MONSTERS!

For as far back as my memory goes, I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED GODZILLA, which means that my memory of FIRST seeing Godzilla is lost, I remember the first time I saw the original King Kong on TV, it was 1978 and I was 2, I remember thinking to myself” This is like Godzilla, only not as cool.” But after that i would watch, or read, ANYTHING with monsters in it.

HOWEVER! At this same time I was obsessed with the original SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU? Cartoon! SO I was already familiar with , and delighted by iconic horror themes.

I was similarly subject to ALIEN when I was 7, my parents put me in a room with cable on… and said “You’ll like this …it’s a monster movie” Then they went and entertained their dinner party.

When I was 8, I checked out JAWS from the library, and read my first adult novel in 3 days. I then became an avid reader of Horror Novels, By Stephen King and the like. I still read a LOT of young adult stuff too. I was also VERY interested in the paranormal by now as well; because WOULDN’T IT BE COOL IF IT WAS ALL REAL!??

Then Skip ahead some more years to 1984 or 85, when I was 10 or 11 and a childhood friend was spending the night, she suggested we ask my Mom to rent FRIDAY THE 13th : THE FINAL CHAPTER. And of course we had all heard what sadistic and freakishly horrifying movies they were. Final chapter had JUST come out on video. and part 5: A New Beginning wasn’t even out yet. Well, there was no way I thought my Mom would let us rent a Friday movie, but it never hurts to ask….AND SHE TOTALLY DID IT! without even questioning it! Hahaha! Well, let’s just say that after watching Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. The 11 year old Zornow was in a shaky state of shock, and felt completely violated. At first I REALLY didn’t take it good AT ALL! Even though I just kept telling myself” It’s only a movie….only a movie….only a movie…” Well, I just COULD NOT SHUT UP ABOUT FIRDAY THE 13th to my friends at school after that. The rest of them had never seen any of them, so it made me feel more confident with my fear of the damn movie even though I vowed to my friends that ” It’s SOOO scary I will never watch it again” Hahah! I remember just another 2 weeks maybe passed and HALLOWEEN was showing on Cable. I had heard about it, and asked my Mom to tape it for me, which she did. It was October, and I watched it one Friday afternoon after school.

And I eagerly did. As we ALL know what had happened to not only the horror genre, AND the exploding home video Ma and Pa rental shops. Suddenly HORROR WAS EVERYWHERE AND IT WAS BLOODY, GOREY, AND COVERED IN SLIME! it was my fiends, that splendid era of the 80’s!!! And by the time I was 11 i was a DEVOTE SPLATTERPUNK! Comics, Novels, Videos, and Posters from those old issues of FANGORIA and GOREZONE littered and decorated my room for a long time.

And on an interesting side note, the year I was 11 was also the year I developed Epilepsy. (for those who don’t know Epilepsy is defined as a neurological disorder marked by sudden recurrent episodes of sensory disturbance, loss of consciousness, or convulsions, associated with abnormal electrical activity in the brain.)

Well, as I said earlier, before I was a pre-teen, I always wanted to be some kind of Cartoonist only worrying about drawing animals and nature stuff. I had almost no desire to even draw human beings.

Then on a rainy weekend afternoon, my Mom stopped at a local 7-11 on the way home, Slurpees and candy were obtained, and I happened to walk past the old school HEY KIDS! COMICS!!! Spinner rack next to a stand up PUNCH -OUT video game. I got my ass beat in Punch out because Spider -Man’s costume kept distracting me! Finally I inspected the issue of WEB OF SPIDER-MAN #17, illustrated by comic legend Marc Silvestri (who was still up and coming at this time, the year was 1986). I realized that I HAD to have this comic book and that Spider -Man looked sooo similar to one of my childhood favorite superheroes ULTRAMAN! (which ties into my original love of Godzilla and Monsters, especially giant monsters!!) Anyway I took that copy of Web of Spider man home, and TOTALLY FELL IN LOVE WITH COMIC BOOKS! I decided THAT VERY NIGHT THAT I WAS GOING TO BE A COMIC ARTIST! And became RAVENOUS for comics! And luckily for me by 1987 American comics were getting their first wave of Japanese imports! In addition to being in love with GODZILLA and ULTRAMAN, GIANT ROBO and GAMERA as a young child I was also a tremendous fan of BATTLE OF THE PLANETS (Kugaku Ninjatai Gatchaman) and the other famous Japanese Anime shows of the 80’s VOLTRON, and ESPECIALLY ROBOTECH (Macross rules Natch!), So in comics I stated collecting ANYTHING I could find that was Japanese! Books like AREA-88, MAI the PSYCHIC GIRL, DIGITAL TARGET GREY, AKIRA and APPLESEED, among others! Also in 1987 my friends discovered one of GARY REED”s comic shops called READER’S, which was a comic shop that was SOOO ahead of its time!! And another MAJOR influence on my love of comics!

“In addition to being in love with GODZILLA and ULTRAMAN, GIANT ROBO and GAMERA as a young child I was also a tremendous fan of BATTLE OF THE PLANETS”–Jeff Zornow

Now Imagine you’re a 12-13 year old kid in 1987-88. You walk into a GIANT sized comic shop, that not only sells all the latest books, but a giant supply of back issues, a novel wall, a stand up video game section, role playing game section, but here is the kicker, READER”s had a JAPANESE IMPORT SECTION! With Manga, Anime mags like Newtype, and all manner of Japanese Toys!!! ANNND they also had a VIDEO RENTAL CLUB! With an entire wall of Bootleg Anime! Most of it grainy and un-translated, but my friends and i didn’t care! We rented everything we could!

And by 1988 CALIBER COMICS (publishers of THE CROW, DEADWORLD, and BAKER STREET among other famous indie B+W comics) started their publishing venture in the back of Reader’s! My friends and I would actually see now-famous artist like Guy Davis running around back there! While Chet one of the store managers would let us in on the coolness that was being created back there! It was an important footnote in comics’ history!

During this period, My friends and I were always coming up with cool comic ideas, and in my spare time I was always trying to create cool Superheroes, that were very Japanese influenced, as well as some freaky creepy stuff here and there. I remember GORE SHRIEK #1 being around at this time and that comic had a major impact on me as well!

As I got into my teens’ and High School, I was taking all the major advanced art classes I could. Still trying to figure out the comic book/ sequential art form, and taking graphic arts classes where I FIRST started making my own T-shirt designs and printing them in school. Getting into scary Metal music, Industrial, Goth, and Punk. All stuff that help feed my mind with visuals. After Graduation of High School, I took two years to work at a car wash while living at my mom’s, and figure out what I really wanted to do with myself as well as try to get some adventures in and out of the way. Like taking a crazy road trip from Mi to Northern California!

When that was dealt with I enrolled and was accepted into the School of Visual Arts, in New York City in 1995. I majored in Cartooning and Illustration.

SVA is essentially where I REALLY got my start in Comics and Illustration. Once I was there, I quickly realized that my skills in art SUCKED! And I had a LONG way to go to even make my work professional looking. Luckily for me, I had some famously brilliant instructors from comics/illustration’s past and present! Instructors such as the late JOE ORLANDO, KLAUS JANSON, WALT SIMONSON, CARMINE INFANTINO, SAL AMENDOLA, TONY PALLADINO, among others! Though it was Joe Orlando (famous EC sci-fi /horror artist, editor/ writer/artist for Creepy /Eerie later to become the man who would create DC’s horror line of the 70’s, and be an editor and art director at DC until his death in 1998) who really helped push me toward the horror angle. When I arrived at SVA I had the same idea that all the other comic kids had, I would graduate, and somehow get to work for DC or Marvel. During my sophomore year at SVA, I created my first horror comic for a class project, which I titled “Necro Assasin” it was basically a monster/action story with zombies and satanic demons all fighting in a graveyard. I remember everyone in the department went a little bonkers over it. Joe Especially was delighted with it! It was at that time that I realized I had some kind of secret weapon brewing in me. and that hardly ANYONE at SVA was even into horror let alone illustrating it. Though ironically i did share some classes with DAMIEN GLONEK (one of The Living Dead Dolls creators) I was just getting into Italian horror at the time, and Damien lent me his uncut VHS copy of DEEP RED! Around this time I started sinking back into my old horror roots! Gong to local horror cons in NYC, and collecting what I could. By the time I graduated SVA, I had spent 2 years as an intern at both Marvel and DC comics, but the industry was in the toilet at the end of 1999. And I had no real job prospects then, what followed, is essentially several years of me living as a typical “starving artist” trying to “break in”. All professional artists have gone through similar periods. But let me tell you, the LONGER this period goes on… the MORE you tend to fight for it. If you can imagine being consumed by a “Captain Ahab” syndrome, and the white whale being your spot in freelance art. It was a hard time for me, and all I could think to do in order to get some editor or art director to give me a gig, was to continue drawing insane horror art and comics, as it requires special skills storytelling- wise, which is the main concern in all art. ….eventually a body count started to appear around me.

By the end of 2004 people started to notice my body count, and then started to ask ” what is going on here!? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!?”

I sat there…in a pool of blood….a brush in my left hand….a knife in my right hand… an eyeball in my mouth…and an infinite graveyard in my brain. And I started to draw what the moon brings….and what the night leaves behind.

What followed, in 2005 was my first paid professional freelance comic illustration gig in Vampirella Magazine #10 ( “A day at the Beach” written by Dan Jolley), as well as my start in illustrating Album art and metal graphics. A snowball effect started then, and more comic gigs, more album art, and then the summer of 2006, I stumbled through a bloody trail that led me to the House of Mysterious secrets. The Proprietor, a man named Kevin asked me to draw a T-shirt design for the classic slasher movie THE BURNING. After that, he immediately asked for a TOURIST TRAP T-shirt….and then I was contacted by Kevin’s Fiend…a guy known to all in the horror community as Ben Scrivens! Ben was impressed with what I had just done for The House of Mysterious Secrets, and then asked me to design shirts for his company FRIGHT-RAGS. Starting with a design based on the first story in CREEPSHOW, “I’VE GOT MY CAKE!”!

I will say THIS about working for FRIGHT-RAGS. For as hard as I have worked to be a “comic artist” once I graduated art school, (because that was ALL I had planned for myself) I THE REASON YOU ARE DOING THIS INTERVIEW IS BECAUSE OF FRIGHT-RAGS. I NEVER imagined that I would end up being a T-shirt artist let alone that aspect of my work becoming the most well-known to the public at large. But it’s true. Even my work on the HALLOWEEN COMICS, Only brought minor mention to the comic industry. But ever since ” I’ve GOT MY CAKE!” was printed, suddenly Fright-Rags and my work for them quickly became loved by the horror fiends out there! It’s VERY REWARDING knowing that I design shirts for people JUST LIKE ME who want to proudly wear something like ZOMBIE vs. SHARK, or FRANKENHOOKER on their chest! And I’ve been seeing TONS of Fright-rags on people at the horror cons for years now, HOWEVER at our last MONSTER MANIA con appearance I was rather blown away. That weekend, the WHOLE weekend, it seemed that at least 75% of the attendees had my Art on their shirts! I was a literal sea of Zornow art floating around that con! And I had people coming to show me their Zornow art tattoos, (all of which were Fright-Rags based art).