And here we get the return of Jacqueline and Amy Harris, the missing child of the first three issues and her mother, to give Gilbert Graham a heartwarming reminder of the good The Standard does for the world. This is also notable for being, I believe, the last page Jonathan Rector did for THE STANDARD #5 before Will Robson took over. So, now seemed like as good a point as any to chat with Jon about what led to bringing on a co-artist for the series:
John Lees: Thanks for joining us again, Jon! Over the course of the series, there had been some scheduling issues, and a couple of points where you weren’t sure if you’d be able to continue on the book, but you’d always been able to fight through and get back on track. But this time round was different. Can you remember at what point it became clear to you that you weren’t going to be able to finish drawing the series? What was your thought process going into making that decision?Jonathan Rector: There we a lot of factors that took part of this decision. Having another artist ( Will Robson, in this case ) take over duties, is never a good feeling. It sort of makes you feel like you’ve lost. Like the battle was too much for you, and it won, leaving you the loser. There were a few things wrapping up in my ‘non-art’ life, that couldn’t keep being put off. Also, I knew the project was going for too long, and you needed the books done by a date, that I wouldn’t be able to do with my current schedule. There wasn’t any other magical fix, and I couldn’t find the time, or make the time up anywhere, so we were left with two choices; 1) Find a great artist to help out on pages, or 2) Push back the deadline.JL: Originally, you had proposed finishing issue #5 and leaving another artist to do issue #6 in its entirety. It was me that wanted you to stick around for issue #6 as well, and for you to split art duties on both issues #5 and #6. Looking back, would you have preferred to have bowed out with issue #5, or are you glad you stuck around for issue #6?
JR: Similar to my previous answer, it felt out of my control. I could only do ‘x’ pages, and I think as a whole, you were right. Instead of the art changing totally in the last issue, combining the change throughout two issues was better for the readers.JL: We both quickly came to agreement that Will Robson would be the best possible choice to be your successor. Would you like to talk a little bit about Will, and what it was about his art that made you think he’d be a good fit to fill your shoes on THE STANDARD?
JR: Will is an amazing talent. He has grown so much over the couple of years I’ve known him. His devotion to the craft is evident, and without question. Will and I started talking online a little while after meeting each other in New York Comic Con in 2012, I believe it was. Will was looking to take on more work, and I asked if he’d be interested in the job. I know he had concerns because our styles are pretty different, but I knew he could pull it off. I didn’t really want him to try and draw like me, but take this chance to draw some different things, and grow his wings, so to speak. The art speaks for itself, and his work today is light years ahead in quality of those pages. And he’s a tremendous friend to boot.JL: Now that THE STANDARD is finished, and we have the big collected edition on the way wrapping a nice bow on everything… how would you summarize your experience working on THE STANDARD?
JR: “Comic School”. Honestly, the book took way longer than any of us wanted to. It was like going away to comic book school, learning all sorts of new things, and coming out as better creators and professionals because of it. It’s books like these that every comic book creator should sharpen their teeth on.And I don’t regret a single second of any of it.
JL: Finally, do you have any other projects you’re working on you’d like folk to know about? And where can people find you on the internet and social media?
Head on over to http://www.jonathanrector.com to find me all over the ‘nets. I’ve also got a crap load of videos on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/user/jonathanrector
every time right in the feels