HOW I DEVELOPED THE NAME 'JOHNNY NEPTUNE'
I was born into a family with a long line of artists. All of us seem to have been born with the genetic trait of natural art talent. I've never taken an art class in my life.
When I was 11 years old, I created a cartoon character named Johnny Neptune. He was a 'secret agent', like James Bond, saving the world behind the scenes, while he 'hid in plain sight', using the 'cover' of being an internationally famous rock musician/performer, kind of like Elvis.
I used to Xerox these comics I drew, and sell them for $1 to my friends at school.
when I was 12 years old, I was commissioned to illustrate my first magazine cover. 100% true.
I never thought it was strange that a publishing company's art director would've sought out a 12 year old kid living in his parents' house, because I was 'inside the fish bowl looking out'…
Only when I was much older did I realize how absurd the event was.
Anyway, I illustrated the magazine cover in just a little over an hour or so, using acrylics and colored pencil, with light sources added with my trusty Badger™ airbrush..
I was just about to sign my name to it, when it hit me, "I ought to sign it Johnny Neptune"… I got paid $3,600 for the illustration (and at age 12, when I got that much money for less than two hours of 'work', I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life)
The magazine cover was very well executed, and everyone loved it, but oddly enough, it was THE SIGNATURE that everybody focused on. For some reason, everybody kept mentioning how much they liked the name 'johnny neptune'…
Soon, my mother was calling me 'johnny Neptune'. Everybody called me 'neptune'. It just kinda 'stuck'…
It served me very well. When I walked in to introduce myself to a prospective new art client, they'd always 'think they had heard of me before'…
Years later, I was hired by ZZ TOP as their art director at Warner Bros Records under the name 'johnny Neptune'.
So yep…. now you know the story…
Attached: 96e076a661d419c7752d4721e5ad6c33cb469219fbd23b9448bdf168e21d6002.jpg (1280x720, 43.5K)
