Emma Tooth

By Alice Doyle
May 1, 2007

Portrait painter Emma Tooth creates hyper-realistic images of figures or moments in time. Experimenting with different materials and forms of expression led her to participate in the Gothic section of Event Horizon with the story A Trace of Fragile Bliss.

Emma will be at the 2007 Bristol Comic Expo on the 12th and 13th of May, where we will be able to learn more about her work on the Internet, exhibitions, portraiture, exhibiting her art and film work.

1) What sorts of goals — long term or short — do you set for yourself, and how do you go about accomplishing them?

I try to keep making paintings, keep showing them to people! As many as possible!

2) What comic/character do you secretly wish you'd thought of first?

When I was a teenager I discovered Tank Girl — then I looked in a mirror and realised I had thought of her first! That was my nickname at school!

3) If someone were to make a movie of your life, what genre would it fall under, and who would play you?

It would be like a cross between Moulin Rouge, Withnail and I and Chicken Run. And I would be played by Divine; or Megan Mullally (Karen from Will and Grace); or Richard E. Grant in drag possibly ....

4) What was the first comic you ever read?

Hmm, it may have been Tank Girl, or Halo Jones.

5) Did you have a favourite superhero as a kid? Do you still have one?

I'm not into superheroes myself — superheroines maybe. But my husband Owen likes Spider-Man, so he's kind of our pet superhero now! Owen is very like Spider-Man actually — he climbs and swings all over the place. He has super powers!

6) Who is your favourite comic creator?

I have to say I love Neil Gaiman — even though that may sound predictable for someone who's only wearing black till they invent something darker! His stories are poignant and Dave McKean's ever-present art is so beautiful. It's a perfect package. I'm such a visual person — other than Neil Gaiman, it's only artists that I respond to really. Obviously there's also James O'Barr (again, very predictable of me!) Hewlett and Martin, Ian Gibson and Yoshitaka Amano. With Amano, I see that he has a lot of the same influences as me although the outcome is very different.

7) What writers/artists outside of comics have influenced you?

I think the only artists that have influenced me are outside of comics — the Pre-Raphaelites, JW Waterhouse, Klimt, Russian religious art, the Symbolists. Ah, apart from Oscar Wilde — I'm not sure to what extent he has influenced my work but I adore him! The Picture of Dorian Gray is magic to me, in so many ways. I feel that book; and for many reasons — some obvious, some not so obvious.

8) What is your favourite art form?

Painting and singing.

9) Allowed a dinner date with any person, alive or dead, who would you ask for?

Oscar Wilde, of course.

10) Can you cook? If so what's your speciality?

I'm not a bad cook — I just don't care! I despise the mundane.

11) What achievement are you proudest of?

I hand-reared a little hen called Linda — we are inseparable. I love her — I'm very proud of her!

12) What is your favorite swear word?

Mm, it's got to be the "f" word: "Family".

13) What job would you like, if you weren't doing what you were doing?

Drag Queen.

Or running a battery hen rescue centre.

EMMA TOOTH — Official Website
Comic Expo — Bristol Comicon, 12th/13th. May, 2007
Event Horizon