John Bergin is a writer, illustrator, designer, and musician. As Art Director at

Lakeshore Records Lakeshore Entertainment Group, LLC is an American independent film production, finance, and former international sales and distribution company founded in 1994 by Tom Rosenberg and Ted Tannebaum (1933–2002). Lakeshore Entertainment is headquart ...

. He has created and designed packaging for soundtrack albums such as ''Stranger Things,'' ''Drive, Mandy, Mr. Robot, Napoleon Dynamite, The Walking Dead, Nightcrawler, Underworld'', and hundreds more. Bergin is known for his graphic novel ''From Inside,'' which he also adapted into a feature-length animated film. As the Director of ''From Inside'', Bergin collaborated with famed music icon

Gary Numan Gary Anthony James Webb (born 8 March 1958), known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English musician. He entered the music industry as frontman of the new wave band Tubeway Army. After releasing two albums with the band, he released his d ...

who scored the film. ''From Inside'' won numerous awards and screened at over 50 international film festivals, including SITGES (Best Animated Feature), Fantasia Film Festival (Jury Prize), Utopiales (Grand Prix), and Future Film Festival of Italy. ''From Inside'' was released on streaming and DVD October, 2014.

Music

Bergin's recent releases include Killer, and Crash & Burn. In 2021, he released Feels Like Rain, a soundtrack for his short story collection of the same title. Other notable releases are Deepflesh, Lolo: Bad Idea, Western Devils: Hers is Blood, and Wednesday, a comic book soundtrack which included music by Daniel Davies (Year Long Disaster, John Carpenter), Geno Lenardo (Filter, Device), Nina Bergman, Will Hunt (Evanescence), Brian Liesegang (NIN, Filter), Mlny Parsonz (Royal Thunder). Bergin's band

Trust Obey Trust Obey was an American band based in Kansas City, Missouri and founded by John Bergin and Brett Smith, who comprised the creative nucleus of the group. They released six studio albums: ''Rip Saw'' (1989), ''The Veil (Trust Obey album), The Vei ...

, recorded a

soundtrack album A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' ...

for ''The Crow'' comic book which was released by Graphitti Designs with a deluxe hard cover edition of the graphic novel to coincide with the release of

Alex Proyas Alexander Proyas (; Greek: Αλέξανδρος Πρόγιας; born 23 September 1963) is an Australian filmmaker of Greek descent. Proyas is best known for directing the films ''The Crow'' (1994), '' Dark City'' (1998), ''I, Robot'' (2004), ' ...

' original movie adaptation. Trust Obey signed to Trent Reznor's Nothing Records and recorded one album titled ''Hands of Ash'' (CDs included a humorous sticker on the front quoting Reznor, after having been released from Nothing Records: "Not a great commercial potential"). Other musical projects by Bergin include C₁₇H₁₉NO₃, Tertium Non Data (featuring

Pam Bricker Pamela Carroll Bricker (July 7, 1954 – February 20, 2005) was a jazz singer and professor of music at George Washington University. She was a frequent collaborator and guest vocalist with the group Thievery Corporation, and the voice on their t ...

), Lance Grabmiller, Paved In Skin, Lolo, and Blackmouth (with

Jarboe Jarboe Devereaux, known mononymously as Jarboe (), is an American singer and musician who came to prominence as a member of the New York City experimental rock band Swans in 1985. Jarboe and Michael Gira, the founder of Swans, were the two consta ...

Swans Swans are birds of the family Anatidae within the genus ''Cygnus''. The swans' closest relatives include the geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Someti ...

and Brett Smith of Caul). Albums were released by these acts from the 1990 to the present by Invisible Records, Crowd Control Activities, Lakeshore Entertainment, and Stompbox13. Bergin also composed and recorded a soundtrack for the

Warhammer 40,000 ''Warhammer 40,000'' is a miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is the most popular miniature wargame in the world, and is particularly popular in the United Kingdom. The first edition of the rulebook was published in September 1987, ...

novel Traitor General by

Dan Abnett Dan Abnett (born 12 October 1965) is an English comic book writer and novelist. He has been a frequent collaborator with fellow writer Andy Lanning, and is known for his work on books for both Marvel Comics, and their UK imprint, Marvel UK, sinc ...

. The album was released by The Black Library. In 2019, Bergin music supervised The Rise of the Synths, a documentary film about the synthwave music movement, featuring dozens of bands from the scene, including Carpenter Brut, Perturbator, Gunship, and Waveshaper. The film is narrated by John Carpenter.

Art

Bergin has created album cover designs and illustrations for many bands, such as Ministry, Einstuerzende Neubauten, Naked Raygun, Robert Rich, Gravity Kills, Lustmord, Graham Revell, Test Dept., Damon Elliott, Paul Haslinger, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, and many more. Bergin's on-going comic book series is titled Wednesday. The graphic novel tells the story of a young girl living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Bergin wrote and illustrated the comic book ''Ashes'' (1990), published by

Caliber Comics Caliber Comics or Caliber Press is an American comic book publisher founded in 1989 by Gary Reed. Featuring primarily creator-owned comics, Caliber published over 1,300 comics in the decade following its inception and is ranked as one of America ...

. Through the 1990s, Bergin created short comics and illustrated titles for Heavy Metal Magazine, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse Comics. In the mid-90s he collaborated with

James O'Barr James O'Barr (born January 1, 1960) is an American comics artist, writer and graphic artist, best known as the creator of the comic book series ''The Crow''. Early life O'Barr, an orphan, was raised in the foster care system. Career In 1978, O' ...

, working as creative talent for

Tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless moun ...

, where they produced ''The Crow, Bone Saw, IO,'' and ''From Inside''. For his graphic novel work, Bergin was nominated for the

Harvey Award The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be the successor to the Kirby Awards that were ...

for Best New Talent in 1991.
In 1996 Caliber Press published Bergin's comic series ''Golgothika.'' Many of Bergin's comics and illustrations have been re-released by his publishing company
Stompbox13
John Bergin Attended University of the Arts (Philadelphia), University of the Arts in Philadelphia from 1984 to 1988.

References

Branwyn, Gareth (May 8, 2015)
"John Bergin Goes Pop-art Post-apocalypse"
Boing Boing. Retrieved July 23, 2022.

External links

* * *Interview with Outburn (April 12, 2019). https://outburn.com/interviews/the-crow-25-years-of-fear-and-bullets-with-john-bergin/" The Crow: 25 Years of Fear And Bullets with John Bergin. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bergin, John Living people University of the Arts (Philadelphia) alumni American graphic novelists American male novelists 1966 births Pigface members