Liam Sharp (Professional Artist)

Liam Sharp was born in Derby, England, on May 2nd, 1968.  At age 12, upon the advice of the Gifted Children Society, an Art Scholarship was created for him at St. Andrew's Prep. School, Eastbourne.  The first of its kind.  At 17 Sharp was introduced to the legendary Don Lawrence, famous all over Europe for his seminal strip Storm.   This led to a one year apprenticeship which in turn opened the doors for him at the 2000AD offices in London.  Over the next few years he drew several Judge Dredd stories, the origin of Finn for Pat Mills, and eventually the ABC Warriors.  Sharp's next noteworthy work was for Marvel UK, where he recreated the character that would ultimately prove to be the UK's biggest ever export, and which would bring him fame in the US, Death's Head 2.  Sharp has now been working predominantly for the US market for the last decade on titles as diverse as the X-Men, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Venom, Man-Thing for Marvel Comics.  Superman and Batman titles for DC.  Frazetta's Death Dealer and Jaguar God for Verotik.  Spawn The Dark Ages for McFarlane.  Realm of the Claw for Stan Winston and Image Comics.  Sharp also worked for Hasbro to produce designs for the movie Small Soldiers and the animated series Batman Beyond.  He also did concept designs for the movie Lost in Space.  Current work includes a creator owned project for Wildstorm Comics called The Possessed, with Geoff Johns and Kris Grimminger.  A portfolio for Heavy Metal magazine and a series of illustrations in collaboration with actress/model Nutopia.

 

Frank Tra: Thanks a bunch for taking the time to do this interview  Liam and off to the questions....

1. So, Mr. Sharp, the big question on all of our minds is, "How much do you bench?"

LS: LOL! I keep getting this question for some crazy reason! The last thing I benched was a sofa-bed. To my wife's horror I decided to single handedly move it upstairs to my (then) studio. It weighs a ton, and it took out a banister on the way, as well as putting some deep scratches in the wall... Still, it's been very comfortable, and it's staying where it is now. I think I lost a half stone in sweat doing that.

2. In America, you are known most for your work on Deaths Head for Marvel UK and a run on the Incredible Hulk following up Gary Frank. There was a sporadic issue here and there. After which we did not see much of your work until recently when you reemerged out of nowhere to ink an issue of Global Frequency and draw the Possessed with Geoff Johns. Where were you hiding?
 

 

LS: Actually I did loads of work in that time. After the Hulk I spent a couple of years doing some more mature - actually, that's a laugh - immature adult stuff for Glenn Danzig's Verotik line. I did a series called GOTH, which was collected into a TPB. Three issues of The Jaguar God, which was a character created by Frank Frazetta. And, best of all, two issues of Frazetta's The Death Dealer, both with Frazetta covers. The stories were thin to say the least, but it was great to be drawing this huge iconic character created by one the my all-time greats of our industry. This was followed with a return to Marvel, and a series which I still believe was my finest hour. Manthing, with J.M. DeMatteis. Marc and I just gelled. We worked perfectly together, complimenting each other's styles. It was a dream team, and The Manthing had always been a favorite character from my youth. It was a sad day that series was cancelled. This was followed with a huge title for McFarlane. I've never quite understood how this got missed, as the sales were huge and it launched as the number one comic that month, but for some reason a great many people who had previously collected my work missed out entirely on Spawn: The Dark Ages. I did 14 issues of this book, with full color covers and interior pencils and inks, before McFarlane decided to change direction with the title and booted off the original creators. Brian Holguin, the writer, and I did a lot of research for that, thrashing around ideas and concepts. It was a shame it never fully took off as it had a lot going for it. Some of my last issues contain the most detailed, highly illustrative work of my career. Particularly the work I did for a story called "The Children's Crusade". Then there was a Superman graphic novel with J.M.deMatteis again, called Superman: Where Is Thy Sting? A metaphysical exploration of what death might mean to a being such as him. It allowed me to really play with my style and try stuff out, which is something I've always loved to do.

 

 

3. How did the fill in issue for Firestorm #7 come about. You once did a Sh'iar space story for X-Men unlimited, but other than that, your books have been more dark and moody.

LS: Man, that Firestorm story was pretty bloody moody too! It happened because a planned series I had been developing for DC fell through, and the editor and I had gotten along well, so he passed it straight to me when it came up.

4. You have also recently released an art book. Do you believe that it will aid in re-establishing yourself as a premiere artist in the minds of fans?

LS: I doubt it. My art book is so far removed from commercial comic art. To really establish yourself as a player in today's market you need to be associated with a big name writer, like Warren Ellis, or Grant Morrison, on a project that either is a mainstream superhero title, or rewrites superhero mythology. The writers are the driving factor in comics right now, and it's an interesting time because of that. What we're getting is some very clever, eclectic and intelligent stuff to read. What we're not getting is eclectic stuff to look at. Ten years ago Frank Miller, Simon Bizley, Dave McKean, Ted McKeever and Bill Sienkiewicz were huge name artists with incredibly creative, boundary smashing artistic approaches to the medium. It set the industry on fire. Sure, at the top end of the commercial stratosphere Jim Lee, McFarlane and co. were creating a stylish, homogenized new look that sold millions, but It was this freeform, inventive, artistic approach that really sucked me back into comics in my late teens and early twenties. Sadly it seems that audience and marketplace has all but gone for the moment, and that's exactly the direction I was heading with my art. It seems what people want at the moment is good strong well-crafted and clear
storytelling that compliments the art of comic writing. It doesn't want the artists in the driving seat producing inconsistent, challenging highbrow Art that aspires to greater things in and of itself. Having said that, my art book has received the best reviews of my career so far, including being covered in some big mainstream magazines like Arena here in the UK, and is looking set to go into a second printing, so there's some hope! LOL!

5. Speaking of the new generation of readers that have not grown up with you. What is something about you that they or your current fan base do not know about you?

LS: Hm. That's tricky. Historically, within the industry? Or personally? Historically, it might be of interest to know that Death'sHead II was the UK's biggest ever export, selling just shy of half a million copies. Wizard named me no.3 hot new talent. Jim Lee invited me to go and work in San Diego at the new Image studios in La Jola (which I turned down. Something I've often wondered about, but I'd just met the girl who is now my wife, and there was no way she could have come with me) and I was given a Wizard cover, but got bumped off it when McFarlane announced he was launching Spawn. Heady day indeed! Personally it might be of interest to know that I love writing , there are examples of my short stories in my art book and on my website. I'm a performing singer/songwriter and have fronted five bands and counting. I also love to paint so-called fine art pieces, from landscapes, portraits, to abstract pieces. And I'm quite extensively tattooed. How's that?

6. What is Mam Tor? What does it stand for and what are your plans for it?

LS: Mam Tor is an ancient hill fortress in Derbyshire, my home county, that I visited often as a kid and that always had a certain resonance with me. When we decided to publish my art book - which had originally been intended as a convention sketch book, until we realized I had so much unseen color art and it started to evolve - we had to come up with a name for a publishing house. It was kind of a fun idea to start with, to lend it apparent credibility. We wanted this at-the-time fictional publishing house to seem legit. But as the whole project grew it actually became legit. Mam Tor had not been used as a name in this way, and we were able to purchase the trade mark.
I'm getting ahead of myself. As I said, we produced it originally as a sketch book, for the San Diego con. I'd been out to that show a few times where I stayed with my great friend Steve Morger. Steve had organized a Vegas trip prior to the 2002 con, and the real birth of Mam Tor happened there. Mark Texiera was in Kinkos, desperately trying to put his sketchbook together for the show, but he only had a rudimentary knowledge of Photoshop - and Photoshop was my thing! Anyway, what should have been a fun trip to crazy twinkling Vegasland ended up being me and Tex in Kinkos for 26 hours straight. Later, at the show, I realized what the deal was: These Kinkos sketchbooks were everywhere! They were a superb way to showcase your art, and they had a secondary purpose as the ultimate business card too. As we were approaching the 2004 con I put my head together with my wife, Christina, whom I had met when she worked in production at Marvel UK many years earlier so she had a complete understanding of this kind of thing, and we set about looking at what stuff I had to go in the book. What we soon realized was that lots of it was color. We thought about doing sepia versions, but it wouldn't have been right, so then we started contacting printers and pricing the book up, and it became clear that it was doable. It wasn't insanely expensive. So what had started out a sketchbook was now becoming a fully fledged art book. The next stage of the Mam Tor thing happened in May this year. In the UK, we have a great little comic festival in Bristol. I took a bunch of proofs of the book along and met up with a host of artists who I'd met on my message board - and what I saw there was amazing. The quality of their work was just stunning, but I could see there was no way it would get looked at by mainstream comic companies. It was either too dark, too twisted, or just too plain quirky and idiosyncratic. I thought pretty much there and then that we should do a message board art book to show off their wares and get these people in print. At the exact same time, John Bamber - of www.britcomicart.com - was thinking the same thing as many of the guys on my board are showcased on his site also, so inadvertently two art books featuring the same unknown artists were conceived. Mam Tor's "Event Horizon" came out of that as we began to think everything through. The idea of the message board book was OK, but would be a tiny print run. Maybe 500. So I started to think "what if I can get some big guys to do stories in there - mix it up a bit?" That way this great art would get seen by more people, and these creators would be side by side with established pros. I talked to John about the idea, and the two projects became one, so then I started asking people in the industry if they'd be interested in giving me a story between five and ten pages, and free - to get this off the ground. What amazed me was how many people had great work they couldn't get published, and how many just started writing new stuff and creating artwork for the hell of it! Given how jaded and money-driven the industry can seem at times, it was just so exhilarating to be getting all this work in that was done for the love of it! I'd taken my art book to San Diego and talked to more people face to face, showing them what we'd already put together, and on returning home it became a kind of exciting and terrifying reality.

 

7. Your painted pieces show a depth of detail that we do not get to see in just your pencils. Which form do you prefer? Is it matter of just not having enough hours in the day for the painted art?

LS: That, and the fact that unless you get a good cover gig it just doesn't pay well enough, and it's near impossible to sustain for long periods of time.

 

8. With your art book release and the upcoming MamTor's Even Horizon, you have been setting very ambitious goals for yourself. Is showing your writing skills a new goal for you?

LS: Absolutely! If I had Dorothy's slippers for the day I'd ask for a career that balanced illustrative cover work with writing. I love writing, always have, easily as much as drawing - if not a little more so. I've done it all my life, can't help myself, and always will. I just get constant ideas, and comics are far too laborious and slow a medium to get the ideas out artistically unless somebody is going to let you write your own gig - and that only happens to BIG comic stars.

9. How have you changed both professionally and personally since your emergence onto the comic book scene back in the early 90's?

LS: That's an interesting question. Professionally I've pushed myself to the limits artistically at the cost of commercial gratification. My big star days are pretty much over, despite the fact that I'm a far more proficient an interesting artist now than I was in the early nineties. Personally I've wrestled long and hard with decisions that might have been artistically sound, wherein I retained my own integrity, but at the cost of possible big gigs on major titles. There were dark times when I lost all faith in my ability and all sense of direction, and it's not all been good! However, I'm proud of my choices now. I'm a stronger man with his own mind. I draw from the heart and am not motivated by money - though we all know it helps! I don't know if I even have a future in comics, or if Mam Tor will succeed, but I'm chasing a dream, and I'm making it a reality, and for the moment at least it's as exciting as hell!

10. If you had the opportunity to create a magnum opus for yourself, something to unload onto the world of funny pictures that you would like to be remembered for, what would it be? You know what? I think I'm in the process of trying to create that very thing...

 

 

Thanks, Frank Tra of the Comic Avalanche