‘Red Wolf’ artist shares personal story at luncheon

Published 1:00 am Saturday, February 6, 2016

Jeffrey Veregge wasn’t always the famous artist who helped resurrect Marvel Comics’ first Native American superhero “Red Wolf.”

In fact, he said that for most of his life he felt like Sheldon Cooper from the “Big Bang Theory.”

Part of it was because he used to wear Vulcan ears to school at his Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe in Kingston.

But he also struggled with fear and anxiety.

“It was something that has troubled and plagued me,” Veregge said to a crowd at a Greater Federal Way Chamber of Commerce luncheon in January. “It prevented me from doing a lot of things. It didn’t prevent me from doing art.”

While art was a “great escape” for him, Veregge was bullied throughout high school and lived with that anxiety until he was 38 years old. Kids, he said, also tended to grow up fast on “the rez.”

Finally, after years of hesitation, Veregge tried antidepressants.

“It was like going from regular television to an HD movie,” he said. “Everything just seemed so much clearer to me. I wanted to be around people and I didn’t worry any longer if they were going to like me or if they were going to reject me.”

His new perspective also caused him to look at what he was doing in his career.

Although he had a successful career working for a great company, it “wasn’t what [he] went to art school for.”

Veregge, who is also of Suquamish and Duwamish descent, contacted a pop art gallery that does annual Star War shows and sent them his portfolio. However, it wasn’t until he said he could infuse Coast Salish design with Star Wars art that they became truly interested.

Coast Salish art is a Native American art form that can be seen as a flat design, which Veregge used in his graphic design techniques, or it can be seen in carving, basketry and weaving.

“It was enough to get me going,” he said.

Four months later, he added, the gallery was sold out of his work.

A piece called “The Bat,” which depicts Batman with Salish wings and designs throughout his body, won several awards. Veregge soon put his twist on a wide array of comic book icons and other characters that included Spiderman, a Xenomorph, Super Man, and many others.

Each gig was better and better.

“When I got my first gig at Marvel, about two years ago… the head of Marvel contacted me through Facebook,” Veregge recalled. “He said he’d like for me to get in touch with their talent liaison.”

After sending Marvel a few covers and corresponding back and forth, Veregge finally got a call to do a show last April for the “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”

“It was my first official Marvel gig where I could actually put Marvel’s little copyright trademark [on my work].

“It was one of the greatest highlights of my life.”

Another highlight?

Having Robert Downey Jr. share his art on Facebook.

“My wife was, we were driving that day and she goes, ‘Oh my god!’ and started crying,” Veregge said. “I thought, ‘Oh, no.’ I thought somebody had died.”

As Veregge braced himself to ask what was wrong, his wife showed him a picture of his art, not realizing at first who had shared it.

“It was really, really cool, and I don’t think that hurt me having him share that,” he said.

Veregge started to work on “Red Wolf” last July, not only as the cover artist but as a script consultant.

“It’s one of those things that’s a lifetime dream that just got fulfilled, and to me it’s still not even real,” he said.

“Red Wolf” debuted in December.

Veregge is currently working on his own comic book and hopes to have a preview by the Emerald City Comicon in March.

“We’re all special; we all have something unique that we have to offer,” he said. “Whether it’s cooking, whether it’s drawing, whether it’s painting, it doesn’t really matter what it is that you’re great at. You find out what it is that you love and see if you can combine the two.”

In addition to his work with Marvel, Veregge has worked with Nike, Valiant Comics, Viacom and IDW Publishing. His work are part of collections at Yale University, Washington State Historical Society, University of Washington Burke Museum, Tucson Museum of Art and the Seattle Art Museum.

For more information or to view Veregge’s art, visit jeffreyveregge.com.