Welcome everyone to Bam Smack Pow's Creator Spotlight series, where we delve into the lives and creative works of some of the best and brightest creators in comics, looking at some of their most popular works.
For the first installment, let's look at one creator whose stories and artwork took my breath away from the first comic of his that I picked up (and he remains one of my favorite creatives currently working in comics today). That is none other than Sean Gordon Murphy.
Get to know Sean Gordon Murphy
Sean Gordon Murphy was born in Nashua, New Hampshire in 1980. At an early age he become enraptured with the world of comics and began drawing. While his love of comics and art made him secluded from the rest of his peers, that didn't stop him from continuing to pursue his passion, which led to Murphy going to Salem, New Hampshire and becoming an apprentice to Leslie Swank, a local cartoonist and painter.
Murphy attended various colleges, such as Massachusetts College of Art in 1999, and then the Savannah College of Art and Design afterwards. During this time Murphy managed to publish work through Dark Horse Comics, working on the companies various Star Wars related titles. After graduation, he moved to Hollywood to pursue working on concept art for films and video games, but in order to pay the bills, he published work for DC Comics through titles like Teen Titans and Batman/Scarecrow: Year One before getting his big break in 2005.
That year, Murphy would create the comic titled Off-Road for Oni Press, which tells the story of three long time friends hitting the road while dealing with problems both during the trip and in their personal lives. The series won Murphy his first award, the American Library Association Award, and not long after, he signed an exclusive deal with DC, which prompted him to move to New York. This deal would see the creator's most recognized work come to the forefront of comics, a relationship that's still fruitful to this day.
Sean Gordon Murphy's most popular titles
Sean Murphy worked on many titles with DC, such as Joe the Barbarian with legendary writer Grant Morrison, Hellblazer: City of Demons with writer Si Spencer, and American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest and The Wake with one of the most recognizable and popular writers in all of comics, Scott Snyder. He also did work for Image Comics working on Tokyo Ghost with writer Rick Remender, but his most recognizable and iconic works are Punk Rock Jesus and his Batman: White Knight universe - often lovingly dubbed the "Murphyverse".
What makes his work, especially his artwork, stand out from every other creator is that there's a lot of energy within each image, and the amount of detail is also particularly captivating. One impressive piece in particular comes during an issue of Tokyo Ghost in which the main character is chasing an unknown assailant through a abandoned city covered in vines and other vegetation, and there's a double page spread that captures both aspects of his art that I mentioned. The chase is captured within this image where the two characters are jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and the vast cityscape is just such a treat on a visual level that it's so easy to just soak in every minute detail of the artwork.
He applies this fast-paced and detailed artwork throughout his work, but there are some comics he did that just spoke to me on another level. My favorite works he's done are his most popular, which are Punk Rock Jesus and his Batman: White Knight comics. I know I'm playing it safe with my choices, but his Batman work introduced me to Murphy's style, and Punk Rock Jesus showed me what he can do with his own original ideas, and I've loved everything the man has done since then.
Murphy is such a talent at what he does that he should handle the art and writing on all of his projects, as those are the projects in which he truly shines. Both Punk Rock Jesus and Batman: White Knight are perfect examples of that, which is why they have become some of my favorite comics ever.
Sean Murphy is still working in comics, thankfully, and his latest venture is his take on Zorro called Zorro: Man of the Dead, which brings the legend of Zorro to modern times. I'll definitely be reading this comic and any other work of his, and you should too!