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Man Or Monster, Mike Ploog's Artwork Finally Gets Collected

His artwork spans generations. He is often cited for inspiration. And at heart, he’s a cowboy. But Mike Ploog really isn't a cowboy. He’s a Marine. And he also studied at the hand of Will Eisner. So it wasn’t long before the Leatherneck found himself doing what he loved most for both comics and movies. In this PREVIEWSworld Exclusive interview, Mike Ploog elaborates on his long love of radio, Roy Rogers, and how he finally gets to see his reproduced film work in The Art of Ploog HC (OCT151878). This comprehensive art book is an oversize 9" x 12" retrospective that covers every aspect of Ploog's career and contain hundreds of pieces of art.

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Article ImagePREVIEWSworld: First and foremost, thank you for taking the time to speak with us, Mr. Ploog! Your path to becoming a professional artist is definitely one of the most interesting—and unique—career trajectories that we’ve ever encountered. For readers unfamiliar with your history, can you give us a bit of background on how you came into your career?

Mike Ploog: Well, I'll tell you, as a kid growing up on a farm in Minnesota I never really knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I just always loved movies. Westerns in particular. I always thought I would grow up to be a cowboy! (Laughs). And I did in some ways by being on the Marines rodeo team during my ten-year hitch in the Marines. While I was in the Marines I started to draw for the Marines' Leatherneck Magazine, and I really enjoyed it. I thought: “Hey, I could do this drawing thing for a living and really enjoy myself." So after I left the Marines I started working for Will Eisner on his PS Magazine. I learned a lot from Will. And after spending a few years with him, I decided to try my hand at comics.

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I did 4 stories for Jim Warren and then joined Marvel in the early 70's. I never looked back!

Article ImagePREVIEWSworld: As you’ve worked in a number of different creative fields — from animation, comics, and movies, amongst others — was there a particular medium that resonated with you while growing up? If so, is there a specific work that stuck with you and did it have any kind of influence on your own?

Mike Ploog: Yeah the radio! I would listen to the radio shows and just visualize it all happening as the words and sounds came up from the radio.

And probably the biggest thing were the movies.

Movies were just magic to me. I'd sit there completely lost in them. A total magical world. And then western comics. The Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse comics were available everywhere, but I had to search to find the Roy Rogers ones. I would pick up the odd issue of Roy Rogers comics and start drawing my version of Roy Rogers. I was probably about five years old drawing Roy Rogers profiles for just about anyone that I could give them to!

Article ImagePREVIEWSworld: What qualities do you like about each of the different mediums you’ve worked in, and is there one in particular that you’ve found especially gratifying to work in?

Mike Ploog: Well, comics were the first time that I could tell a complete story. I could follow through from beginning to end. You weren't just doing spot illustrations or clean-up work. I think of myself equally as a storyteller and an artist. And comics are the best for being able to let both of those sides of me come out.

PREVIEWSworld: “The Art of Ploog” will offer a comprehensive visual overview of your career as an artist. Looking back, is there work from a particular title or period of time that you’re eager to share with fans or that struck you in any way?

Mike Ploog: Oh yeah! There will be a great amount of my comics work represented in the book; all of the things that fans have told me that would want to see in a Ploog art book. And there will also be a lot of film work that has never been reproduced before. Not too many people know I worked on the X- MEN film for example (2000), so they will see a nice amount of that reproduced in here.

Article ImageIt's probably the closest I have ever come to drawing a superhero title!

And I must have signed thousands of trading cards over the years. And the one request I would hear over and over again is that they would love to see those paintings reproduced larger. Well I'm glad to say that they will see a lot of those paintings reproduced larger here.

PREVIEWSworld: Finally, how did you go about selecting the artwork to showcase in this book

Mike Ploog: Mike Friedlander (FPG's President) and I sat down and laboriously picked through what we thought fans of mine would want to see. We spent weeks doing this. I've probably created about 50,000 pieces of art over my career which had to be compressed down to about 400-500 pieces. So if this book does well maybe there will be another couple of volumes to follow it! (Laughter)

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