Jim Cheung Interview, Marvel and DC Comics Artist by Alex Grand
Read Alex Grand’s Understanding Superhero Comic Books published by McFarland Books in 2023 with Foreword by Jim Steranko with editorial reviews by comic book professionals, Jim Shooter, Tom Palmer, Tom DeFalco, Danny Fingeroth, Alex Segura, Carl Potts, Guy Dorian Sr. and more.
In the meantime enjoy the show:
CBH goes to San Diego Comic-Con 2019 and interviews a variety of guests in a spontaneous artist alley free for all. Here, Alex Grand interviews Jim Cheung, a British comic book artist, known for his work on series such as Scion, New Avengers: Illuminati, Young Avengers, and Avengers: The Children’s Crusade. Jim Cheung worked on a variety of superhero teams like Force Works, X-Force, Avengers, and DC’s Justice League.
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🎬 Edited & Produced by Alex Grand, ©2021 Comic Book Historians
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📜 Video chapters
00:00 Welcoming Jim Cheung, a comic book artist
00:14 Childhood comic book influences
00:51 Favorite Superheroes
01:06 Favorite Childhood Artist
01:35 How get into comics?
02:01 Stories done for Marvel & DC?
02:38 Justice League
02:57 Drawing team books
03:23 Wrapping up
Transcript (editing in progress):
Alex Grand: Today we have Jim Cheung, which we’re really grateful to be interviewing. Jim, how’re you doing?
Jim Cheung: Great. Thanks for inviting me.
Alex Grand: Jim, tell the audience about your childhood comic book influences. You’ve done a lot of work for both Marvel and DC. What kind of comics did you read as a kid?
Jim Cheung: I read pretty much everything I could get my hands on I think. I started up reading Marvel books, but then I discovered all the DC stuff, but at the time I pretty much grabbed everything I could off the shelves.
Alex Grand: Did you read also things other than Marvel or DC, like Warren magazines and things like that, or was it mostly superhero stuff?
Jim Cheung: It was mostly superhero stuff because that’s what I could get my hands on, because I grew up in the UK, so all the Warrens stuff wasn’t really available to me at the time.
Alex Grand: Oh yeah. I see. Yeah. So then with the superhero stuff, were you more of a Marvel guy or DC guy, or maybe just you just liked it all?
Jim Cheung: Because I’m currently working with DC, I would say I’m pretty neutral, but Spider-Man is my favorite.
Alex Grand: There you go. So now who are artists that you looked at and were inspired by when you were reading those comics?
Jim Cheung: I loved John Byrne growing up.
I loved John Romita Jr.
and all those guys from that period I think. I used to be able to just pick up a Marvel book or DC book and because I spent so much time looking at them, I would be able to tell who drew what instantly.
Alex Grand: Like in ’80s, you were pretty much doing all this. So reading those comics in the ’80s then?
Jim Cheung: Absolutely, yeah that’s how old I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alex Grand: So then how did you get into the comic book business?
Jim Cheung: I just almost fell into it. I knew how to get into the business, so I just produced samples like they told us to and luckily enough it got put in front of the right people and from there it just kind of just went from there. Yeah.
Alex Grand: Around what year was that when you entered the comic book business?
Jim Cheung: Oh boy. It was the mid-nineties. Yeah.
Alex Grand: Tell the audience what stories you did for Marvel, and then also what projects you’re working on for DC now?
Jim Cheung: For Marvel, I’ve done pretty much everything, I started off doing like the Teen Tony Stark story
, to X-Force, 
to Young Avengers, 
to some of the crossovers like Infinity, 
pretty much done a lot of that stuff, and right now I’m in-between projects at DC,
so I’m just doing a lot of covers for them right now. Yeah.
Alex Grand: Well I love what you did with Justice League. That is really beautiful work. I think a lot of people, when they see those pages, they’re just blown away.
Jim Cheung: Thanks very much, yeah, put a lot of effort and time into it and I really wanted to make an impact on my first introduction to those characters, so yeah, but it’s been fun.
Alex Grand: And I also noticed you have no problem doing team books. You can pretty much just draw everybody on that page. Is that daunting at first and then you’re just used it or was that pretty easy from day one?
Jim Cheung: I think I just got used to it, just from over the years. They just kept adding more characters. And really when you’re doing a solo character, it’s not really a solo character, but because there’s always so many background characters. So I just got used to juggling characters on the page, so yes, it’s second nature now.
Alex Grand: Well, we’re really grateful for the discussion today. Thanks so much for joining us.
Jim Cheung: Thanks very much.
Alex Grand: Hope you enjoyed the show folks. We’ll be back next time with my co-host Jim to get deep into the annals of comic history. Cheers.
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Interview © 2021 Comic Book Historians
