John Gallagher is one of the most amazing artists we’ve found on the internet.

Entertainment - Media News Watch originally published at Entertainment - Media News Watch

For many years, Awesome Art we’ve Found Around the Net has focused on two things – awesome art, and the artists who create it. We thought, why not showcase these amazing artists even further during the first week of each month? Welcome to “Awesome Art We’ve Found Around the Net.” This column will focus on one artist, and their awesome art, whether they are amateurs, up-and-coming artists, or established artists. Our goal is to make these artists more known so that even more people can enjoy their work. We ask them a few questions about their influences, origins, and more. If you are an awesome artist or know someone that should be featured, feel free to contact me at any time at [email protected].This month we are very pleased to bring you the awesome art of…

John Gallagher

JOBLO: What got you started as an artist?
JOHN: My origin story isn’t likely all that different from any other budding young hopeful. Since I was able to use a drawing device, I began making marks on surfaces that were convenient. I would tell stories or doodle things that were wildly inappropriate. A steady diet of high calorie eye protein from comic books, monster movies and Saturday morning cartoons ensured that my brain meat would be hardwired in a certain way. With a natural curiosity and excitement for adventure, I was primed to experience something exciting or dangerous. Star Wars was the nuke from space for me on May 25, 1977, when my head was blown to pieces and reassembled differently. It was never the same again. I was influenced by a series of key influences, including Robert E. Howard and H.P Lovecraft. I didn’t know what would happen with all of this roiling sound and explosions behind me, but I knew that something was just beyond the horizon. Something with immense potential for the wild life we all yearn for. After graduating high school, I attended the Alberta College of Art, but washed out a year later. It was all conceptual “art” and statement-driven nonsense. Representational work was ignored. Blasphemy! After a few years of drawing, traveling, and putting a lot of mileage on my mind and heart, I graduated from broadcasting. I immediately went to work writing and producing car commercials and doing freelance pop-culture and lifestyle interviews for cable providers. One of these was for BioWare, when the studio was still working on medical software and was starting to work on its first game Shattered Steel. We got along well. I got them a lot of TV time by doing a couple segments, and they asked me if I could do any other work. I said that I could draw like an artist. They said that we’ve heard it before and I replied with sure maybe, but not from me. They asked me when I was going to start after I showed them my portfolio. My professional career took off after nine years at BioWare, twelve games and 24 million copies. I left BioWare at the end of 2004, took a few years off to reassemble after aging through game development dog years. In December 2007, Steve Geaghan contacted me. He was the production designer of Fear Itself: Masters of Horror Season 2, which was crewing in Edmonton. I had storyboarded a couple Ginger Snaps films, so was listed on a union call sheet. That was when my art career took off. Since that first show, I have been working as an illustrator for film. It’s not easy but I love it with a village idiot intelligence and a beginner’s passion. Comics are what inspired me to start drawing, so I was surrounded by them as a child. Will Eisner, Wally Wood and Joe Kubert were among my favorite artists growing up. I also drew comics because of them. As I entered my teens my definition of an artist had expanded significantly from my early recollections. By this time, virtually every tradecraft requiring expertise, skillsets and discipline, as well as tradition of practice, fell under my purview. It was an unprecedented electric circus of consuming whatever I could get my hands on, from dark wave import 12” EPs to 70s kung fu bootlegs to underground comix to Beksinski and Bauhaus and I drank it all in with unfiltered reckless abandon.

Who do you really dig these days, follow on Instagram?

Wow, where to start? Wow, where to begin? I’ll limit it to artists for our discussion. I’m a fan of the work of Frank Quitely. James Stokoe. J.H Williams III. Mike Huddleston. Steve Skroce. Tomm Coker. Juanjo Guarnido. Cary Nord. Joelle Jones. Lee Bermejo. Lucio Parillo. Greg Smallwood. Stjepan Sejic. Wes Craig. Alex Maleev. Steve McNiven. Eduardo Risso. Marko Djurdjevic. BossLogic. Tony Moore I miss people as I write this. Find amazing art – clothing designers, sculptors, digital artists, singers, makeup effects artists, dancers, cosplayers, street artists, painters, DJs, illustrators, video game artists, whatever the job description or field of endeavour, newbies to veterans, and stay with them, show support, respect and gratitude for and with what they share.

What advice would you have for budding artists today?
Firstly, as much as it may pain you, take business courses you’ll be grateful you did. Stay ferociously interested and be prepared to fail spectacularly. Even Keep It Re Focus Avoid If To Even Most In Also All Even Nobody It It It What I The So Stay Another While I We As My overriding objective remains keeping myself engaged and compelled by what’s ahead so there’s likely to be a few shocks and a surprise or two along the way.

Being a fansite, we have to ask you… What are some of your favorite movies/TV shows of all time?
In no particular order, some series: Chernobyl, Oz, The Wire, Rick and Morty, Breaking Bad, Star Trek,The Muppet Show, Kolchak:The Night Stalker, The X-Files, Fargo, Party Down, the IT Crowd, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Andor, The Trailer Park Boys, The Office, Justified, Deadwood, Better Things, Barry, SCTV, The Chappelle Show, South Park, The Family Guy, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Key and Peele, Russian Doll, Star Trek Strange New Worlds, Poker Face, Six Feet Under, Halt and Catch Fire, Community, Battle of the Planets, Columbo, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development, Parks and Recreation, Sesame Street, Watchmen, 30 Rock, Atlanta, The Larry Sanders Show, Godless, Squid Game, Money Heist,The Twilight Zone, Mindhunter, Ash vs the Evil Dead, 1899, Stranger Things, Dark, Black Mirror, Queer Eye, Ozark, The Queen’s Gambit, Night Gallery, Fleabag, Narcos, The Boys, Cosmos, Band of Brothers,The Expanse, The Sopranos, The Simpsons

In no particular order, some movies: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Alien, Aliens, StarShip Troopers, John Carpenter’s The Thing, Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, Terminator, Terminator 2 Judgment Day, The Usual Suspects, Back To The Future, Se7en, The Witch, Hereditary, The Good The Bad and the Ugly, Night of the Hunter, Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Yojimbo, Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Revenant, Spirited Away, Battleship Potemkin, Napoleon, Cinema Paradiso, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman, Creature From the Black Lagoon, Bride of Frankenstein, Nosferatu, Road Warrior, Mad Max: Fury Road, Evil Dead, Devil Dead 2 Dead by Dawn, Army of Darkness, Big Trouble in Little China, The Blair Witch Project, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men, No Country for Old Men, The Road, Capricorn One, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Dark Knight, Old Boy, Memento, American Beauty, The Avengers: Infinity War, The Avengers; Endgame, Trainspotting, Fargo, How To Train Your Dragon, Captain America and the Winter Soldier, John Wick 1-4, The Exorcist, Bullitt, The Dirty Dozen, Captain America Civil War, Come and See, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Reservoir Dogs, Don’t Look Now, Fight Club, Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Matrix, Interstellar, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, All Quiet on the Western Front, Arrival, Jaws, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Strangers, Martyrs, High Tension, Frontieres, Let the Right One In, Carnival of Souls, Midsommar, It Follows, Audition, Near Dark, The Hitcher, Train to Busan, Godzilla, American Werewolf in London, The Howling, The Monster Squad, 28 Days Later, The Fly, Halloween, Ex Machina, District 9, Children of Men, Donnie Darko, Predator, Akira, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, Jurassic Park, Event Horizon, Robocop, Total Recall, Looper
Scroll down to check out some of our favorite art pieces from John as we continue to follow his journey across his Website and social media hubs: Instagram / Facebook / DeviantArt / Portfolio / Store

Akira

Boba Fett
Bumblebee

Captain America

Carnage

The Crow

Darth Vader

Death Dealer