Welcome to the professional website of Sean Murphy: illustrator, concepts artist, comic book artist and writer.
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Hey everyone.
I'm writing from Cancun right now while watching Futurama in spanish. And yes: it's still funny. Before that it was Mythbusters in spanish. And yes: science and the laws of physics is an international language.
To be honest, I didn't want to come to Mexico. But my girlfriend booked a wedding and got a free flight and hotel. So basically I got roped in.
But it worked out because the hype from Joe the Barbarian's release was really distracting. The please-love-my-stuff "ego genes" that all artists have started activating in my brain, and soon I was Googling "Sean Murphy + Joe Barbarian" more than I like to admit. I'm still not sure what to make of all this. But I know that it's good news. Once my thoughts have settled I'm sure I'll be posting new journals.
Right now it's good to be by the beach on a really dark night where I can finally see the stars that Sagan told us so much about. The only lights in the Brooklyn sky (where I live) are usually the ones lined up to land at La Guardia.
But back to Joe and to everyone here: thanks so much for the support! I read a lot of the "thanks so much" DA journals and I always roll my eyes. And now look where I'm at. What a hypocrite.
What I wanted to do tonight was share a few of the behind-the-scenes DVD extras that go with the first issue. If you're into the book and you're curious, then read on. If not, then read on and memorize these factoids to throw in your friend's faces when they try and school you on shit they think you don't know. BLAM.
CAR SCENE
1. My grandmother drove a Subaru Outback Sport. I loved those cars ESPECIALLY in white. And especially with an air-scoop (which is only decoration). I suggested to Dave that it should be white, but he went with light maroon. And to be honest, I love it.
2. I drew a dream catcher on the mirror because I wanted to hint at the "dreaming" we were about to do later on in the book.
3. Joe's mom is based off of the actress Holly Hunter. To be honest, I wish I'd used someone else. I can't seem to help it, but I draw masculine looking women. And Hunter is already masculine looking in real life. So I struggled a lot with Joe's mom's face.
CEMETERY SCENE
1. The script didn't call for any town in particular, so I chose Portland Maine for a few reasons.
A. There was an eeriness to parts of the script--like maybe something was a little off. So I thought of Stephen King and then I thought of how he always writes about New England. For some reason Portand started to feel right.
B. Portland looks like the town from two movies that I wanted to invoke from my childhood: The Neverending Story and The Goonies (even though it's not on the west coast, it's still a coastal town).
C. I'm from New England myself and know how boring/overcast life can be. Again, it seemed to be a fit for the script.
2. I based the main bully off the main character from Off Road. But the other two weren't. At least not consciously.
3. Autumn seemed appropriate to me. Autumn represents death when you consider the "symbolic circle" of the seasons.
HOUSE SCENES
1. Obviously the house is a major character in the book, so 3 levels of blueprints were drawn up for Grant to refer to. A lot of the stuff I tossed in ended up as part of the plot.
2. When Joe is entering the house on the splash, I purposefully drew the house to look smaller than it should. I wanted the interior to feel bigger than the exterior as a way to suggest that the house FEELS big to Joe even though it doesn't look it. But to be honest he's still way too big and I should have shrunk him down more on that splash page.
3. A lot of houses in New England are dressed up like an interior decorator's nightmare. From my experience, you see a lot of clutter from old shit that you would find at yard sales like painting of sailboats, chewed up coffee tables, mismatched furniture, and shag carpeting. For Joe's house I wanted to get all of that, including leftover 70s-style paneling on the walls. My color notes to Dave insisted that he go nuts with these reds, oranges, olives and ugly textures. I've never seen it in a comic and I know Dave has never been asked to color badly on purpose.
4. My favorite part of issue 1 is the aztec-style chair next to the front door. Dave colored it exactly as those ugly chairs look in real life. It's gloriously tacky and I love it.
5. Grant left those 5 pages silent before I'd started drawing it. When I saw that, I realized that the art had better be intricate so we don't lose people.
JOE'S ROOM
1. Grant had a few notes on his room. Joe lived in the attic and used a rope ladder to get there. And he had a ton of toys and a window. Grant left it open but he was very clear that this room was the defining visual of who Joe was. So to play up the tree house feel of the rope ladder, I played with height a lot. So the ceiling got taller and suddenly there was a bunk bed and skylights. All the other stuff fell into place around that.
2. Like Grant said in an interview recently, the toys were basic at first--soldiers and teddy bears. And I had just finished designing my perfect bedroom and thought, "soldiers and teddy bears? That ain't going in MY bedroom!" and then went to town on all the 70s/80s stuff. Much of it I didn't have but I figured a lot of readers would.
3. I wrote Nguyen on the license plate of the Transformer--a Bumble Bee type toy that I based off a Honda CRX that I used to drive. Dustin Nguyen and I BOTH apparently had one, so I threw him name on the plate. One day we'll both buy our cars back and race off into the sun together.
4. Two problems occurred when I turned the pages in with all the knock-off toys: DC legal freaked out. I ended up having a few phone calls with my editors based purely off DC concern that the toys were too similar. They even had a problem with the Iron Giant poster. I remember screaming at my editor, "but that's a Warner Brothers movie!" He said that I should prepare for a lot of fixes. And with all the phone calls I assumed that I might be redrawing the spread. And after all of that, what did they make me change? The Picard-rip should have one leg and the generic cowboy (the only one I thought was safe) looking too much like the Man with No Name. THAT WAS IT. Thanks for all the phone calls DC.
The second problem was that these toys had all just had their assess kicked. What is powerfully enough to defeat knock-offs of GI Joe, Transformers, DCU characters, the Master Chief and a bunch of dinosaurs? I didn't know what the bad guys were at that point, although I'd done some sketches of a Death Coat that got approved. So I told my editor that Grant might want to make the villains more intimidating and powerful if they were going to be able to beat all those toys.
So tune in next month to see what they're up against!
OPENINGS: Joe the Barbarian #1 is due to hit shelves on January 20th and it's only a dollar. As many of you know Vertigo has been sitting on a lot of my stuff for about a year and a half and I'm thrilled to finally be on the shelves again! There's a launch party at BERGEN STREET COMICS (between Flatbush & 5th Avenues) Brooklyn on Saturday, January 30th
7pm-close. I believe they'll have drinks. So feel free to stop on by if you're in the area and want to see some original Joe pages on the walls.
ART FOR SALE: Now that that Joe will be available, I'm allowed to post and sell everything from issue #1 at least. For the last year or so I haven't been selling art because I wanted to re-do everything with the release of the book. Paolo, my art dealer at Cadencecomicart.com will be taking care of everything, so come midnight on January 19th the "Sean Murphy" section will be open with art from Joe, Off Road, Outer Orbit, Batman/Scarecrow and a few other things.
And for those asking about the yet-unpublished Hellblazer stuff: a few of those will be available as well. I'm tired of waiting for DC to decide when to publish it, so I'm breaking the rules and letting a few go at a time.
CONS: I'll be at the Seattle show in March, Charlotte in June, San Diego and NYCC of course. I know I suck at getting to shows but this year will be different because I'm pushing Joe.
COMMISSIONS: I'll be taking quick commissions at the shows, but only stuff that I can pencil and ink in 15 minutes. There's no list ahead of time so don't ask--first come first serve. And before someone asks I never take any commissions other than quick ones at shows.
Thanks to everyone on here and DA for the support. You guys kept me in the buzz even without shit on the shelves, and without you DC's delays might have tanked me.
Hey all.
I was teaching in SCAD Atlanta as a guest speaker (along with Matt Bernier) a few weeks back. I didn't know it at the time but Tim O'Shea from Robot 6 was invited to the event. He took great notes and wrote a stunning article about everything. The best part was how he was able to make me sound way smarter than I actually am, thereby removing all the "uh"s, "um"s, "dude"s, and "man"s that I use on a constant basis.
Tim and I chatted for a bit after the class. He was an awesome guy with a wide appreciation for all kinds of art. Best of all, he struck me as an actual reporter and not someone looking to write another TMZ type of drama column. I wish more people had Tim's respect for our industry. :)
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/11/scad-atlanta-comics-arts-forum-report/#more-26870
So I was reading from Shadows of Forgotten Ancestry by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan when I came across an interesting fact regarding evolution. In terms of survival and natural selection, species that are over specialized have a hard time surviving when their environment changes. And I started to think of how this might apply to the superhero genre as we approach a new digital environment in the world stage.
On overspecialization Sagan says:
“Organisms that are too narrowly specialized, that perform exceedingly well but only in a single, restrictive environmental niche, also tend to become extinct; they are in danger of making a Faustian bargain, trading their long-term survival for the blandishments of a brilliant but brief career. What happens to them when the environment changes? Like barrel makers in a world of steel containers, blacksmiths and buggy-whip tycoons in the time of the motorcar, or manufacturers of the slide rules in the age of pocket calculators, high specialized professionals can become obsolete virtually overnight.”
Sagan also goes on to talk about football. Catching the ball is your short-term objective while running with the ball without being tackled is your long-term objective. If you only concentrate on one aspect then you’re not likely to make it down the field to score. There’s an optimum mix that you need to strike between your short-term and long-term goals.
So what does this have to do with comics? Mainstream superhero books might just be the species that is over specialized and might not survive without adapting.
In the next ten years (as we move into a digital, downloadable, Kindle-ready comic industry), American comics will have to compete in the same ring as European comics, Manga, and South American comics because they’ll all be equally available to the consumer (even more than we have now). So I think we in the states have to ask ourselves this question: How will superheroes stand up against all the other types of genres? Soon the separate continents of comic book genres will collide into a digital Pangea. And the question of WHO WILL SURVIVE will be in the hands of the international comic book consumer, not just the American consumer. And ideas like genre, art, style, plot, storytelling and characters will be the mutations being selected for or against.
In other words, superheroes might have cornered the market here in the states, but the competition that we might be seeing in the future could disable it on the world stage. And if superhero comics don’t stand up, then I think it’ll be an interesting realization for the Marvel and DC. Are their comics really good, or are we (the American market) only buying them because we’ve been groomed to read them?
Of course, there will always be X Men, Batman, and Spider Man because we in the states grew up with it. But will our kids still like it? Will our grandkids? By that time I imagine the “claim” to certain genres of comics won’t be associated with different regions of the world. Nor will any ties to a certain style, color, layout, etc.
And if they do survive, then will they survive because they’ve stayed them same? What does natural selection say about a species that can’t evolve in a new environment? It says that they would be dead. So superhero comics, assuming they survive, will likely have assimilated some of the positive aspects of European and Manga books.
Which I actually look forward to. Sometimes I feel like we could use a little shaking up in our mainstream books: both publishers and readers should be more open minded. And don't get me wrong! As much as I complain about comics, I do have it's best interests in mind. I love Wolverine so much that I want him to adapt so that he can survive.
And now a bad joke…
In Japan they have comics for everything, including everyday activities like cooking and cleaning. Imagine a story about Wolverine making a casserole and heating it at 350. At least it'll be cool to watch him dice carrots.