Hip Hop and Comics Vol.1: LeSean Thomas (TMNT, Arkanium)
Artist: LeSean Thomas
Hometown: Boogie Down Bronx, NY (now residing in NC)
Bio: Although he brings a lot of experience from the animation world LeSean is a relative newcomer by comic standards. But with only two years or so under his belt, he’s wasted little time putting his pencils to work on Dreamwave’s kung fu epic Arkanium and following that up with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, his current run with vet Peter David at the helm. This dude loves to stay busy. He’s already in the midst of developing two new projects of his own and starting up Artxilla studios with Sanford Greene, Keron Grant, and Ed McGuinness all while penciling Com.X’s return of Bazooka Jules. He’s no slouch on the hiphop tip either as MF Doom and C Rayz Walz stay in rotation while he’s putting in work.
Notable Works:
Animation: Lizzie McGuire (Disney), Whirlgirl (Showtime) Comics: Arkanium (Dreamwave) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Dreamwave) Websites: LeseanThomas.com and Artxilla Studios
Give our readers some background on your work.
I’ve been in animation for about six years freelancing between that and online stuff. Then I just got into comics. My last job was assistant animator for Lizzie McGuire (Disney). I was supposed to do the movie but I got a call from Dreamwave to do a comic series so I had to weigh my options and I said let me do the comic series. I always wanted to get into comics, but I wasn’t good enough at the time I was trying to break in like eight years ago. So I left it alone and fell into animation and now I’ve come full circle. Dreamwave saw my stuff online because I was pitching a comic book series of my own and Pat Lee hit me up with a phone call and the rest is history. I did Arkanium [and] then I got hired to do Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and that’s what I’m on right now.
Why did you stop working on the Arkanium series?
It was a bunch of things. The book was about to be canceled because it wasn’t doing well. It was originally supposed to be twelve issues and then they cut it down to six, but they weren’t even breaking even on the book so they had to cancel it. They told me ahead of time and had already offered me to do “Devil May Cry” for Capcom and Ninja Turtles. They was like if you’re going to do this shit you have to stop working on Arkanium now. So I had to stop it and I brought my man Travel Foreman on to do issue five and then they canceled it. I would have stayed on to finish it but I couldn’t pass up [on Ninja Turtles]. Plus Peter David is writing it too and I grew up on a lot of his writing.
How did you get down with Disney?
I got hired at twenty to be an assistant designer for a children’s accessories company for multiple licensors [like] Disney, Nickelodeon, MTV, etc. I used to design those Mickey Mouse plush backpacks for a company called Pyramid Handbags. I also designed those kid umbrellas that have like the plastic molded [characters like] Winnie the Pooh on the top of it. I was the only artist who could draw that’s why I got hired. I would do little spot jobs here and there like art corrections on some of the style guidelines that was provided for me. I didn’t really have the style down, but they had these huge hardcover manuals [detailing] page by page broken down to a science on how to draw a Mickey Mouse accurately to be approved by Disney. I had to practice that shit in order to make the corrections on some of the art. My drawing style was a lot more detailed in the early 90’s but after two years of doing that my style got a lil bit more cartoony and that’s kinda how I got exposed to animation because of the simplification of shit. I took one class and then I got put onto Showtime Entertainment. This young lady named Colleen Rogers had just got hired as creative director at the licensing design company I was working at and she told me her husband was a freelance artist and was looking for someone who could help him do comic book artwork. So I met this guy, his name was Joe Rogers and he wanted me to do some work for him on a project called WhirlGirl, the first online flash cartoon series. It became popular as a syndicated episode. It was just jpeg images with scrolling text for about a year and then we got introduced to this program called Flash 3. We were taking our little drawings and making them herky, jerky [doing] some Monty Python style type shit. Then we did one full minute for the first time and Showtime caught that episode, hired us and bought the rights. That’s how I got my start doing online animation. I did that for about two years and then Urban Box Office (UBO) [called]. They were a big dot com in 2000. They had an animation department and they wanted to get in contact with the people doing WhirlGirl because that was the only thing poppin’ on a big scale. We met with them and one of the executive producers at Urban Box Office asked me if I had some ideas. I had the Battleseed concept on me and he said let’s do that in flash and I was like aiight. It was the first time doing my own directing, producing, storyboarding and writing. We did about eight episodes and that went all the way up to 2001 and then that got canned. Then I got hired by MTV to work in their commercial division doing various projects like Nissan animation, a lot of stuff for Daria and at the same time I was doing a lot of work for Tapehouse Toons which was the guys doing the animation part of the Lizzie McGuire shit. I was also working on a project called Gotham Girls with a company called Noodle Soup. I was bouncing back and forth rotating between those three guys and I’ve been doing that for the last three years till I got put on.
What kind of training did you have before you started working in animation and comics?
I didn’t go to school for this. I couldn’t afford art school so I used to steal library books to learn how to do it. I was going to go to school for it but this guy named Buzz Potamkin kinda fucked my head up. He was the producer for the pilots for Powerpuff Girls and Cow and Chicken and the consultant for WhirlGirl at the time and he loved my shit. I was like I want to go to school for this and he was like why? You’re already doing it you don’t need to go to school so I just kinda stayed away but I’m gonna go back to school. I want to get into directing and start fucking with live action stuff. The thing I learned most of all is school is great but it all depends on the individual. I know a lot of four year graduate illustrators working at McDonalds. It’s really about what you make it. The thing school doesn’t teach you is how to keep a job. I don’t look down on that shit at all because I’ve been doing things by myself for so long that I’m at a point where I want to be in school with a bunch of other niggas trying to get where I want to go. That’s why I joined the studio (Artxilla w/Sanford Greene, Keron Grant, and Ed Mcguinness) so I could surround myself with other cats who’s doing it. It’s all about the cipher and being around dudes because it’s real hard to do it by yourself. They don’t encourage you to be a comic book artist in the projects. It was awkward man. I remember those nights being the only dumb nigga walking around with a big ass portfolio and a Pea coat in the winter and I ain’t give a fuck because I wasn’t going to find people doing what I was doing going around the block. I had to go to those cons whenever they had them at the church or the joints at Penn station. That was my experience I could either stay around here and hang around niggas who ain’t doing nothing or I can see what this art thing can do. That was the only thing I was good at and I’m happy where I’m at.
I was peeping Battleseed and your heroine has a little ghettoness in her but you made sure she was strong and real intelligent and not some sort of stereotype. What were you trying to convey through that character?
Black heroines characters are the minority today. There’s not a lot of positive female characters of color in entertainment today. There’s not a lot of role models for young women to look up to particularly in the animation medium. You got the Proud Family and that’s it. At the time before that came out, I was really inspired by Octavia Butler. She’s a real popular author and one of the best science fiction novelists in the game. She created a story called “Kindred” and another called “Wild Seed” and I took that name “Wildseed” and called it Battleseed as an homage to her. The concept behind Battleseed is [a mix of] the Golden Child, the story of Joan of Arc, and the Fifth Element. I wanted to come up with a story with a young black character but not trying to push it as a black cartoon because to me there is no such thing. I wanted to tell a story about a girl who has been contacted by this warrior chick from another galaxy who is saying she is the chosen one to save these people in this other galaxy from slavery [and] she just so happens to be black. It was received really well from a cult-hit standpoint. No matter how herky jerky it [looks] now, at the time no one was doing it like that from the look to the color palette, sounds effects or the voice acting. I had a five-year licensing deal with Urban Box Office and when they went bankrupt, they held onto the property. Next year my licensing is up and I get the rights back. That’s why I haven’t touched it. When my license is up I’m gonna bring it back in comic book form and take the flash episodes I have on file and compile them in a DVD format.
