José Villarrubia


José Antonio Villarrubia Jiménez-Momediano - known professionally as José Villarrubia - is a Spanish-American artist and art teacher who has done considerable work in the American comic book industry, particularly as a colorist.

Biography

Villarrubia was born in Madrid, moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1980. His fine art photography has been exhibited in the U.S., Latin America and Europe, in institutions such as the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Inter-American Development Bank. From 2011 to 2016 he was Chair of the Illustration Department of the Maryland Institute College of Art., where he is a professor. He is currently the coordinator of the Sequential Art Concentration. Before the Maryland Institute College of Art he had taught at Towson University, the Baltimore School for the Arts and the Walters Art Museum. He has lectured extensively about art at Johns Hopkins University, the College Art Association, Dickinson College, the ICA in London, the Williem de Kooning Academy, the Naples Academy of Art, and the MacWorld UK Convention.
In comics, Villarrubia has done digitally manipulated illustrations for Veils, Promethea and The Sentry. As a colorist he is frequent collaborator of Jae Lee, Bill Sienkiewicz, J.H. Williams III, Paul Pope, Jeff Lemire, Kaare Andrews, Ryan Sook and Richard Corben. He has won the Comicdom Award for best colorist for his work on X-Factor, has been nominated twice for the Eisner Award for best colorist and has been included in The Society of Illustrators Annual Exhibition. He won the 2011 Harvey Award for best colorist for his work on '.
With writer Alan Moore, he has produced two illustrated books, both published by Top Shelf Productions: Voice of the Fire and The Mirror of Love. The latter is a love poem and a detailed history of homosexuality, prominently featuring famous figures in art and literature. It originally began as a part of the AARGH! Anthology in 1988. AARGH! was a comic book protest against Britain's proposed anti-gay Section 28. It was translated and published in French as Le Miroir de l'amour, by Carabas Revolution, in Italian as Lo Specchio dell'Amore by Edizioni BD and in Spanish as El Espejo del amor by Editorial Kraken. In 2020 Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editori published a new edition with a new Italian translation by Marco Rosary.
The longest running project in which Villarrubia has been involved has been the comics series Sweet Tooth, where he colored almost all 40 issues. Netflix is producing a live-action series based in the comic. Netflix’s Sweet Tooth will star Christian Convery and Nonso Anozie. The show itself will be managed by co-showrunners Jim Mickle and Beth Schwartz.
In 2010, he worked in the story featured in Unknown Soldier issues #13-14, with Joshua Dysart and Pat Masioni. The story won the prestigious Glyph Comics Award for Story of the Year. The Glyph Comics Awards recognize the best in comics made by, for, and about people of color.
From 2012 to 2018, Villarrubia colored the three graphic novels by Anthony Bourdain: Get Jiro!, Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi and Hungry Ghosts Sony Pictures is currently developing Hungry Ghosts as an animated series.
In 2015, among other artists, José Villarrubia brought inner illustrations to the core rulebook of a role-playing game, ', first published in 2016 by Modiphius Entertainment.
In 2018 he edited and colored the comic series Infidel, published by Image Comics. Michael Sugar and TriStar optioned the rights to turn it into a film. Hany Abu-Assad signed on to direct the film adaptation. Juliet Snowden and Stiles White are co-writing the script adaptation.
In 2019 Casterman published the first French language graphic novel completely colored by Villarrubia. A new chapter of the series Le Transperceneige, the comic was written and illustrated by series co-creator Jean-Marc Rochette. The publishing of this new volume was timed originally to coincide with the release of the new Snowpiercer that adapts this comic. The series was produced by TNT and released in May, 17, 2020.

Interviews

The DVD of the documentary feature film The Mindscape of Alan Moore contains an interview with Villarubia about his collaboration with Alan Moore.