SEAN PHILLIPS: FROM HELLBLAZER TO CHEWBACCA, A LOVELY COMBINATION
An interview with Sean Phillips by Christopher Butcher.

Sean Phillips is sort of an odd creator, in that his name isn't strongly associated with any particular title, or genre. His work has run the gamut of the industry, from the girls stories of the British JUDY comics, to the hard-hitting bastardry of Vertigo's HELLBLAZER, to painting the covers of Dark Horse's CHEWBACCA mini-series. Next, Phillips will move firmly into the mainstream as he takes over the penciling (and possibly cover painting) chores on Wildstorm's WILDCATS. Sound a little schizophrenic? Well it isn't really, it's just the mark of someone who loves comics of all style, and is still quite a fanboy at heart. PopImage Attitude editor Christopher Butcher talks with Sean Phillips about his life in comics.

Mr Phillips, what was your first job in comics?

Pencilling a 3 page story in "Judy Annual 1984" in 1980.

Why did you choose working in comics as your vocation?

I'd always done it as a hobby, and when I was thirteen I met someone who drew British girls comics, and through him got some work for DC Thompson, who publish THE BEANO amongst others. I started being published while still at school, but I never thought I'd still be doing it today.

What kind of formal art training do you have?

I never really thought of comics as a real job, so I went to college and got a degree in Graphic Design. All though college, I was doing the odd comic job, and when I left college I thought I'd be an illustrator. Fleetway, the publishers of 2000AD, where about to launch a new comic called CRISIS and they were looking for fill-in artists. It was a painted comic, very time consuming to produce the artwork, so I never really pursued any other illustration work. I worked almost exclusively for various Fleetway comics for a couple of years until I got a call from DC Comics.

Your first work in CRISIS ON NEW STATESMAN wasn't very well received. How do you feel about your work on that, in hindsight?

Because the first two episodes were fill-ins, I was asked to not deviate from Jim Baikie's style too much, so it was black line art with mostly flat colour. It was the first colour work I had done and I was learning as I went along. Jim's stuff was very confident, I was a big fan and I was quite daunted to be following him. By the time the art saw print, I was very disappointed with how it turned out, so the next episodes I did were more 'me.' Also, by now I'd seen what Duncan Fregredo had done with his two fill-in episodes. I thought his stuff was amazing, really exciting and frenetic. It made me want to try harder, so I started doing fully painted artwork, with acrylics, coloured pencils, collage, whatever was needed to get what I wanted. Fleetway carried on giving me work after that, so I think I made the right decision.

Who in the comic industry inspires you, and your artwork?

The most inspiring thing should be a good script, but failing that, there are a lot of artists I like: (in no particular order) Mike Mignola, Kent Williams, Jack Kirby, Duncan Fregredo, Jose Munoz, Brendan McCarthy, David Mazzuchelli, Dan Clowes, Alex Toth, Kevin Knowlan, Gene Colan.

You're going to be following Travis Charest on WILDCATS, starting with issue #8. Some people might say that's sort of an unlikely choice. Your work has been pretty much exclusively from Vertigo until recently. How did the Wildcats job come about?

Joe Casey called me and asked if I'd like the job. At first I turned him down because I already had plenty of work,including USER, a 3 issue prestige format painted book with Devin Grayson and John Bolton, and BATMAN : GOTHAM NOIR with Ed Brubaker. After my wife, Janette, telling me WILDCATS was too good an opportunity to turn down, I called Joe back to say I'd changed my mind. All I had to do was convince him and Scott Dunbier I could handle a monthly comic on top of my other commitments.

Between WILDCATS, STAR WARS, and your recent stint on SPIDER-MAN: WEBSPINNERS, you seem to be moving away from your Vertigo roots. Is this a concentrated effort on your part, to work on more mainstream projects?

I don't have any sort of career plan, I just wait and see what comes my way. Most of the more mainstream work I've done recently has just been offered to me. Paul Jenkins obviously hadn't been put off working with me after 3 years on HELLBLAZER, and asked if I'd like to draw SPIDER-MAN. Of course, the fanboy in me jumped at the chance. The first hundred or so issues of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN are my favourite comics of all time. With STAR WARS though, I did get in touch with Dark Horse and offer my services, because I really wanted to do anything Star Wars.

You're painting the covers to the upcoming CHEWBACCA mini-series from Dark Horse. Big Star Wars fan then?

Huge! With doing some Star Wars stuff, my kids take me seriously at last.

What would you consider to be your "dream project"?

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN every month.

Do you think you'd be working on WILDCATS today if DC hadn't acquired Wildstorm from Jim Lee last year?

I think not. If DC hadn't acquired Wildstorm, then WILDCATS probably wouldn't have been relaunched. I don't think me working with DC before had anything to do with the decision, although over three years on HELLBLAZER did show I could keep to a deadline.

I've actually seen some preview pages from WILDCATS #8, and they look Brilliant. Do you feel you had to change or adapt your personal style to fit the book?

Not really, I just draw the way I always have.

What can we expect from yours and Joe Casey's run on WILDCATS?

Our first three issues deal with Emp and Kenyan trying to resolve a few things. Issue 11 sees the return of Ladytron, but after that I'm not sure what Joe has in mind. I'd rather not know too far ahead what I'm going to have to draw, I find out when I get the script.

At a time when the industry seems to be moving towards creator-ownership and vanity books, your projects tend to stay very freelance. Are you interested in producing more of your own, creator-owned work?

USER is creator-owned, as was THE HEART OF THE BEAST, HELL ETERNAL and THE MINX. As long as I get offered interesting projects, I don't mind if they're creator-owned or not.

That's the second time you've mentioned USER, and I can't seem to find anything about it online. What is that project, and when can we expect it?

USER is written by Devin Grayson and co-painted by myself and John Bolton. It's about a young woman who seeks to escape from her problems by getting involved in online gaming. Her family, her work and everything else is a mess, but instead of confronting things and sorting out her problems, she ignores them to spend all her time online in a virtual world of knights in shining armour and damsels in distress. I'm painting the 'real world' stuff and John's painting the 'virtual world' stuff. It should be out this year, although I'm only half way through my eighty pages.

We were lucky enough to interview Jamie Delano last month, and he mentioned that there was some film-studio interest in the one-shot you did with him for Vertigo, HELL ETERNAL. Have you ever had your work translated into film before? Are you excited about the opportunity?

This is the first time this has happened to me, and if it actually comes off, it will be interesting how it translates. I think Jamie's doing the screenplay, so I have high hopes.

Have you been approached to do any film work before? Costume or Character design, storyboarding or the like? It seems like a lot of comic artists supplement their income with film work. Steve Skroce and 'The Matrix' comes to mind.

No ones ever asked me, and I don't know if I'd be that interested anyway. Character design isn't my strong point, although storyboarding might be fun. It would have to be a very interesting project, or a big pile of cash to drag me away from my drawing board and family.

My favorite pieces of your art are the fantastic covers you designed for Vertigo's THE MINX. They were possibly some of the most well-designed covers to come out of Vertigo since Dave McKean's SANDMAN run, and yet you haven't done a lot of similar cover work since.

Cover work is hard to come by these days, but I'm always open to offers. With THE MINX, I did the picture, logo and the design so everything could be thought of as a whole. I don't think I will have the opportunity to do covers for WILDCATS but it would be nice to have control over the whole package.

Where do you see yourself, professionally, 5 years from now? Where do you see the comics industry?

If there is a comics industry, I would still like to be in it. I've no burning desire to get out of comics and get a proper job.

PopImage would like to thank Sean for granting us this interview, espescially considering his very busy schedule. You can look for Sean's continued cover-paintings on the Dark Horse Chewbacca mini-series, interior pencilling on Wildcats from Wildstorm, art chores on the upcoming Batman: Gotham Noir from DC Comics, and fully painted artwork on the upcoming USER from Vertigo.

All characters, titles, images mentioned or shown are copyright and trademark their respective creators.

Christopher Butcher is Columns Editor of PopImage.

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