ALL THINGS SPROUSE: TALKING TO CHRIS SPROUSE

[MattBrady]

by Chris Arrant

What started as a prodigious talent when he entered comics in 1989 has become a veteran storyteller with an unmatched attention to detail and a genuine love for the work he's doing. Artist Chris Sprouse has worked for a variety of publishers, and is one of the few comic creators who can claim Alan Moore as a long-time collaborator and friend. As Sprouse enters into what could be the biggest series of his career so far with Number of the Beast, it also gives a chance for readers to glimpse one of the most underrated artists that everyone should know about.

Raised in Virginia, Sprouse majored in Graphic Design at James Madison University in Virginia, graduating in 1988. He has since gone on to a steady career in the comics medium, illustrating such titles as Legionnaires, Star Wars: Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Supreme, Tom Strong, Ocean and most recently The Midnighter. He's won two Eisners for his work with Alan Moore on Tom Strong, and is held in high regard by his peers as a solid and talented cartoonist.

While a frequent face at conventions, interviews with Sprouse are few and far between. But we have him, and we're talking to him at length about his comics, his career and what led him there.

Newsarama: A big part of your career was working on Tom Strong with Alan Moore. How would you describe that experience for you?

Chris Sprouse: Easily the highlight of my career and my favorite book to work on--ever. I absolutely loved that book and those characters, and nothing would have made me happier than getting to work on that series for the rest of my career.

NRAMA: I've read up on the fact that part of the reason Tom Strong incorporated so many high-tech aspects was because of your personal affinity with designing and drawing it. Can you identify for us what you like most about drawing Tom Strong?

CS: Alan tailored each ABC series for the artists he was working with. He called me and quizzed me on what kinds of things I liked to draw, what kinds of things I'd always wanted to draw and incorporated said things into the series. He gave me lots of little tech bits like spacecraft, ray-guns, jets and all of Tom's inventions to design and play with. I love drawing and designing this kind of material, and there were just so many things I loved about drawing Tom Strong in particular, but what I liked most was the creation (visually) of the entire world he lived in -- all the people, places and things that made the series unique. I did dozens upon dozens of designs and model sheets for everything from his wife and child to the goggles and gun belt he wore.

NRAMA: Although you're worked extensively with Alan Moore, I've learned that you have yet to meet him. How would you describe your working relationship, and communication with him?

CS: We talked on the phone a few times for a couple of hours at a time while the series was taking shape, and then I just got to work. Alan communicated through his scripts with little jokes and asides never intended for publication. I never had any questions about the scripts as they were very detailed (to say the least) and everything was very clear. I do regret not calling Alan more often, but I really thought we'd be doing the series for years and years and I'd get the chance to meet him some day down the line. In 2006 I went to the UK on vacation, and initially considered trying to meet up with Alan, but it was my first vacation in fifteen years and I decided to do absolutely nothing work-related on that trip, so I abandoned those plans in favor of just relaxing with my wife and enjoying a change of pace and scenery.

NRAMA: Any chance for a return to Tom Strong down the line?

CS: I've heard nothing, but I would return to the series in a second! It sounds goofy, but I miss the characters.

NRAMA: While doing research for this, I discovered that the movie rights to the miniseries Ocean were picked up last year. I believe this is the first project of yours that has done so. What's that been like for you?

CS: Believe it or not, Tom Strong was optioned about six or seven years ago, but nothing ever came of it.

NRAMA: Wow, that's a movie I'd sure like to see.

CS: Yes. So far, things are moving slowly on Ocean -- at least I think they are, but I'm new to this--maybe every Hollywood project moves at this pace. Contracts are still being worked out at this very moment, and I hope to hear more soon. Honestly, though, it all seems a bit weird...it'll be an absolutely surreal experience to see a trailer for Ocean for the first time. I can't even imagine what it'll feel like to see the film itself if it's ever produced.

NRAMA: Back to your comics work… you're coming into Number of the Beast after a stint illustrating another WildStorm title, The Midnighter. What did you like best about working on that title?

CS: What I liked most about drawing Midnighter was getting the chance to draw something different than what everyone expected from me. I've been sort of typecast at various times throughout my career as being someone who draws in a cartoony style or a retro style. I don't know what the heck to call my style, but I can draw anything if given the chance. Anyway, specifically-speaking, though, my favorite part of that series was the World War I issue I drew. It was very very challenging, but I learned a lot and it turned out far better than I had hoped.

NRAMA: The Midnighter has arguably been the most violent book you've ever worked on. Was that a stand-out for you in any way, and if so, why?

CS: Remarkably, Midnighter may have been a violent book, but the WILDC.A.T.S. Aliens book I drew when I first started at WildStorm was even more gruesome and disturbing, so I didn't see it as any sort of dark milestone or anything. I did lots of research on World War I when I began Midnighter, and I found lots more to be disturbed about there than in any comic I've ever drawn -- that helped keep it in perspective. Illustrated blood and guts and superhero fight scenes are nothing compared to the horrors of trench warfare that actual people had to endure.

NRAMA: Coming to some brighter territory, you're a noted big fan of Fantastic Four, but looking up your bibliography I find little work for Marvel, in comparison with your work for DC and even Image and Rob Liefeld's companies. Any chance of you doing work for Marvel in your future?

CS: I've always been kept pretty busy by other companies and just haven't had the time to do much work for Marvel. I've been offered work by them a few times, but it's usually coincided with some other opportunity that I just couldn't pass up, like getting to draw a Star Wars mini-series, for example. I'm sure if they keep offering work that some day I will do more for Marvel. I'd love to draw the Fantastic Four one day and I'd like to do Spider-Man just as much.

NRAMA: You were out of action for awhile with a broken wrist prior to The Midnighter and the Ex Machina Special. Can you tell us about that, and how it was to not be able to draw at all?

CS: Actually, the broken wrist only had me totally out of commission for about a week, due mostly to the fact that I was on painkillers and nodding off to sleep constantly.

NRAMA: My mistake. Still, a week is a week.

CS: Right. I draw with my right hand, and the left wrist was the broken one, so it didn't really keep me from drawing. What it did do was slow everything down to a crawl for about three months as my wrist was bent back and immobilized at a weird angle while it healed--it's really difficult to hold a straight-edge steady with your elbow while drawing detailed architectural backgrounds with your good hand. Heck, even refilling the lead in my mechanical pencil was a chore one-handed! This all happened during a weird period where there were no Tom Strong scripts coming in and right before Ocean (way before Midnighter in reality), so I didn't actually have a lot of work to do at the time which was lucky in a way. If I had broken my actual drawing hand/wrist, I think I would have gone insane! I have to draw -- it's like a compulsion for me. I get a little edgy if I don't draw over a weekend -- I can't imagine what it would be like to not be able to draw for three months!

NRAMA: In interviews I've noticed you pay a lot of debt to the work of Michael Golden, whom you're a big fan. Can you tell us about your appreciation of his work?

CS: His work made me want to draw comics--it's that simple. I first saw his work on The Micronauts and later on his Avengers Annual #10 and it just looked different from anything else being published. For some reason--the power, the sense of fun, the detail, and his storytelling abilities--it just lit a fire under me and made me want to be that good at drawing comics. I've got a long way to go still, but his work inspires me to keep trying to do better to this day. A lot of other artists go ape over his rendering or linework, which are both great, but what I flip for are his design sense and storytelling. I can't adequately express just how cool it was to be able to have Michael work on Tom Strong characters (in The Many Worlds of Tesla Strong one-shot) and be involved with Ocean!

NRAMA: He did the covers for that miniseries. Going back to your beginnings, your first work in comics was a 1989 Secret Origins story for DC with Chemical King from the Legion of Super-Heroes – can you tell us how you broke in?

CS: Way back then the companies used to invite aspiring artists and writers to mail in examples of their work for consideration. When I graduated from college I did just that: I sent a four page penciled Mr. Miracle story to DC and a four page penciled Spider-Man story to Marvel. DC wrote back within two weeks, asked for a few more samples, tested me out as to drawing speed and storytelling ability, and I was working in comics professionally within a month. Marvel sent a letter asking for more samples about six months later, but I already had so much work lined up at DC I couldn't do anything for them. It was that easy, but before I ever sent in those samples that got me work I had been drawing comics on my own at home almost on a daily basis since I was fourteen--lots and lots of practice and hard work.

NRAMA: Digging deep, deep into the archives, I discovered that you did a comic for your high school newspaper called Ber-Mander. Can you tell us about that?

CS: Good God! Now that's research! One of the only bright spots in High School was working on the school paper, for which I was the Production Manager (layout/design/paste-up--anyone out there remember the lost art of "paste-up?") and occasional illustrator. The journalism teacher who oversaw the paper allowed me to start a full-page comic strip, but I don't remember all of the details about the genesis of the strip. It centered on the trials and tribulations of a hapless long-haired "freak" (you know, as in the television show Freaks and Geeks --olive drab army jacket, long hair and headband; he'd be referred to as a "stoner" these days) named Ber-Mander. I went to Gar-Field Senior High School, which was named after two guys named Garber and Manderfield. Ber-Mander's name was made up of the leftover syllables after you removed the "Gar" and the "Field." This all makes no sense now, but it seemed pretty funny to someone at the time. Ah, well... it actually seemed to catch on with people and occasionally even today someone brings up Ber-Mander at conventions...or in interviews...

NRAMA: [laughs] Thanks for playing nice.

You work out of your own studio, Plankton Studios, with your wife. Tell us about it.

CS: It's half serious, half in-joke. My wife Xan and I were talking one day about all of the cool-sounding comic book studio names (Gaijin, Insight, etc.), and we started joking around and throwing out names for our (at the time) tiny little workspace. "Plankton Studios" just cracked us both up for one reason or another and stuck, mostly just because it cracked us up. It's essentially whatever workspace we use wherever we happen to be living.

NRAMA: So any interns wanting to sign up, they might have to wait a bit.

Reading on your blog, I was excited to discover that for every book you work on, you do a set of model sheets for each character. In the animation industry that's a standard thing, but comics has always been more… how shall I say... seat of the pants. Why do you do this?

CS: I do what I call model sheets (but they're really far less involved and detailed than those used by animators) for three reasons, really:

1) Doing a model sheet for each character helps me really understand and get a handle on each character, forcing me to really nail down costume and prop details definitively in a finished drawing;

2) The sheets, which I keep on my desk in front of me while working, help me keep costume, body, and facial details consistent as I draw characters over and over again; and

3) Sometimes other artists need reference when working on covers or back-up stories or whatever, so I send them copies of the model sheets which spell out every detail for them

NRAMA: Attention to detail is something people like myself have noticed about your work. But when you're not drawing comics, do you follow comics on your own?

CS: I follow artists I like mostly, but I do follow a few regular series (or irregular series, as is the case with most of the ones I like). The artists I'll follow around no matter what they're doing are Michael Golden, Walter Simonson, Steve Rude, Stuart Immonen, Kevin Nowlan, and a few others. I also try to pick up anything done by friends like Cully Hamner, Brian Stelfreeze, Adam Hughes, Steve Lieber, Todd Dezago and others. The series I can't miss are Ex Machina, Nexus, Hellboy, Planetary, The Spirit and Concrete I'm also a regular reader of Back Issue and Rough Stuff, the TwoMorrows magazines about comics. I'm also trying to find more non-US work to get excited about, and I quite like Yukinobu Hoshino's work (2001 Nights, The Two Faces Of Tomorrow), as well as Makoto Kobayashi's Club 9 -- it's a guilty pleasure full of silly cheesecake, but it's gorgeous work. Recently in Toronto I discovered a couple of French albums from a series by Sevestre & Springer called Volunteer which I'm fascinated by -- I can't read French, but it's a modern-day urban vampire story with such good storytelling I can follow it without reading it.

NRAMA: It sounds like you have a long history of appreciating comics. What are your earliest memories of drawing?

CS: I remember my father teaching my brother and me to draw rocket ships in our living room in New Delhi, India where we were living when I was five years old. After that, I remember winning a drawing contest on the ocean liner we took from India back to the United States about a year later. I have absolutely no idea what the winning drawing was, though...probably a rocket or an airplane...

NRAMA: Tom Strong would be proud.

Chris Sprouse's next project is the Number of the Beast miniseries, which begins on April 9th. For more on Sprouse, visit his blog at sprousenet.blogspot.com.

[Crump's Brother]

Great artist, great interview. I too wish for a return of Tom Strong. Those six trades are not enough.

[Moonbeam]

I own a piece of original Chris Sprouse art and treasure it -- from his Ex Machina special. He's worked with some of the best writers in the business and you can tell why -- his stuff is top quality.

Great interview. I met his wife Xan at Mid-Ohio Con and she's super cool. I can't wait to see his work on Number of the Beast.

[MattBrady]

I've got one of his character studies of Tesla.

MattB

[I am MODOK]

Wait a second. I went to the same high-school AND college as Chris Sprouse? That's weird.

[JAINITZ]

Chris is a great artist and a great guy. He's really soft-spoken but often hilarious. He did me a Hellboy and Abe sketch at Dragon Con back in the (gack) 90s. I'll pick up anything he does.

Jai

[johhnypanic]

For some reason I never picked up Tom Strong, I remember seeing it around. I'm going to go find the back issues. When a creator loves what project he or she is on, that makes a world of difference when the finished product comes out. Chris Sprouse now has one more fan! great interview.



Ryan

[>>Riz!]

I got the trades of Tom Strong a few weeks ago and read them all in one run. It was so awesome. I'd so love to see Alan and him return to Tom Strong. That book was awesome.

[mccauley76]

I really enjoyed his work on Midnighter and wish he was still the artist on that book although Lee Garbett is doin a great job.

[johnnygo]

Sprouce drew one of my favorite comics of all time. BATMAN ANNUAL # 14, "Eye of the Beholder." The definitive Two-Face story (and the one from which THE LONG HALLOWEEN borrowed the most).

It's a crime this story isn't being reprinted in the upcoming BATMAN/TWO-FACE trade paperback. It's Two-Face's "Killing Joke."

[dudedarama]

Chris Sprouse,Jason Pearson and Arthur Adams are like stepsons of Michael Golden.
All great!

[Whipsnakes]

Originally Posted by MattBrady

I've got one of his character studies of Tesla.

MattB

I had no idea either of you were Sacramento Hair Rock fans.

[Skinshark]

Spending all my hard-earned commission money last year on a Midnighter page was easily the best treat I could give myself.

I can't wait to see more from him.

=s=

[Hobowatcher]

I love Sprouse, and I was thrilled when he gave me this sketch of Tom Strong staunchly enjoying pie.

[Garden Gnome]

What a great interview! Sprouse's art is always a delight and he really impresses me in the interview with his genuine love for the work and seeming lack of pretension. Hurray for Chris Sprouse!

[Glen Cadigan]

Chris Sprouse is one of those artists that artists love.

Writers, too.

[-Armando523-]

coool artist

[eloso]

Give it up for Hammerlocke? Vintage Sprouse at a quarter bin near you! He IS the man!

[beta-ray]

First saw Sprouse's work on Legionnaires I think... Beautiful stuff. Clean lines, solid renderings. Wish he'd draw more stuff that I read...

[coy_dog0]

Mr. Sprouse is my favourite artist currently working in comics. Funny enough, I grew up loving Michael Golden as well.

Golden and Sprouse's sense of design is something that goes unnoticed in today's marketplace. The "hot" creators that make careers out of drawing covers are really just making slick pin-ups. They don't know how to design a cover. 'They're amateurs.

Besides the above mentioned, take note of cover designs by Gil Kane or Mike Zeck. They actually understood how to lead your eye around a page. For interiors, check out Jim Aparo.

I really would rather spend 1.00 for an old Brave and the Bold or Marvel Tales reprint than buy any modern comic, just because the art work is actually telling a story and appealling to the eye, neither of which i can say for most newer artists.

[mat9ball]

I've been a fan of Chris and his art for years. His run on Tom Strong is a graphic novel collection every comic fan should own.

[Chris Weston]

I'm a huge fan of Mr. Sprouse's work... without doubt, he can draw the best "body language" in comics.

[samnoir]

I would love to see Chris Sprouse do Spiderman or Fantastic Four!

It was a shame that he never got to finish his run on Supreme, but Tom Strong was certainly fantastic.

I really enjoyed Ocean as well.

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[rasmane]

I'd never seen his photo before. Does anyone else see an idealized version of Sprouse in his Tom Strong design?