J. Scott Campbell is an American comic book artist.
As a child, Campbell was interested in cartoons, rather than comics. He first became interested in comics when, as a teenager, he visited a friend’s house where he was presented with “Uncanny X-Men Annual” #10, which featured artwork by Arthur Adams, whose style would greatly influence Campbell’s own.
After graduating from high school, Campbell prepared to show his samples at the 1993 San Diego Comic-Con, where the series “Wild C.A.T.S” by Jim Lee’s publishing studio, Wildstorm Productions, premiered. Campbell put together a package that included a four-page “Wild C.A.T.S” story and sent it in. A week and a half later, Jim Lee phoned Campbell and asked him if he would move to San Diego to work for him.
Campbell went on to co-create the teen superhero team “Gen 13”, which debuted in Deathmate Black (September 1993), before going on to star in their own five-issue miniseries in January 1994. The series was initially co-written by Brandon Choi and Jim Lee, but Campbell became a co-writer with issue #3. The team was eventually given their own regular ongoing series, which debuted in March 1995. Campbell was co-writer on the series until issue #18, and was the regular artist until issue #20 (June 1997).
In 1998, Campbell, together with fellow comics artists Joe Madureira and Humberto Ramos, founded the Cliffhanger label as part of Wildstorm Productions. He launched his comic series “Danger Girl” through this label. In August 2005, Campbell published “Wildsiderz”, which he co-created with his “Danger Girl” writing partner Andy Hartnell. That same year, Campbell provided a variant incentive cover for “Justice League of America” (vol. 2) #0, the first issue of Brad Meltzer’s run on the series.
In 2007, Campbell illustrated the variant covers of the first issue of “Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash”limited series.
At the WizardWorld 2006 Comic Convention held in Los Angeles, Marvel Comics announced that Campbell signed an exclusive contract with the company, and working on Spider-Man series with writer Jeph Loeb. Between 2001 and 2013 Campbell did numerous covers for “The Amazing Spider-Man”.
In October 2016, Marvel Comics and New York-based retailer Midtown Comics jointly decided to pull from circulation Campbell’s variant cover of the first issue of “The Invincible Iron Man”, produced exclusively for that store.
In 2012, he was tasked by Sideshow Collectibles to create original artworks that served as base to make several statues like the Comiquettes of Spider-Man, Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy and Black Cat.
In 2017, Sideshow contacted Campbell again, this time to turn into statues his works starting with Abbey Chase, the protagonist of “Danger Girl” and the popular series of illustrations “FairyTale Fantasies”, translating his iconic artwork into stunning 3D celebration of his reimagined classic fairytale characters.
The “Fairytale Fantasies” statues are still being made with new characters coming out soon this year like “Lady Chesire Cat” and “The Evil Queen”.
Below is our interview with J. Scott Campbell during The Lake Como Comic Art Festival.
