Last week, we introduced Pawn Shop and its writer, Joey Esposito to our fans. This week, we are honored to introduce you to the artist of Pawn Shop, Sean Von Gorman. There is only one word that can describe Sean: UNIQUE. That is all we will say because it will spoil this really fun interview.
Check out Sean's other work, The Secret Adventures of Houdini: http://alternacomics.com/#/secret-adventures-of-houdini/4562900928
Who is the man, the legend, Sean Von Gorman?
I am probably as close to Batman as anyone will ever meet.
And getting closer everyday.
I have also been called the hardest working self promoter in
Indy Comics by many a comic pro.
For the past few months, we’ve heard whispers about you
handcuffing yourself outside Forbidden Planet NYC. What exactly happened? How
long were you handcuffed? Did anyone feed you?
I came prepared, I had a whole nap sack full of Starbucks
Espresso Shots, Power Bars, & Ritz Crackers. This can be verified by the
staff. At the end of the excitement, I was chained up for about 8 hours in the
cold and rain!
The whole thing started about a month before that. After
some change meetings, The co-creator Todd Hunt and I had talked our way into a
meeting with none other than the EIC of Marvel Comics Axel Alonzo to talk about
the book. He was sent a copy by our good buddy Rich Ross who loved to book and
pulled some strings and got us a sit down at Marvel to talk about the project.
Obviously this was pretty cool by itself but we were excited to learn Axel
loved it and gave us a ton of production notes and spent a good time in his
office chatting about the stories we had planned. Then he gave us a crash
course on making and selling comics. So we rushed to finish a new edition based
on his notes. Soon after we get an email from Forbidden Planet to order books!
As excited as we were we had 5 books left of the original printing and had the
new books a few weeks away. So we get the books to FPNYC and I jokingly say
"These probably won't be here very long" they were gone in the first
day and were hounded with phone calls about this book nobody at the store ever
heard of. So of course they asked for more. So we said let's do this when we
get the new books we do some sort of publicity stunt to promote it. I was
racking my brain of what to do. We had no money, and nobody knew who the hell
we were. Then it hit me, I should just chain myself to the store until we sell
every copy. I pitch the idea, they liked it and it worked. We outsold every
book that day except for Avengers and Justice League.
Give us five fun facts about your career as an artist.
1-GET
2-OFF
3-MY
4-PLANE
5- E. all of the above.
What made you interested in collaborating on Pawn Shop with
Joey Esposito?
I had been following Joey on Twitter and he had put out a
call for Artists to help him with a horror anthology he was working on
(allegedly) and sent him a link to my portfolio. He claims it wasn't what he
was looking for at the time, but thought of me when Pawn Shop came about and
the rest is Pre- History.
I knew of Joe Joe's other work and it looked to me like a
man of action like myself and thought we could do great and terrible things
together!
For those who are not aware, your art in Pawn Shop consists
of water colors and digital art. What were the difficulties in combining those
two techniques?
The method I'm using on Pawn Shop is something very new for
me as I'm sort of making it up as I go. I was born and raised in NYC so this
story and the look of the city is something that was very important to me to
get right.
When laying out the book I started thinking that most people
never get a chance to actually come
Here, and only ever see New York through photographs.
So then I started looking at Pawn Shop as more of an
Animation Project where I would go around, take digital pictures of the place I
live and work and create sort of mixed Media digital backdrops for the
characters to occupy. The other reason for doing this is this is 4 different stories
all taking place in 1 general location, I figure I can use them again and
again.
Pro Tip: It's not cheating if it saves you time and money!
It's called WINNING!
When we attempt to describe our characters to an artist we often use celebrity likenesses to compare but often never see that likeness in the finished product. Is that something that makes it easier for artists or does that hinder artists from creativity?
I think it helps to give a general context for the
artist to start from. With all of the BILLIONS of people in the world it helps
to know if he or She looks closer to Crispen Glover, or Danny Glover.
What projects are you working on right now?
The major one at the moment is Secret Adventures of Houdini!
My public acts of greatness got us picked up by a publisher and will be
relaunching November 21st! We'll be in September preview so be sure to pre
order at your local comic shops. To promote we will be taking our own brand of
Mayhem on tour to comic shops and cons all over the country. So if you see me
say hi, I might just let you put me in a straight jacket!
Also look out for my new digital series Sock It To Me Comics
also coming soon to Alterna.
If you had the chance to draw any character who would it be
and why?
MADMAN! I feel I could bring a lot to the table on a Madman
Project!
Why do you believe in comic books?
I don't believe in Comics, I believe in Harvey Dent.
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