. If you could punch a dog, which dog would you punch and where?

I’d probably never punch a dog, since any dog could destroy me. But I’m not a big fan of those stuck up poodles at the Westminster Dog show. They can go to hell. I’d punch em in right in their foofy tails.

7. Did you ever do something that you probably shouldn’t have and let somebody else take the rap, you bastard?

I used to build models as a kid. X-wing fighters, tanks, dragons, you name it. One time I broke another friend’s model corvette and blamed it on (impossibly) a baby. This is a pretty boring story though, sorry!

8. Did you ever see your grandparents making out? What did (would) you do?

No I haven’t, thankfully. I would remove my eyes with chopsticks and undergo a 14 year hypno-therapy program to remove the image from my brain.

9. What (who) are you trying to do with your art?

Haaha…

I’m trying to express universal ideas and feelings in simple ways. I’m trying to harness all the complexities in my mind and distill it into a single image. I’m trying to calm my furious heart with meditative art.

I’m trying to get with Lisa Loeb with my art.

10. Top five most badass things:

5 - Ash cuts off his own hand and makes a chainsaw prosthesis to replace it.

4 - Rodimus Prime, lighting our darkest hour. (Even though Hot Rod is a bit of a wanker).

3 - Frank Frazetta, learning how to draw with his left hand after suffering from a stroke.

2 - Jumping over Bowser to win the game.

1 - Captain Jean-Luc Picard U.S.S. Enterprise.

11. How many times have you dressed in women’s clothing?

If your junk is falling out of womens panties, does that only count as half? [ed. note: depends on if you’re wearing the panties or she is. Heyyyy-O.]

12. On average, how many gumballs do you think you can fit in your mouth at any given moment?

Seven, which roughly equates to three jawbreakers.

13. Why is your mouth full of gumballs?

Becausmmph youmph askmphsed me to.

14. On a scale of Truman Capote - Liberace, how gay is this interview?

Tom Cruise.

15. Sketch something for us really quickly, then scan it or take a picture of it so we can see your raw style.

Here’s a sketch that I’ll probably develop into something more. I keep things super rough and dirty at this point, and figure out most of the image on the final - I like to think of my work as huge elaborate sketchbook doodles. I don’t know if you can really see whats going on, but an old man is running away from a huge crashing monster on the left, as chunks of debris and pillars collapse all around (I can see it! Can’t you!?!).

You can see more of Rey’s work at www.rey-o.com and on his Flickr.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 9:14 am and is filed under Art, Comics, Illustration, Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.