Straight from Philadelphia Fan Expo, Comic Watch’s own Tyler Davis sat down to talk with a multitude of creators, both big and small about the past, present, and future of their work and the industry. Below is an interview with Sean Lewis, the proverbial heir to the Spawn thrown with his work on King Spawn and The Scorched, as well as a litany of critically acclaimed indie titles such as Above Snakes, The Few, and the ongoing Survival.
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TD: You’re an independent writer who has now made it onto the king of independent comic characters with Spawn. Is Spawn a character you grew up with, or was he something you came to later in life?
SL: Spawn was the first comic I bought with my own money when I was a kid. That was 1992-93, and I remember tarring a roof with my Dad and he bought me that book afterwards as a present for doing the work. Then I collected it, and I was huge into the work that the Image guys were doing at Marvel at the time, so as soon as they made their own stuff, I went off on it. I had an uncle who was older then me and lived with me and my parents who now owns a comic book shop, who like, was obsessive and told me the stories behind the stories because I was pretty young, so he’d be like, ‘Here’s the story behind Todd McFarlane. Here’s everything you need to know.’ It’s kind of like myth making when you’re at that age.
And then I went away from comic books as a whole for awhile towards the end of high school and college, I just wasn’t reading anymore. When I was in grad school, the library at my school had this amazing graphic novel section. I started going through and reading and fell back in love. From that rekindling, I wound up making a book. I’m kind of going all over the place with the question, but, it felt weirdly serendipitous to get the call from Todd and him be like ‘Do you wanna work on this book?’ The biggest book I’ve ever worked on ended up being the first book I ever bought is a very strange trajectory.
TD: How is it holding up that legacy? You didn’t just take over Spawn, you kicked off a brand-new book titled King Spawn, the crown jewel title of the recent Spawn Universe explosion?
SL: I mean, I should say it’s daunting, but it doesn’t feel like that. It’s been really fun, and Todd has shown a lot of trust, which has been amazing. I’ve learned a lot from him, which has been great. The best parts about, which I knew I’d do once getting hired for it, is getting to bring back all the parts I loved about it when I was a kid, but from my adult lens. I’m in my forties now, so the way I look at Spawn now is wildly different then when I was eleven, you know? But those characters stayed with me, and eventually the process became;
‘Oh, I have a son, and he’s seven. He may be too young for the book right now, but at some point he’s going to read my stuff, so I think a lot about how he’ll feel the love for this book when he’s at the same age I was when I first read it.
TD: You’ve cited Spawn as an influential book on you from when you were a young reader. Since, you’ve gone on to do award winning work in the independent sphere. How has that influence shaped your independent work, and what might fans of King Spawn enjoy from it.
SL: The way I approach the books is the same. They are all different however. Spawn has a built in fan base, and there’s an expectation that I know is there right, like people want him to be larger than life, they want him to be the ‘Avenging Angel’, they want him to kick-ass, you know? He’s the ‘Dark Superman’. How do you bring that to life in a way that’s exciting for readers, but still feels new yet doesn’t betray all the stuff they fell in love with years ago?
When I make my own indie books, it’s a fresh story each time. No one knows anything about these characters. They don’t exist. The influence comes more from the thematic. When I do a book like Bliss or Thumbs, I’ll question things like, ‘How do you forgive the unforgivable’, which became the theme for Bliss.
So, for King Spawn, my question has always been ‘How does a guy who’s railed against authority deal with becoming the king?’ That is what is most interesting to me about working on King Spawn. This person is telling us all the time to not listen to anyone and follow your own path with the individualism of it. What does that mean when he now has to take control, or does he? That becomes the conflict.
TD: The Scorched is a big team book. As a reader, what are some of your favorite team books?
SL: X-Men. There was no comic book shop where I grew up, so I got comics from the spinner rack at my local drugstore, which is how I read everything. They carried a lot of X-Men, a lot of New Mutants, and a lot of New Warriors, but the X-Men, that Claremont run, I read all of that. It probably influenced so much of what happens early on in The Scorched. There was always a lot of infighting in the X-Men, and there’s a lot of that with The Scorched as well. At least at the top of it.
Trying to create individual identity in a team book is one of the hardest things to do, but I feel like Claremont did really well with that. I love Deadly Class, which is a team book. That book puts people in duress situations, and brings out who they really are. That’s interesting to me.
There are older team that I loved. I loved The Legion of Superheros in the 80’s when it would show up at the drugstore. Those books were awesome. I love Batman and the Outsiders, which was a big influence on The Scorched. The idea of having a larger than life character lead the team and exploring how the rest break away and form their own identity ended up being pretty big for the book. X-Men and Batman and the Outsiders are still books I love, and will go back to at any point and read.
TD: What books are you reading right now, new or old, that you are digging?
SL: I just started 20th Century Men by Deniz Camp, and that’s been super cool. Dense as hell, like, as I’ve been going through it, it’s been so different in terms of form and style. It’s super cool. I read a lot of older books too. I’ve been going through the old Sandman(s), I mean, I read Garth Ennis’ Punisher: Max run every year. That book never gets old for me. I still read Transmetropolitan a lot. Books that Derrick Robinson drew tend to be big draws for me. There’s something in his style where it isn’t realistic in a traditional sense, but not cartoony. It is in a fascinating middle ground where you still get a lot of emotion from the characters but it’s also fun. I’ve really dug that. Jeremy [Adam]’s Flash run is awesome.
This is the thing about comics. You’re never out of things to read, old or new.
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For more Sean Lewis, you can check out his Image author page, which will keep you up to date on all the original and Spawn related books he has in the pipeline. For updates on books releasing outside of Image, follow Sean over on Twitter or League of Geeks. Make sure to check out Survival, its second issue dropping on June 7th, 2023.