We recently had the pleasure of reaching out to internationally acclaimed artist Stéphane Roux. Known for his iconic work on Harley Quinn & Power Girl and Zatanna, we spoke with him and his co-writer Jeremy Staples, to discuss their exciting new crowdfunding project, Cocktails & Curves. This book combines Roux’s breathtaking pin-up artistry with mouthwatering cocktail and mocktail recipes with twenty brand-new, full-color illustrations that showcase his versatility in the pin-up world. We reached out to the creators about the inspiration behind the book and what fans can expect from this highly anticipated release!
DIEGO HIGUERA: This is pretty much directed to both of you, and I would love to have both your perspectives on this. But essentially, I was taking a look at your project and everything about it. Honestly, first off, the art is phenomenal. I can’t get over that. Then to actually have a book that’s literally teaching you how to make cocktails is fantastic, so my first question is, Cocktails and Curves is such a unique blend of mixology and pin-up art, what inspires you to merge these two worlds into one book?
STEPHAN ROUX: Oh, it started with another idea. Actually I was telling Jeremy about my desire to make a cookbook with recipes that would be introduced by pinups. It proved to be a lot more work to figure out the recipes too, and we started to actually start with a, at first, what seemed to be a smaller endeavor, but also something that kind of made more sense than a cookbook. A cocktail book always immediately implies something more fun, interestingly. So I was sold on the idea when he brought that up and said, “You know what? Maybe we should do a cocktail book instead.” And he started to bring up ideas for designs and stuff. And I liked it. This is the way to go.
JEREMY STAPLES: I love the idea. When Steph mentioned the cookbook, I loved the idea, but we thought it was a little ambitious. So I think the cocktail book is a lot of fun. You know, I’m born and raised in Wisconsin, and anybody who’s lived in Wisconsin knows that, as a state, we love a good cocktail. So cocktails are near and dear to my heart. But really, it was about, how do we take, you know, Steph is one of the world’s most preeminent pinup artists. How do we celebrate his pinup artwork in his various styles? What better way to do that than pairing them with something equally as diverse in terms of styles—being, you know, different cocktails from around the world.
ROUX: It made sense to us. We’re still, at some point, going to do the cookbook, but that was kind of like, in a way, we thought it would be more comfortable to start with cocktails because, I don’t know, I anticipated that it would be less work. It was still a lot of work, but we had fun, and it was worth it. Now that we’ve done it, we’re considering other possibilities and other projects. So, we’re definitely going to keep that one going too.
STAPLES: Yeah, and you know, the thing for me, what I love is when Steph brought the idea to the table, he said, “I want to do another art book, but I want it to have some utility beyond just a book of pictures.” So, this is, first and foremost, a fantastic, stunning, full-color pin-up book. Steph created 20 brand new pin-ups for this. But beyond just admiring the gorgeous art, it has utility value. You can make fun cocktails with it. And especially now, with the cost of everything being sky-high and more people staying home, it’s a great idea. When you’re sitting at home on a Friday night re-watching Arcane, you can make yourself a cocktail or a mocktail and make your night feel a little more sophisticated and fun.
HIGUERA: I think it’s one of those things where I love buying large art books that you can have on your coffee table. They really open up conversations. I can totally imagine a reader having this book on their coffee table, and someone flipping through it, like, “Can we make one of these? This is fantastic!” And from there, the conversation just takes off. It’s a perfect mix of beautiful art and practical fun—something that draws people in and keeps them engaged, whether it’s to admire the artwork or to try their hand at the cocktail recipes. It’s not just a book, it’s an experience.
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ROUX: Its a conversation piece and also, yeah, it is something that could start conversations. But it’s a perfect match to me because it has functionality, it can be fun, and then you get to look at some nice art.
STAPLES: Yeah, and it’s a really nice size. It’s nine and a half by six and a half, so it’s easy to hold. It’s about 50 pages in total. It’s a softcover, so it’s really portable, and you can keep a copy on your art shelf and another copy in the kitchen or your bar cart.
HIGUERA: Your pin-up illustrations have a distinct charm and personality. How did you approach designing each piece to reflect the essence of its paired cocktail?
ROUX: So, to me, I approached it as a game, as a challenge. I would read through the recipe of the cocktail, understand what it’s about, and then try to have fun telling a story with the illustration. The story could either refer to something from pop culture that people might recognize, or it could be me imposing my view and perception of what kind of story the cocktail tells. Sometimes it could be a bit far-fetched or obscure, sometimes very straightforward. Occasionally, it’s a pop culture reference that a lot of people will get, or sometimes it’s just a story for the sake of the story—letting yourself be carried away with it. You know, if there’s a caption, read it, or something like that. Every one of the cocktails inspired me in different ways. Some would inspire me based on the style I wanted to use. Sometimes I had preconceived ideas about what style I wanted to try, and other times, I’d try something in a particular style, but it wouldn’t quite hit the mark, and I’d shift it to something a little more cartoony or a bit more realistic. It was a game for me. It was a way of working with my ability to adapt and change styles. Since my background is in animation, adapting to different styles has been part of my life since I started working. That was my sandbox, and I could do whatever I wanted. I would cherry-pick the right style: for instance, this cocktail would go with a cartoony style, while this one feels more serious because it has a spy-related reference. That kind of thing.
HIGUERA: Jeremy, considering Stefan’s part, would be finding the art that goes with his cocktail. Writing about cocktails while pairing them with pin-up art is a unique challenge. How did you ensure that each drink’s personality matched the accompanying illustration?
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STAPLES: Great question! So the first thing I did was give Stefan a list of about 45 different cocktails, broken down by spirit. All I had was the name of the cocktail, and I said, ‘Pick out 25 that you’re inspired by, just by the name.’ He paired it down to 25, and then we balanced it out. We took that list of 25 and narrowed it down to the final 20. Once we had the final 20 locked in, some of the cocktails were ones that I knew the recipe for, and some that Stefan knew the recipe for. Others we just pulled from random places. But once we felt we had a good assortment, then I went to work.
Each page has a recipe with a description of the cocktail, the emotions it might evoke, or the taste profile. And then one thing I love is the history of cocktails. So many cocktails have these wild, interesting histories. At the bottom of each page, there’s one or two fun facts about the cocktail. So, not only do you get the recipe and the art, but you might also learn something new, or a fun piece of trivia related to what you’re drinking.
ROUX: We were also trying to, as you said, choose the spirits carefully. We wanted to make sure we didn’t have too many rum-based cocktails and not enough gin, so we worked to balance that out. We’re aiming for variety, and as we expand the collection of cocktails, we’ll keep that balance in mind. We’re also planning to add more mocktails in the future.
STAPLES: we do have one mocktail in the book. Actually, out of the 20 recipes, it’s my favorite. It’s a topless Sangria mocktail, and it’s absolutely delicious.
ROUX: So I just heard something about, there’s a, there’s a in Paris right now, taking place in Paris right now. There’s like, the year, yearly agricultural fair in Paris, and this year they’re promoting non alcoholic wines. I’m curious about that.
STAPLES: yeah, it’s called grape juice. Welches has made it since
ROUX: Laughs Yeah thats what i was saying when i heard it in the news, like yeah that’s grape juice! no no, apparently its like some kind of Kombucha right? SO there might be some surprising flavors.
HIGUERA: Considering the amount of work he has put into this, which particular cocktail was the most difficult to pair with, either in art or to create?
ROUX: Ah, that’s a good question, because there was a couple of ones where I was running dry, pun intended, obviously the ones that were so much easier to put together like The Spy, Sidecar was an easy one. The Kuba Libre—I knew immediately what I was going to do. The Beachcomber, yeah, that’s one where I think I should have put more thought into it or taken more time to explore various options, like the Painkiller. The Painkiller is one of my favorite cocktails, and it’s the sweetest one among the ones I like. I made it in a medical environment, like in a hospital—because, well, Painkiller, right? But it really tastes more like a tropical drink, so maybe I should have done a hospital in the Pacific instead.
The one I really struggled with… let me see. Aviation was one of them. Aviation was tough because I didn’t want to go into the details of drawing mechanical parts of a plane or rendering a leather jacket. I knew I wanted it to be highly rendered in terms of coloring and such, but I was aiming for a more striking yet simple idea. And honestly, it’s one of my favorites now.
Early on in the process, when I was struggling, I knew I had something when I started thinking about the comic strip Terry and the Pirates. I remembered Milton Caniff’s illustration with a pin-up lying on the lawn, and there was a cast shadow of a plane flying over her. I think there were two soldiers behind a fence, checking her out and saying something that was either a joke or a quote. But I remember that black-and-white image vividly—the shadow of the plane hovering over her as she sunbathed. And I thought, This is it. This is my idea. It came to me right away.
Then I knew I was going to cast the projection of the glass over her body, and I could almost instantly visualize how to render the transparency effect of the glass over the lawn and her body. When I start feeling confident about the means to achieve an idea, that’s when I know—it’s the one I have to go with. That’s fantastic. But at first? Yeah, at first, it was a struggle. Definitely a struggle.
HIGUERA: For you Jeremy?
STAPLES: Again, the artwork really led the project. Once Stefan picked out the 20—or we narrowed down the 20 we were going to go with—I handled the recipes, the wordsmithing, and just let them run wild with the art.
I think the one that was the most fun for me was one of my favorite cocktails. It’s a little obscure—it’s called the Harvey Wallbanger. A lot of people haven’t heard of it, but it’s a fantastic drink. It came about in the ’70s, and Stefan had never heard of it before. He said, I have no idea—how do I do a sexy pin-up for something called a Harvey Wallbanger?
And I knew right away. I gave him an idea and said, This is it. Trust me, I’ve got the facts to tie into it—the fun facts. And for various reasons, it’s one of my favorite pin-ups in the project.
HIGUERA: I have to ask Jeremy, how much hands on research did you have to do?
STAPLES: You know, honestly, that’s funny—I’m not a super big drinker. Most of the cocktails, though, I’ve had at some point in my life. Growing up, my dad was a bartender at the pub down the street from our house, so I spent half my childhood in a pub. Through that, and just osmosis and whatnot, I’ve tried most of the cocktails in there. There are a couple I haven’t personally, but that’s okay too—it gives me something fun to try.
HIGUERA: I have to ask Stefan, you’ve worked across multiple mediums, from comics, animation to pin up art, how did you experience in these different fields influence the creation of this book?
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ROUX: Like I pointed out a little earlier, for me, it was the ability to—well, I haven’t done it to the full extent yet—but it gave me the opportunity to have fun with different styles. There are some nods to the animation industry, but they’re still very faint at this point in the book.
I’ve always been fascinated by and interested in cartoon drawings in magazines—you know, those single-panel illustrations with a quote at the bottom. I was able to include one in the book as a cocktail. The Sidecar is the one that has that look, like those old magazines where you’d see a pin-up in a sexy but also fun situation.
I mostly relied on my ability to create highly finished, very detailed pieces, whether done digitally or on paper, because that’s what people know me for—especially in the comic book industry. If I had leaned too much into cartoony elements, it might have made the whole book feel a little too lightweight, in my opinion. I wanted to include a few, and in retrospect, I think I could have done more, but I also didn’t want them to take over. I really wanted this to be a pin-up art book in the way people expect it to be—filled with highly detailed, elegant, graceful shapes, drawings, and finishes.
Cartoon pin-ups are fun, and we did get one on the cover, which I was happy with because it serves the purpose of looking like a sticker. Given the size, if it had been a more realistic pin-up with a lot of detail, it would have been lost. So that was the perfect addition. I included some slightly more cartoony elements on certain pages—just a little hint at animation—but it’s very subtle. Mostly, it was about the pin-ups I’m known for.
STAPLES: Well, I’m gonna step in here—I think Steph is being a little modest, and I’ll tell you a quick story that highlights that.
We did a test run of 100 copies of the book. We called it the Limited Edition—it had a spot foil cover and whatnot—just to see what people would think of it, kind of as a test run. We took a batch of them to New York Comic Con with us last year, and we sold out.
As people were flipping through it, the thing we kept hearing over and over was: There are so many different styles of pin-ups here. And that’s what Steph is really known for. He can do realistic, he can do cartoony, he can do movie poster-style. Some of them are very Elvgren-influenced, a couple are very painterly, and a few have that Bill Ward cheeky girl, one-panel cartoon vibe.
For me, this book is really a celebration of all the different styles of pin-ups that Stefan can do—and do well. So when you go through the book, even if you’re just looking at the art, it’s not page after page of the same type of pin-up. Oh no—there’s something for everyone.
ROUX: The proportions vary, but I always push the rendering a little further—kind of like what I’m known for when it comes to cover-quality work.
For example, Jeremy, remember that Jessica Rabbit piece we did as a print?
STAPLES: Sure, yes.
ROUX: That’s the style I want to bring into the upcoming recipes, the add-ons we’ll include over the next few years. Later on, in the future, I want to inject more of that cartoony aspect into the work.
HIGUERA: You, mentioned a lot of influences, all the things that you guys pulled from, but were there any surprising or unexpected influences that helped shape the final book?
ROUX: No, I would say—I think the reason why we were able to put it together so quickly, despite the time it takes to fabricate and create the actual art, is because we had a pretty clear idea that was similar for both of us. We really knew what we wanted. Jeremy brought some other books that had been done before—books that were really well-crafted, served their purpose, and were different enough from what we were doing. That gave us a sense of where to position ourselves.
He knows enough of my work and how it can look in the end, even before I’m done with it, that he could probably shape an image of the book in his head that was similar to the one I had in mine. There was no real surprise in what we added last minute or in the direction we were going. I would say the book really reflects what we wanted to do.
HIGUERA: The crowdfunding space is bringing so many unique projects to life. What do you hope this book brings to fans, both of cocktails and pin apart?
ROUX: In terms of when I’m done or when I’m working on a project, a book, or a piece, I want to bring something to the readership, to the people. But there’s such a subjective factor—what they are going to bring to the experience of reading this book. What are they going to pour into it for themselves that’s going to make them connect with it or not?
The moment it’s done, it’s not mine anymore. That’s all I can say. The moment it’s done, it’s not mine anymore. It’s going to be whatever they make of it—whether it’s an impulsive buy that just sits there, and they never use it, only look at the images. Or maybe it becomes a working book, and they try to make those cocktails, and the book ends up getting beat up and soaked from spills—it takes on a life of its own. Or maybe it’s a gift, and you buy it for someone you know will appreciate it.
At this point, once it’s done and it’s on our table at conventions, it’s out of my hands. I’m not thinking in those terms—whether it’s going to be a milestone, make a difference, or become something the readers will take in their own direction.
HIGUERA: Jeremy any thoughts?
STAPLES: Yeah, I’m going to take a slightly different tack. This book will make you taller, it’ll make you younger, it’ll make you look cooler. It will enhance your life in ways you can’t possibly comprehend. Before he made this book, Steph couldn’t grow a beard. Now look at him.
ROUX: Laughing It does! It does! Look at me. I’m the living person of personification of that.
STAPLES: Yeah, no. In all seriousness, from my perspective, again, it’s just a really fun pin-up art book with some really cool cocktail recipes. From my standpoint, the world’s crazy right now, and anything that can bring you a little bit of happiness, a little bit of joy, or just add some sophistication to your life—anything that enhances your life, even if it’s just a little—can be a good thing.
Even if you’re sitting at home with a frozen pizza on a Friday night, whether it’s a cocktail or a mocktail, it’s something that can, you know, for lack of a better word, add a little bit of light to your life.
It does. Look at me. I’m the living person of personification of that.
ROUX: Like you said, Jeremy, it’s the tool that could take an evening from just being meh to something more fun altogether right away, just by starting to play with the book.
STAPLES: Yeah, I mean, some of the cocktails are warm or refreshing, while others are cool and will make you feel like James Bond in Monte Carlo, you know? But at the end of the day, I just hope people enjoy the artwork first and foremost and appreciate Stefan’s work.
ROUX: My motivation was really putting everything I’ve got—skills and experience—into making cool, cute, and sexy images. I gave it my all because that was the moment, the chance, the opportunity for me to do that. In some respects, it’s the first pin-up book I’ve actually published. Before this, it was just sketchbooks—black-and-white doodles, some pieces a little more finished. This one is completely a collection of finished pieces, done for a very specific purpose, and I gave my best for it. I really had a blast doing it.
STAPLES: And these aren’t—these aren’t sketches. These are full-page, full-color, fully rendered pieces. I mean, Steph literally sat down and crafted 2020 brand new pin-ups from scratch, all across a whole variety of different styles for the book. That’s pretty cool, yeah, in and of itself.
HIGUERA: Any last words for the readers and your fans?
ROUX: I think we kind of hinted at it, but maybe we should ask if there’s going to be more. Yes, we will. Over the years, we’ll expand the collection. So, eventually, 10 years from now, it’ll become something like a coffee table book, you know? And maybe we’ll change the size too, because some pieces—like the movie poster one, the Corpse Reviver—you know, there are so many details in that one that I wish we could’ve showcased better. You can’t just change the format of a book for one image, though, so the image had to fit with the rest of the book. But this one, yeah, maybe it could be a print eventually, like a larger-size print, or perhaps a bigger-size book in the future.
But for now, we have that new edition—the trade edition—that’s going to be a little bit different. There will be some variations from the limited one we had in the fall. There will be some differences that’ll be fun to point out for readers who have a copy of the first edition and then compare it with the new one.
By the way, the cover for this edition, for the trade edition, was actually my initial pick for the cover—the amber color with the girl in the blue sweater. That was my initial pick.
STAPLES: For me, you know, it’s— I mean, the book starts at 20 bucks. It’s six by six and a half by nine and a half, 50 pages. For 20 bucks, you get an amazingly cool pin-up book, some really delicious cocktail and mocktail recipes, and some fun facts. What more can you ask for?
ROUX: And going on the platform to support the campaign for the book, we have a few incentives and add-ons in store that are going to be pretty cool too. Yeah, some original art, some goodies, and, yeah, some really cool stuff that we’ve started working on ahead of time.
STAPLES: Steff will come to your house dressed as a cocktail shaker.
HIGUERA: Oh we are so back.
STAPLES: Laughs And it’s great for, you know, Steph has a lot of fans around the world, and he goes to as many conventions as he can, but he can’t hit them all. For fans of great artwork, or Steph’s work, or just pin-up artwork in general, this is a really easy way to get some beautiful artwork of his into your hands in a really nice format.
If you want to know more or even want to lock in your copy now make sure to check out the Zoop campaign here!
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