ARTIST SPOTLIGHT | An Interview with Issue #8 Cover Artist, Jordan Alarcon
Born in the supple, meaty womb of Southern California, Jordan is an aspiring Wunderkind and storyboard artist. He spends his time listening to German opera, befriending all the dogs, and making butt jokes. He likes pine trees, the color yellow, and talking about—but not listening to—smooth jazz. He spends his days creating mad-lib templates to supercharge his artist bio writing process.
Jordan's work can be found on Instagram at @jordanalarcon.
Planet Scumm: What is your favorite animal and why?
JORDAN ALARCON: I love the American Bison the most because of how sturdy they are. They’re big, they’re free, they run towards the storm, which I think is a powerful image. They’re nature’s rectangle and I relate to that.
PS: What was the inspiration behind your Planet Scumm artwork?
JA: A lot of this painting was influenced by the work of Italian futurist artist, Luigi Russolo—specifically his use of concentric circles.
Obviously, the story that it’s based on, Bookends was a huge inspiration too. I really found it charming and engaging.
The pose of the figure in front is partially a nod to Nirvana’s Nevermind. I don’t know how that links up thematically, but it came to mind when I was designing.
PS: What did you learn while making this piece?
JA: I learned a lot about my own workflow. In the past, with projects like this, I tended to kind of make it up as I went along. This was the first time that I really made an effort to know exactly what I was doing before I got started. I wrote everything down in a text file that had all the design elements I wanted to include, all the color choices and how it related to the story.
From there I made a bunch of thumbnails and picked the best one. Even after all that prep, I still had all sorts of great little spontaneous moments that made it into the final cover, which I think I was afraid wouldn’t get if I planned so much. I’ll be taking all of that with me moving forward.
PS: Marry/smooch/kill: The works of Nietzche, Lord Byron, and Kanye West.
JA: Smooch Lord Byron, cause he’s the original bad-boy of poetry, marry Nietzche, because his mix of nihilism and self improvement speaks to me, and kill Kanye West, not because I want to, but because the format of the question dictates that I do.
PS: If the robots take over and impose a system of fascism that in practice works better than our democratic govt would you rebel or conform?
JA: That depends, I guess. Like, are they racist robots? I can’t really get down with that. If we’re talking just about like, the cold unfeeling logic of robots vs the scrappy underdogginess of humans, I gotta say, I’m going with the robots.
Like, I’ve seen us as a species in action, and I’m pretty sure that what humanity needs is some outside force to take our keys away and tuck us into bed, y’know? If robots can be that for us, I’m on board. I’d rather they didn’t kill us though. Or use us for fuel or whatever.
PS: What are you working on now?
JA: Right now I’m in school, training to be a storyboard artist. I’m also working on an art book about a deep-sea-diver who's also a noir-detective. [Concept sketch below] Other than that I’m just trying to wrap my hands around social media.
Jordan’s most recent painting
