Born in an undisclosed location somewhere in the Northeast United States, J.K. wasted little time in
becoming the kid your mother warned you about. This was due to a strong rebellious streak combined
with an intense work ethic which meant that he gave 110% to being his own person AND a pain in the
ass! This personality mix made a rote life as a drone in a cubicle an impossible career choice and left
him with one of two choices:
Become a rock star.
Become an artist.
Since the only talent he had for music was a decent taste in it, he decieded to become an artist that
dressed like a rock star and moved to Los Angeles. These were dark yet fruitful years where he
experimented with style and developed techniques that he uses to this day. Eventually the City of
Angels lost its appeal and , seeking a change in life, climate and creative energy he followed the
examples set by one of his heroes (David Bowie) and moved to Germany. Despite the presence of (or
more likely becuase of) strong German beer, J.K. veered into self-publishing with a comic comprised
of his expressionistic paitings titled Flesh Angels and followed with a comedy comic series titled
These Things Happen - comprised of random funny stories, a talk show host who doesn't talk off the
clock, and emus.
For some reason after that he moved to Desert Hot Springs, California, which has the dubious honor of
most abandoned washing machines in the western hemisphere. He collaborated with A. David Lewis
on the indie comic Mortal Coils and Michael Colbert on the Digital Webbing Presents series Crazy Mary
where he still does covers and promises to do another full story. IDW noticed his work on Crazy Mary
and offered him a gig doing a CSI:NY limited series and he followed in short order with a standout story
in BOOM! Studios' Zombie Tales series. When Peter David was re-launching his owner created series
Fallen Angel at IDW, James was a natural choice for Peter's dark world of macic, violence and
redemption.
His painted work eventually caught the attention of Marvel editor, Mike Marts who chose him to
illustrate X-men Origins:The Beast which was released September 2008.
He recently relocated from Long Beach, CA to Long Island City in Queens, NY and still illustrates Peter
David's Fallen Angel as a reoccuring miniseries for IDW as well as various other work for IDW and
BOOM! Studios
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