About.com's Justin M. Norton recently conducted a lengthy interview with CANNIBAL CORPSE illustrator Vincent Locke, who recently completed a graphic novel based around the band's latest album, Evisceration Plague.

Locke discussed his artistic roots; how the graphic novel project came about; the backgrounds behind the classic Cannibal Corpse album covers Tomb Of The Mutilated and Butchered At Birth and how he balances his artwork and parenting.

Excerpts follow:

Q: How do you feel about your artwork influencing virtually every death metal band that tries to one-up each other with gruesome imagery? Does art come first and shock come second?

A: "My main focus on the album covers is an eye-catching image. You just picture these rows and rows of CDs and you want something that is going to grab your eye. I never thought it had to be extremely gruesome, but that’s where the band wanted to go. I had done that with the Dead World comic, too. On the second issue we did a violent cover. Some stores loved it and sold more of it, and some stores couldn’t put it out. For the next issue we did two covers: one violent and horrific and the other just creepy."

Q: How did you approach a project where you had to draw based on song lyrics as opposed to a script written by a comic writer?

A: "There was a lot more interpreting on my part. When I get a comic script it’s usually broken into panels and the dialogue is already there. There’s creativity in it, but working on the Evisceration Plague book was like a blank canvas. Some of the stories stick really closely to the lyrics and some are a bit more satiric. There’s lots of imagery in lyrics. I wished I had more time to develop it further, I could have made even more of a story out of it, but it was fun doing what I did.

Q: Being a family man, is there ever a disconnect between some of the imagery you’ve created and your family, or are art and life two separate realms?

A: "The only hard part is not being able to let my kids see some of the artwork. There are times they can’t come in my studio. Since I work at home, they often come and go and see what I’m working on. But there are definitely times where they need to stay out, or I work out a way they won’t see it accidentally. Some stuff is not for kids, right?"

Read the entire interview at this location.