Jey Parks is an American

comics artist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary a ...

fan art Fan art or fanart is artwork created by fans of a work of fiction and derived from a series character or other aspect of that work. They are usually done by amateur artists, semi-professionals or professionals. As fan labor, fan art refers t ...

ist and scientific illustrator. Parks is most known for their fan art pieces ''Doctor Mew'' ('' Doctor Who''s the Doctor as cats) and ''The Catvengers'' ( the Avengers also as cats) and their books ''Star Trek Cats'' and ''Star Trek: The Next Generation Cats''.

Background

Parks started drawing cat versions of people since about age 11 or 12. Around 12, they loved ''

The Phantom of the Opera ''The Phantom of the Opera'' (french: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pier ...

'' and had a

running gag A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling. Though they are similar, catchphrases are no ...

about ''The Phantom of the Cats''. Eventually, they drew the characters as cats. A few years later, Parks became obsessed with the British television series '' Doctor Who''. Around 2008, Parks began drawing more realistic ''Doctor Who'' cats. Parks has a

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

( BFA) in Illustration from the California College of Arts and a graduate degree in

scientific illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vi ...

from the

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge ...

. Previously, Parks drew wildlife like

big cat The term "big cat" is typically used to refer to any of the five living members of the genus ''Panthera'', namely the tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard. Despite enormous differences in size, various cat species are quite similar ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

s, fruit bats,

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

s, and

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...

s. Their work can be found via iPhone apps for the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

. Parks would regularly attend conventions as

C2E2 The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) is a Chicago fan convention dedicated to comics, pop culture, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, toys, movies, and television. The inaugural event was held April 16–18, 2010 at the McCormic ...

San Diego Comic-Con San Diego Comic-Con International is a comic book convention and nonprofit multi-genre entertainment event held annually in San Diego, California since 1970. The name, as given on its website, is Comic-Con International: San Diego; but it is ...

, and

WonderCon WonderCon is an annual comic book, science fiction, and film convention held in the San Francisco Bay Area (1987–2011), then—under the name WonderCon Anaheim—in Anaheim, California (2012–2015, 2017–present), and WonderCon Los Angele ...

. Parks' art is drawn and painted digitally via Paint Tool SAI and

Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...

. Parks creates their art digitally with a Cintiq

graphics tablet A graphics tablet (also known as a digitizer, digital graphic tablet, pen tablet, drawing tablet, external drawing pad or digital art board) is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images, animations and graphics, with a spec ...

via

. Their fan art career took off with a table at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con where they had ''Doctor Mew'' buttons and posters as well as when ''Doctor Mew'' went viral. Parks became famous due to ''Doctor Mew''. Later, Parks created other fan art pieces as ''The Catvengers''. ''Doctor Mew'' represented their most prominent work until ''Star Trek Cats'' in 2017. In March 2018, ''Star Trek Cats'' was followed-up with ''Star Trek: The Next Generation Cats''. Parks also has a

Patreon Patreon (, ) is a membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service. It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers. Patreon charges a com ...

account.

Works

Books

Comics

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...

Senior Editor Steve Wacker found Jey Parks at their booth at San Diego Comic-Con and approached them to do animal

variant cover In comic books, a variant cover (sometimes variant edition) refers to an issue of a comic book printed with multiple covers, each with unique cover art. The first comic book marketed with a variant cover was the 1986 first issue of '' The Man of St ...

s for Marvel and they said "Absolutely!" Parks has done animal variant covers for issues ''Iron Man'' #23, ''

The Superior Spider-Man ''The Superior Spider-Man'' is a superhero comic book series published by Marvel Comics that ran between January 2013 and September 2014. It was written by Dan Slott, with artwork by Ryan Stegman, Humberto Ramos, and Giuseppe Camuncoli. The seri ...

'' #27, ''Thor: God of Thunder'' #19, and '' Wolverine and the X-Men'' #1. On May 13, 2013,

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...

user sparkysmachine dressed their cat Sir Didymus to match the ''Thor: God of Thunder'' #19 animal variant cover. The "mini- Mjolnir and shoulder-thingies" were printed on their PrintrBot Jr.

3D printer 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...

. On October 29, 2014, to celebrate National Cat Day, Marvel Comics reposted Parks's animal variant covers on their

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

page.

Fan art

Parks's notable works include ''Doctor Mew'', ''The Catvengers'', and ''Star Trek Cats''. Others have included '' Batman'', ''

Deadpool Deadpool is an antihero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Fabian Nicieza and artist/writer Rob Liefeld, the character first appeared in ''New Mutants'' #98 (cover-dated Feb. 1991). Initially, Deadp ...

'', '' Dexter'', ''

Downton Abbey ''Downton Abbey'' is a British historical drama television series set in the early 20th century, created and co-written by Julian Fellowes. The series first aired in the United Kingdom on ITV on 26 September 2010 and in the United States o ...

'', '' Game of Thrones'', '' Hannibal'', '' Harry Potter'', ''

How to Train Your Dragon ''How to Train Your Dragon'' (abbreviated ''HTTYD'') is an American media franchise from DreamWorks Animation and loosely based on the eponymous series of children's books by British author Cressida Cowell. It consists of three feature films: ' ...

'', ''

The Hunger Games ''The Hunger Games'' is a series of young adult dystopian novels written by American author Suzanne Collins. The first three novels are part of a trilogy following teenage protagonist Katniss Everdeen, and the fourth book is a prequel set 6 ...

'', ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...

'', '' Sherlock'', '' Spider-Man'', '' Star Wars'', '' Stranger Things'', '' Superman'', '' Supernatural'', '' The Walking Dead'', and ''

Wonder Woman Wonder Woman is a superhero created by the American psychologist and writer William Moulton Marston (pen name: Charles Moulton), and artist Harry G. Peter. Marston's wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, Elizabeth, and their life partner, Olive Byr ...

''. Commissions have included John Hodgman and

Gates McFadden Cheryl Gates McFadden (born March 2, 1949) is an American actress and choreographer. She is usually credited as Cheryl McFadden when working as a choreographer and Gates McFadden for acting work. She is best known for playing Dr. Beverly Crusher ...

as a Doctor

Beverly Crusher Beverly Crusher is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise played by Gates McFadden. Debuting in the television series, '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', McFadden appeared in every season except for the second, as well as its spin ...

cat. In 2014, Parks presented a

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...

painting of Captain America at the Cat Art Show in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

Reception

Newsarama Newsarama is an American website that publishes news, interviews, and essays about the American comic book industry. It is owned by Future US. In June 2020, Newsarama was merged with the website GamesRadar+, also owned by FutureUS. History ...

''s Chris Arrant called Jey Parks a "noted cat painter." ''Visual News''s Jessica Czeck said ''Doctor Mew'' made Jey Parks "internet famous." ''Bleeding Cool''s

Rich Johnston Richard Johnston is a British comics creator, columnist, and founder of the comics news site ''Bleeding Cool''. ''The Comics Journal'' described Johnston as having claimed to be "the oldest extant comics news reporter on the Internet." His pas ...

pointed out Parks was CatConLA's " e of the most sought-after artists." ''Catster''s Phillip Mlyner noted they were "a cat illustrator par excellence." ''Petslady.com''s Laurie Kay Olson deigned their work "delightful, entertaining, and more than just a little bit, well, catty." In October 2015, ''Outlaw Kritters'' staff selected Parks as the featured artist of the week. Reviewing ''Star Trek Cats'' in a thirty-year retrospective, '' GeekDad''s Jules Sherred referred to them as "a great illustrator."

Personal life

Parks has a female

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...

domestic short-haired cat named Mab and a male tuxedo cat Mamoko. In 2013, they lived in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. In 2016, they lived in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parks, Jey American illustrators California College of the Arts alumni Digital artists Women digital artists Science fiction fans University of California, Santa Cruz alumni Living people 21st-century American women artists Year of birth missing (living people)