Hip Hop and Comics Vol.1: LeSean Thomas (TMNT, Arkanium)
The Japanamation influence is apparent.
At the time, no one was trying to converge anime with hiphop culture and take those two elements and put them together into a sensible story. No one was even trying it because people were scared to take risks. The cool thing that I liked about anime at the time was that it was very hard to differentiate between certain races because they were drawn a certain way in a popular modern style with big eyes and pointy noises. Even black characters were drawn that way and I liked that concept of a universal iconic graphic approach because it took away the features of differentiating culture. I liked doing it in an anime style because there was a unity to it all. You could accept the characters easier as opposed to having Monet with a pointy nose and big eyes and for some reason Tamara will have a round nose and full lips. It didn’t make sense to me because then it felt more like I was trying to show you it was a black character and that wasn’t the point. It was about the story. If I were to do Battleseed again I wouldn’t do it anime style [though]. Now I’m like all pro black and do it as much as I can.
I read a bunch of your interviews and during one, you mentioned how you were able to break a bunch of rules with the Arkanium series. What were some examples of what you meant by that statement?
When I said break rules, it was for two things. It was mostly for Dreamwave, because I did a lot of research on them when Pat Lee contacted me. I went back two or three years when they had a comic called Darkminds. Everything from Darkminds all the way to now had this sort of stock look to it because they wanted to capitalize on that what made Darkminds such a big money maker. And anybody that they hired happened to draw like Pat Lee, more or less it seemed, in the end product. So when I came on board it was kind of a changing of the guard on multiple levels. That and the producer at the time, Adam Fortier, pointed out the creative team I personally handpicked on Arkanium was all black. That it was cool thing, without trying to sound dumb. He was right. Myself, Chris Walker on colors, Rob Stull on inks and Brandon Easton writing it. All brothers. It was also the first project that was “non-Dw” so that made us separate as well. Everyone knows there are a lot of Asian cats up at Dreamwave. So not only did they hire me, a “bruh” from the South Bronx, I came to them with this funky style, which, props to Pat on tryin something new. When [Arkanium] first came out everyone thought I was either French or Asian because of the style that I was drawing. And I was at DW. So when my mug showed up at the site, cats was like “oh cool, he’s Black,” haha. So when I said break rules I really meant at Dreamwave. I really wanted to change the guard penciling at Dreamwave, I really didn’t care about the comic industry as a whole, not then anyways. I didn’t come into the game with aspirations to blow Marvel away. I came into the game with aspirations to blow Dreamwave fans away. The other thing I meant was overall storytelling. I really got retarded with the storytelling with Arkanium mainly because I was green. I’m a storyboard artist by profession. When I came into the game, I really didn’t give a shit about what people thought. I didn’t care about borders or rules or any of that. I wanted to do what I felt was fun at the time. The main thing I wanted to push for was action. As much as I love those dudes, I always thought Dreamwave was known for coloring, not dynamic storytelling. Their whole thing was color, so when I came in the game I had creative freedom to break a lot of rules like panel borders, storytelling techniques, fluid, moving figures floating from one panel to the next and doing all types of crazy stuff. You didn’t just read the panel and go to the next page, you spent some time on that one page looking at shit and most comics are not really set up that way. Paramount to that is the work I’m doing with Ninja Turtles. It’s so by the book I hardly break borders and I never go over six panels a page (credit to Peter David) , whereas with Arkanium I went up to like fifteen to the point where it got confusing as hell. It’s a learning experience working on TMNT. At the time, working on Arkanium, it was like “who cares?” After a while people come to you like when you do Turtles don’t do that crazy shit you did in Arkanium keep it real simple. So I’m keeping it simple. [But] The new project I’m working on with Com.X is being developed that I’ll be penciling called “DRAMA KINGS” a hip hop samurai thriller that takes place in NYC and that’s gonna be like Arkanium. I’m gonna take what I learned from Turtles and throw it out the window and have some fun again.
I was checking some reviews for the Ninja Turtles project and a lot of it was positive but there were some negative things as well. How do you deal with that feedback and do you consider certain criticisms when you’re working on future issues?
Fuck em! Nah I’m just playing. For me it’s always good. I’m real humble and grateful. I make good with what I have. I know all about makin a syrup sandwich. I’m just glad people gave it that much attention to say they didn’t like it. The worse thing in the world is if you bust your ass for a whole month on a book put it on the shelves and niggas walk right past it. They don’t even pick it up and look at it to say it sucks. As an artist, I know I need a lot of work. I’m a work in progress like a lot of artists. [But] if people are taking the time out to review my book, even if they say, he needs work here and work there, I got some kind of response out of them. I’ve accomplished my goal. The thing that I want [people] to get out of my art is an emotional response whether it’s positive or negative. If it’s negative then that lets me know that people are paying attention to the things that I’m doing that they don’t like. Same thing with the people that are paying attention to the things that I’m doing that they do like. I welcome all feedback. Because I’m not fishing for compliments, I’m fishing for a response, period. After you say you don’t like my work I’ll say thanks I hope the next issue is up your alley. Some people don’t like being told that their shit is wack and they’ll be like, “when YOU draw a book, get at me.” Why put your work out there if you don’t want people to see it? You can’t please everybody and I learned that working on Whirlgirl and Battleseed. There is no accounting for tastes. Everyone has different things that make them respond to something positively. Not every piece of work that you do is going to appeal to them. Once you learn that it’s all about having fun.
Neil Googe, the cat who put together Bazooka Jules, said that he was hunting you down to do that project and he felt that you were the only one who could really pull it off. That’s some ill praise.
I was real flattered by that but there is always that saying that the grass is greener or the other side. You could say your shit is garbage but you’ll love the dude next to you and he’ll be like are you crazy your shit is dope my shit is wack. The type of style Neil likes to work in is similar to mine so I can understand why he would be attracted to me doing a book. We use the same single line weights, open lines, and a lot of the same shapes and stuff in our storytelling, [but] I wasn’t expecting that [compliment] at all.
Do you feel any pressure to exceed his expectations?
Neil sees a lot of stuff that I’m doing and I already showed him the wraparound cover for issue #4 and he is like this is great I knew I would like it. He’s loving everything I’m sending and he’s getting what he asked for. If he wants the Arkanium stuff that’s the style that I’m drawing in. I got about five more issues before I’m done with Turtles and I’m working on Bazooka Jules at the same time. It’s a bi-monthly book, so I’m taking my time on it so it will come out real nice.
What’s this project I keep seeing popping up called Cannon Busters?
That’s the project that Pat Lee saw when he first saw my work. That’s a comic I was going to pitch to Image on my own. It’s a action-fantasy story that I have been working on for a while. It’s kinda like sorcery, shell top Adidas, Cadillacs and robots. It’s like a real quirky adventure story. It’s kinda like the Wizard and Oz on E. It’s a crazy story. One of the main characters, Phillie the Kid, talks just like me. He’s talking regular uptown slang but it’s a fantasy story so it’s real funny. He’s a pothead but its not really weed it’s like these white leaves that he’s always puffing on called Cloud. It’s a fun, epic story with a lot of ill characters with some of the illest action you’ve seen in a fantasy story. That’s just been announced by Newsarama now, being penciled by a super talent, Corey Lewis, written, developed and created by myself.
I heard you got an animated series in development called The Play Pen with a bunch of dudes from Roc-A-Fella. What’s that all about?
Yea, it’s an animated project starring Beanie Sigel. Do you read the Source at all?
Nah man
HAHA! Well, if you just happen to accidentally trip and your face lands in the pages of the Source at like a Hudson News at an airport or something you’ll see that there is an article on Beanie Sigel. The first line that he says in the latest Source is I have a cartoon coming out called The Playpen and he describes what it is. We’ve been developing this cartoon with him since last year. I’m the art director for development. The character designer for the series is named Carl Jones. The kids are in correctional school. They’re infants so to them school is like jail and their trying to get out. That’s pretty much the story. Right now everything is on hold though. When it goes into animation production I don’t know what part I’m going to play, but right now I’m just on board for development.
