The Sloppy Boys - [UNLOCKED] The Masters Series: Sean Murphy

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Jeff debuts a new format (probably more weighty and distinguished than you're used to), talking with artists from different disciplines. Sean Murphy is a comic artist and writer, known for both his acclaimed indie work and his blockbuster superhero books, including his DC Comics series Batman: White Knight. His new book, The Last Driver, hits stores this week.Visit patreon.com/thesloppyboys for more!WANT MORE SLOP? Check out:PatreonSHOP the webstore at:The Sloppy Boys WebsiteLISTEN to The Sloppy Boys hit songs on:Apple MusicSpotifyYoutubeTOUR DATES, SOCIALS and more at:LinktreeT H E   S L O P P Y   B O Y S   L L CExpand Ascend Conquer Retain Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey folks, Dutz here with something a little different. You can probably tell by the music, this is more of a prestige format thing. Wow. I've always loved talking to artists from different disciplines. I'm actually utterly fascinated by how art forms that seem disparate to the layperson are in fact deeply interconnected. These conversations between the masters are rare. They're candid, and they just might illuminate the very nature of creativity.

itself for the benefit of all mankind. Sean Murphy is a comic artist and writer known for both his acclaimed indie work and his blockbuster superhero stuff, like his Batman White Knight series over at DC Comics. He's also someone I met in an after-school art class when I was 12 years old. I caught up with Sean late last year after he visited L.A., and we talked about his work, his influences, and his new book, The Last Driver, which hits stores this week. I hope you enjoy this conversation between me and my old buddy Sean. How's it going, man?

Good, man. I dyed my hair blonde because I heard blondes like you have more fun. Well, we do. Welcome aboard. Yeah, you're getting ready for the holidays and all that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, as a non-believer as much as you can, I guess. Yeah, same. When I went hardcore atheist, I thought I'd be cool and be like,

I don't celebrate Christmas. I don't believe in Christmas anymore. But then you grow up and realize, well, it's a cultural holiday more than anything. Yeah, right. Are you more of a Halloween guy? Oh, yeah. I mean, who wasn't? Yeah.

Even if you're in the arts, you just fucking lie and say that you love Halloween. That's the rule. So look, I like talking to people in like different creative fields and kind of seeing the commonality across disciplines. And we always have good conversations. So thanks for letting us roll it on this one. Yeah. Yeah, it's wild.

I think that, to think that you and I met at a weird art class in 1991 or 92 or whatever. Yeah. I was in junior high. I got to say it was like seventh or eighth grade and you were what a freshman or like, you're what, two years older than me? Yeah, it's not much. It's not much. But when you're 15 and your friend is 17 and drives, holy shit. That's true.

Yeah, it was pretty fucking awesome. It was fucking awesome. You were the only kid, I think, who drove himself to the art class. Oh. I remember. Tom eventually did. He would borrow his mom's car. He was older than me, which, you know, he was like 18.

Right, right, right. Folks, this was a after-school art class in like a neighboring town. I was from Londonderry and this was in Salem. Yeah, not the cool Salem. The other Salem. Yeah, right, right. Not the haunted witchy Salem. Yeah, second Halloween reference in five minutes.

I love it. Yeah, I think you and me, we were both into comics, and I think we might have run into the same thing where comics weren't okay with art teachers in public school. Like, they just didn't consider it to be art. Yeah, totally. My parents found a teacher named Leslie Swank, who was a retired World War II vet, served in the Pacific.

He was an illustrator, painter, and cartoonist. So he actually respected sort of comics. Yeah. And that was rare back then. I remember him doing, well, I mean, he did everything from like local signs to portrait chirp. But he was no, I think his way in the comics was maybe like the fantasy art like Frank Fragetta.

Yeah. Like demon-y kind of Viking stuff. He dabbled. Yeah. He was definitely a Frisetta guy. He had a bunch of cut out files. of references. This is before the internet, all this.

So I remember seeing like Star Wars concept art, which I'd never seen before. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's something I was raised to respect my elders, and I generally do, unless they're not politically aligned. No. But yeah, he made his own bullets. He made his own fishing lore. He just was a jack of all trades.

You know? Yeah. And so at a certain point in his life, he turned his garage into a classroom for after school kids and you'd walk in and there was maybe he just filled the center row with like 10 desks. Yeah. And then some bigger desks in the back where the big dogs could sit. I remember you were there for a while.

And the place was just full of pipe smoke. You'd just be teenagers inhaling pipe smoke for two hours after school. Yeah. But for six bucks a lesson. pretty good that's it that was a bargain even back then i think like competing teachers of after school programs were charging like 12 or 15 bucks a lesson which is still fine uh you know arts expensive but uh yeah my parents found leslie swank who was very qualified he wasn't a fru-frue artist which my father appreciated right he was like a real guy and uh yeah it was cheap and i think he could

have um charged 10 for a lesson and i think people would have paid it because there was a waiting list of people that wanted to get in, basically. That's true. I feel like I maybe even got referred or something. A buddy of mine, Greg, was there before me. I remember Greg. I remember seeing your art before I had met you. Like, I'd heard about this guy, Sean, through Greg, because he was another comic book kid.

Yeah. And then so I think it kind of helped to, like, have somebody in there already, which this is maybe making it sound even more exclusive than it was. But, and also, I think he could have made. more money because I don't think he kept good books. No. Once a month. There was a lot of like, you bring something from me, boy.

Yeah. You'd be like, I paid you last week. And he'd be like, yeah, yeah, all right. And I'm like, screw up something down. Yeah. We either underpaid him or overpaid him, but I'm sure it balances out. No, it was a shitty 1970s basement with wood panel floor. I mean, linoleum tile.

I mean, it was a dive. But that was what was cool about it. It was. And I think it was great. is like we met each other just as Batman the animated series was hitting right um X-Men the cartoon was about to hit Sega was taking off super you know super Nintendo uh and McFarland toys yes you guys especially like there was kind of a surge of things that we were about to fall in love with happening all around us and I didn't know anybody in my school who liked all that stuff

until I met you guys so I found myself like really looking forward to Thursday Thursdays after school because that was when we had these classes. And even now, Thursday is still my favorite day of the week. And I don't know why. I think it's just because of the warm feelings I have. Yeah, you know, it definitely has colored my, I mean, Thursday is great because you're heading towards the end of the week. Yeah.

Somebody had a great tweet that was like, I can't explain it, but October, Thursday, and 7 p.m. are all the same. And I saw that. And I was instantly like, I can explain it. It's act three. Yeah. It's like, oh, wow, yeah. You're writing brain, yeah.

You're two thirds of the way into the story and things are about to like bring it on home. It's a great. So, yeah, Thursday's great. Wow. Friends and Seinfeld. Yeah. Coming right on the heels of art class. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it was wild. I remember you guys came in and I don't know if you had McFarlane toys the first time. Okay. No, I don't know if it was the first time. But yeah. Go ahead. No, McFarland started releasing Spawn figures and then people who don't read comics or have no idea

what we're talking about. In the early 90s, Spider-Man and X-Men were big, but the best artists of Marvel were about to leave and start their own company called Image. And one of the big title characters that Normie might know is Spawn. And then there were five or six other guys who created other titles. And they were all like really over-the-top, extreme, like girls with big, tits, guys with pouches and veins. I mean, it was an atrocity to illustration and storytelling. Yes. But it was like Michael Bay on acid is the best way I can describe it. Yeah.

So it was a really glorious time to be a boy at that age. It was. It really was a nice, you know, you're not you're not fiending for playboys because you have like PG-13 titillating comics. Yep. It's like a safer, I don't know, it's a more welcoming, way into like your burgeoning sexuality. I never thought about comics though. I don't know anyone else. Yeah. Oh boy.

Maybe this was a bad idea. Burgeoning sexuality. Wow. Yeah. But wait. I wanted to ask you. Oh, so the McFarland toys were so much more. Oh, yeah.

They reinvented toys. The toys prior to McFarland were like very wooden, barely poseable, smaller, bad paint job. And, you know, I still like have a good shoebox full of them. But the McFarlane was, were like, they were sculpted to be in these like dynamic poses and they were bigger. They were at the time like 10 bucks instead of like five bucks. Yeah, yeah, worth it.

And that was the risk that McFarland took was, remember a show called Cadillacs and Dinosaurs? Yeah, I do. So the creator of that's name is Mark Schultz and he was a comic artist who did the comic of that. used to walk around and carry around an action figure of Jack Tenreck. And it was the old school action figures with like four points of articulation and a head that turned. Is Jack Tenric from Cadillac and Dinosaurs? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. That's the name of the character. Sorry. Okay. So Todd was getting into a deal with Spawn and he was getting really pissed off, I guess. And he called up Mark and was like, what the fuck these guys? I'm trying to ask for this and that. And they don't have the vision and like, why can't we do nice Spawn toys?

Right. And Mark's like, Todd, like, come on, man, what are you going to do? Reinvent the toy market? Right. Todd was like, fuck, yeah, I will. Watch me. And I'll be damned if Todd has not done that with his entire career for the past 30 years as he started his own company and started making toys that were twice as nice, twice as expensive.

But it worked. You know, like they didn't think a $10 toy would sell to a kid, but they were wrong. Right. I think during COVID, you turned me on to a great doc on Todd McClick. on Todd McFarland called Like Hell I Won't. Yeah. And it's just that. It's such a great little look at 90s, the 90s comic boom and Marvel people

jettisoning and starting image comics and that whole thing. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, the thing, one of the things I remember, because you graduated before me and the other guys our age, my age there. And I remember you asking Mr. Swank when you were looking at colleges, you were like, You were like, how much does the college you went to matter versus your skills? Yeah. Do you remember what he said?

Because I barely do. I don't remember what he said. But knowing him well enough, I think he would say that because he recommended going to Tufts because they had a really good art program there. Right. Or sorry, he went to Syracuse. Really? Yeah, he went to Syracuse for art, I think. but back in the 60s, I'm sure it was renowned.

Yeah, I'm sure it cost 600 bucks too to go to college back then. So who cares? Go wherever you want, kid. Yeah. I think that Mr. Swank would weigh in and say, college is important, but it's not important as how hard you work. Because he was really big on, before we were allowed to leave class, he would make us say the word practice.

Right. He expected us practice. And I think he was sort of a hustler and big on stick-to-itiveness, being an expert. You know, he's sort of wired that way. So I don't think, I think he would say that work ethic and talent are more important than college. Yes. I think that that's the sort of vibe I got from him.

Yeah. Someone like you who draws and has now gotten to a point where you write most of the stuff you draw. Is that right? Yep. Wearer of many hats and then also like the buck kind of stops with you. It's almost like a stand-up comedian. Like stand-ups out here in comedy are kind of.

of the most lone wolf. They're also a little bit competitive. They're a little antisocial. And they do kind of remind me of like artists who can do it all themselves. Like fuck you, I can write it and draw it. Yeah. It's a weird, it's different than being in sketch or like being in these things that are a little more teamwork based. Where it's like, I can be bad at some things and I can sort of get lazy in some things. Yeah. You know, I sort of consider myself, of a frustrated filmmaker type of artist in that all right i like x-men but that's not what moves me every morning to get up and draw mostly i love movies but i'm too lazy to hire film camera crew get permits money funding whatever so because comics is such a cheap uh materials i mean you

pen paper ink and talent you can basically do a movie by yourself yes um you can cast who you want If I want an Al Pacino character as elite, I can do that. I can do a scene where there's a giant explosion. It doesn't cost me anything. It's with pen on paper. And it's sort of the magic is in its simplicity. Yeah, I think mostly it's that that keeps me coming back to comics. No offense to spawn or Batman or anything.

Sure. Well, you also don't strike me as a guy who, like, I don't know, when I had my own podcast, I stopped listening to podcasts. When you started drawing real deal comics, were you still an actual? avid reader of comics? Like, I don't even back then think of you it as an avid reader of comics. No. I mean, I think, like, you guys, you'd buy the McFarland toys, but you didn't really read Spawn. Oh, that's, that's an interesting point that he brings up in the dock. He was like, I know people who never picked up a Spawn comic who knows Spawn. And I was sort of one of them.

Yeah. I think that there's, there's a lot of us out there. It's, I saw the cartoon. Yeah, the guns were cool, the texture of the boots or whatever, the spikes. When I read comics, I'm mostly looking at art in ways of drawing. I don't really look at comics for story. I look at movies for story because, you know, like, my favorite movie is Shawshank Redemption, which is not a very creative answer. But classic dude movie. Yeah. But I've never read a comic that was even a tenth that moved me as much as that movie, you know?

Like, even the best comic in the world, even like Dark Night Returns, it doesn't move me nearly as much as like Hot Fuzz does. or even yeah yeah those are both brilliant movies but yeah hot fuzz is my favorite of the Edgar Wright movies hell yeah

I think do we see that together when it came out because we were both living in L.A we both knew about Sean of the Dead I wonder fuck yeah I remember seeing alien resurrection back in New Hampshire with you

that was no I stand by that movie me too I watched it recently the last 10 minutes maybe not But the first 90 minutes, I can stand behind. Me too. I'm an apologist. I'm on a resurrection apologist.

Thank you. It's silly. It's like it's downright like comedy sometimes. It's so funny. The aliens swimming underwater. Give me more of that. That was amazing. Yeah, that's cool.

Robprobin was great. Michael Wincott. I always love when he shows up. Okay, Michael Wincott. He's the guy. He's the guy who talks like this, right? Yeah. He doesn't get enough love.

He doesn't. He pops up in Nope. the Jordan Peel movie. And I was like, where do I fucking know this guy? And it was Alien Resurrection. No. As soon as he came on, I'm like, oh, my God, is that the sheriff's cousin? I was so excited.

He was in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, the sheriff's cousin. Ah. He was the bad guy in Count of Monte Cristo. And he was the bad guy in Three Musketeers and in the Crow. Okay, these are all very swashbuckling movies that we'll talk. We'll get there. First, I wanted to bring up one more thing about the duets. it yourself thing. Okay, there's this looming specter in both of our industries of AI.

And as much as I am so sick to death of seeing shitty, glossy AI vomit on my Instagram, the idea of being a writer or director, and maybe you don't have to shoot anymore. Like, that was the big limiting thing was like, I have to rent lights and hire actors and get makeup and stuff? What if I took my unfinished, you know, sci-fi epic and I recorded it like a podcast and then I just used AI to like kind of put the visuals on top of me directing a performance of people in a room. I'm on the one hand, like, afraid of how it's going to crater so many of my peers jobs and stuff, but it's also like it's an undeniably interesting prospect that Yeah.

All these quote unquote unsellable screenplays could just be brought to life. Yeah. I don't, it's a tough answer. It's a lot of gray. And I think anyone who answers with a simple yes or no isn't acknowledging how gray complicated it is. I mean, it's going to infuse our lives in ways that are very helpful and probably very unhelpful

in thousands of ways that we don't even understand right now because we're at the brink of it exploding, you know? I think we're still grappling with like the effect of like social media. and stuff. Like, we haven't gotten our heads around that fallout yet. Yeah, yeah. But is AI in comics this, like, looming thing or not? Some would say, yeah, a lot of friends are upset, scared.

So, speaking of Todd McFarland, there was a cover of Spawn that someone did. And I don't know if Todd knew that it was an AI cover or the person just used AI. I don't know what it is, but he got in trouble, which doesn't mean anything because Todd doesn't care about what people think. I mean, for the most part. But yeah, people got all upset. And if you use AI, there's threats of being boycotted or canceled or it's just a hot, hot issue. What was the extent of it?

I mean, yeah, gray is right. Because on the one hand, it's like there are all sorts of little things I use in Photoshop, like content aware, fill to extend backgrounds and stuff. And it's like, it's not really AI so much as it is good programming. But when it's used as a tool by an artist, people don't seem to have a problem with it. When it's used by companies to replace artists, people have a big problem with it. Right. And they should, I think.

Yeah. The concern about the economics of it are valid. What do we do about our jobs? You know, like the economics of like, it's nice to know that you can just type in huge explosion. You don't have to get a permit and hire gasoline tech or I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Right. So, like, the question of how it will affect our jobs is interesting.

And then there's the question of how it will affect our creativity. Like you're saying, you know, these unshootable scripts, suddenly they can get made. Maybe we'll prove to Hollywood that there's a new type of movie that they've never taken a chance on before. Maybe this is like a new era in a positive way in some ways, you know? It's going to be weird. Something I thought of when you mentioned this is I think about the music industry and people who buy synthesizers. and the whole synth wave phenomenon, right? Hell yeah.

Before, if you wanted to be a musician, you had to learn how to play basics, learn all the notes and probably piano and go to college. If you want to be a musician, you probably need a band to other people and that costs time and investment in money. And a lot of people aren't willing to do that, so they quit. So I feel like there's this gauntlet that you run

as you become a quote-unquote professional musician. And it makes or breaks you. So the people that are there getting these contracts have run this gauntlet and are probably more talented than the average guy that graduates from college, you know. So now imagine, you could argue, oh, isn't it too bad that there was a lot of potential musicians out there that were dissuaded or they were not interested in going to art school. And like it's so sad that they couldn't have made it the band. Like they didn't manage the gauntlet in order to get to the. at the endpoint at all. What if we give them all synthesizers?

And now anybody can make music without a band for relatively inexpensive and without too much education. Like there's no barrier to being a musician. Yeah. Then I would say, okay, maybe, but most synth wave music is terrible. There's something about running that gauntlet of having to go decades of meeting friends and learning about classical music and why Bach is better than Beethoven, whatever it is. Yes.

So it's like ultimate power and a keyboard. But if you don't have the knowledge, then it doesn't really work the same way. We've democratized a lot of like the arts lately with like, oh, you know, you don't have to be a photographer anymore. You got an iPhone and you got like filters and stuff. And so the real photographers, I'm sure, like, fuck you. That's totally my wife, by the way. Oh, sure. Absolutely.

And then, you know, synth music, same deal. I think it's great that you don't need to go to college anymore. for film school or for music school. And like, if you're really, really determined, you can learn pretty much anything on YouTube if you're diligent. But then I think you're right, it does come down to like, well, do you have a perspective? Do you have taste? Did you collaborate with anyone? Are you part of a scene?

Right. If you really are just kind of coming up with lowest common denominator synth wave, of which there is a lot. Yeah, that's the thing is you gave these kids this most, a very powerful instrument and you democratize sound. And now they can technically make a drumbeat sounds like the drummer from, uh, fuck. It would have been good if I had a band, like ACDC. Sure. Or Phil Collins or something. A cool reference.

The show's a model. I was going to say Motorhead. So Motorhead invented the double bass, right? Oh, cool. I didn't know that. So it used to be a really good drummer to be able to do a double bass. You had to be able to- I'm still working on the single bass. Now anyone could do a double bass if they just buy a keyboard.

I mean, it sounds like a double bass even though it's not really. Yes. But very few bands are at the level of motorhead when it comes to synth artists. You know, like they still don't understand melody. And there's just thousands of shitty kids with hoodies on who live in their mom's basement who love like lightsabers and pink sunsets. Yes. But they're not actually that good.

So you think that giving them democratizing music would have shown, oh, my God, there's so many more talented people. But I don't know. It hasn't really worked out the way that I hoped it would. Yeah, right. I mean, I remember the internet streaming. That was a huge thing, especially at UCB in comedy. Like, oh, my God, there are so many more outlets. We're all going to get shows.

And then all of the opportunities went to like, well, okay, so now Judd Apatow and JJ Abrams have shows at all these new streaming places. Yeah. Because they're not, there's still companies that are risk averse. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe that's not the same thing as what you're talking about. But there's that.

Yeah, it's important. There's that illusion of, illusion of opportunity for all. Yeah. And I think, you know, groups of people working together that make movies, you think about in the fugitive, Tommy Lee Jones came up with his own lines. He came up with the whole, I want to. every dog house, horde house, clubhouse, whatever house. I think he came up with that on the spot.

And he came up with a go give me one of those donuts with one of the little sprinkles on. Like he did a lot of heavy lifting in that movie, which made the movie. No shit. Yeah. Now, I'm going to assume that that's true for a second, even if it's not. Like, whoever directed that movie, if they had just fired everyone and made the fugitive using AI, you wouldn't have gotten these delightful surprises that Tommy Lee Jones was throwing at the camera. Yeah.

You know, like, think about all the extra improv that you caught with your friends. And you're like, ooh, that should go in the movie now. That should go in the movie. And that's what enhances the whole process and makes it better. Like, technically, you could make the fugitive with AI, but it's just not likely to come out that way because humans working together and bouncing off each other is important to society. We've been talking about, like, you know, AI writers. Yeah. And I was like, there's no fucking way.

I just think we'll never have an AI right. get out or something that articulates like these sort of modern feelings about society in a new way. Yeah. Will it write the new Jurassic World? Maybe. Probably. Like the fast series or like Jurassic World.

Like how different is it really being sort of, you know, focus grouped within an inch of its life and by these risk-averse billionaire companies than having a computer do it? But I just got to imagine there will always be an appetite for like the real thing, even if it hopefully it's instantaneous. Just people kind of reject the attempts. Yeah. But maybe it'll take a little time. I bet you some AI shit will make a bunch of money before people are like,

I kind of feel like I've just had sugar. Yeah. Is there something out with there with more fiber? And it might even take a decade. Well, so my wife writes romance novels. And in her industry, there's a lot of writers. to publish just digitally to put it up on Amazon and they make, you know, 10 bucks a month.

It's not great. But they use a lot of AI and they just cut and paste. So people are already digesting AI. You think it's a human writing book, but it's not. So I feel like it's going to infiltrate our lives in ways we don't realize. Like could AI write Goodfellas? No. Could it write shitty reality TV dialogue?

Probably. Yeah. You know, like the different levels of complicated writing. I mean, you know, and I guess as time goes on, it's going to get closer to writing Goodfellas. But then I kind of want like a sticker of approval on my DVDs that say 100% human-grown script, you know? Yeah, dude. I do think it will be something like organic food. Yeah.

I wonder if it will label it. Yeah. Yeah. I will say like even like when Scorsese is left a lot. He ends up making fucking three-hour movies that aren't necessarily bangers. There's something about the push pack of other humans going, no, man, you got to keep, sorry, Tarantino, we can't make Kill Bill four and a half hours. You got to cut that shit into two.

Yeah. You know, I think that'll be interesting too when, like, let's say, let's say it's a good future. And AI brings a lot of stories to life that are unproducible or whatever. We might find that like, hey, just because you can. have an explosion on every explosion every minute or explosion on every page doesn't mean you should.

I think it will kind of create that same sugar rush feeling where we're like, hey, yeah, we can do everything. So let's focus on the most satisfying stuff, like good stories and good scenes and actors. Yeah. And the other thing too that considers culture, you think about Bollywood

and how wild and wacky, Bollywood television is. Right. Just saturated with color. Like, it's an epileptic seizure every second. Or even some Japanese stuff. It's like, people watch this. Like, it's hard to understand the mentality of people in India and Japan.

I mean, you look at some of their TV sometimes. And granted, they probably look at our shit and think it's pretty weird too. But I think about AI, I'm like, could it write weird Bollywood stuff, just add a bunch of colors and explosions every other minute? Like, would that work in India? I wonder if it's just like, yeah, you know, if the AI learns off of it, like same with Goodfellas. It's like, yeah, I don't think it could write Goodfellas or Get Out, but if it consumes enough of that stuff, maybe it can shit some out. I don't know.

Yeah. So, Los Angeles, you moved to L.A. before I did, right? Or was I here first and then you showed? Because did you have one stab or did you try it and then go away and then come back? I kind of forget how it all laid out. Yeah, I had two stabs. I came out when I was 22 and stayed for about a year and then ran out of money because I moved to Denver and lived in my friend's basement because comics wasn't taken off back then

and then a year or two went by and I was on the East Coast and I'm like I have to try this one more time like it wasn't even comics like I need to get into concept art or storyboards or something so I went back out to L.A. and I lived on right near Fairfax High. Is that where I saw you? We connected out there maybe two or three times, and that was that apartment, right? Yeah, that's probably that one where I was living by myself. I might have seen you the first time around. If you came out, how old were you when you came out?

22. Something like that. It's wild. Dude, I wouldn't trust a 22-year-old to drive to another time zone right now. I can't imagine at age 22, we were just like adult enough to just go. With no plan. Yeah. And like for me, I kind of knew when I was graduating high school was like, well, I'm going to go to college and then, oh, they make movies in Hollywood.

I'm going to Hollywood. I never thought about a plan B. It was just kind of like a foregone conclusion. Beauty of being young and having balls. Yeah, right. Yeah. I remember seeing you in L.A. And you're like, yeah, you're going to like it out here.

Like you'll start, you'll start dressing more colorfully, but you'll be the same guy. Because we all went out in like East Coast like Dower blacks and navies and stuff. Then we lightened up and started dressing like Magnum P.I. Yeah. It's funny. My girlfriend from L.A. one year, I'm married now. This was a long time ago. She's from California.

She flew to Boston to hang out. She needed a winter coat. She's like, I don't want to buy a black coat. I want something fun. And I took her to three shops on Newbury Street, which had the most fashion in Boston. And there was nothing that wasn't black. And I forgot how black, dark our culture was in the East Coast. There's nothing fun about it.

It's crazy. Man, that's wild. So when you're in L.A. at that point, I was kind of following you. I knew you were working on punk rock. No, no, not punk rock, Jesus. Off road was the first one. Yeah. I would send you my scripts.

I was send you my rough scripts. I sent you off road and I send you punk rock Jesus. Because you had read Sidfield and had the basics. of storytelling that I needed. And you knew me pretty well. We had this similar sense of humor. So I would use to send you my shit. Offroad, I remember that being like, wow, my friend didn't, an indie comic.

Also, I was surprised that, like, even back in Swank's basement, I was like, this guy's ready to rock, like, hire him. I didn't understand how you were not given like a front of the line pass to like drawing for Marvel or DC, which clearly was a many-year struggle, right? Yeah, I wasn't that good, actually. I think that's nonsense. No, I wasn't that. I didn't really get good at art until like 2005 or six.

It started to come together. I mean, I was that image style we were talking about. Like, I could mimic that, but that wasn't really art. I didn't have the foundation of anatomy. And, you know, I didn't really start to congeal for a while. I remember I was drawing a Teen Titans book. And I had you pose as my Robin. Like I used your face as Robin.

I'll never forget it. You have a good Robin, get a good Dick Grace in the face or maybe just a dick face. Yeah. And at the time, like I wasn't sure what my style should be. And I remember going to sleep and waking up. I remember redrawing the panel at like two in the morning in L.A. where I was redrawing your face.

I'm like, oh, how realistic do I go? And yeah, no, it's just a struggle, man. And I wouldn't have hired me. If I was DC and Marvel, I wouldn't have rusher me to front of line at all. I think I need to get like 200 pages under my belt to really come out. Yeah. What was the sticking point that you had to kind of like push through? I mean, like, I know when you're dealing with comics, it's just like there's visual storytelling.

There's like backgrounds. There's just everything you can think of. You have to draw or conceive. Is there like a thing that you feel you most improved in during that time? Yeah, I think even with actors or musicians, you're, people who are creative are driven by an itch. You just, you just can't quite scratch. Like something's nagging at you and you need to. It could be better.

And you, yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be perfect, but you just need to come to the next stage of you being on your way of cracking the code on that thing. So, you know, if you're musician, you've, you've, you've liked Pink, Floyd and you like ACDC or whatever and you kind of want to blend some stuff there, but you're also looking for a new thing that no one's done. And, you know, you want to have this energy to your art that you can't quite describe yet. With comics, you want to find the characters that lets you do that.

You know, if you're a musician, you can do whatever kind of music you want. But in comics, I can't just draw, I mean, I can now, just draw whatever I want and write the script. But back then, if you want to make money, you need to have a big character to pay you. So Batman, X-Men. And they're not going to let just any weird goth style just start drawing Gambit, you know? So just sort of the marketing angle that you need to think about too, which of course it's true in the other industries as well. I remember you were talking about it. Like there's a house style that. Yeah. We saw it change over time. Like, like, Joe Madd changed the house style of X-Men in his time there

and was like more of an anime thing, which I was on board for in the beginning and he went a little too crazy town, everybody's like gummy-looking. Yeah, because in the 90s, cartoons were awesome and it was hard to find anime. Like Ninja Scroll and Akira, and a few other ones were just starting to make their way over to the west.

But you had to go to Suncoast video in the mall and spend $20 on this. anime that like it looked good on the back but you weren't really sure how it was going to move or you're you're like, yeah, by the way, there's 36 of those VHS tapes. I worked at Suncoast by the way. I don't know if you were calling that out. No, I did in the Manchester Mall. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. I remember you drew like a Tales of Star Wars Tales or like what was your kind of foot in the door with like the big two, the big three or whatever? I kind of, existed on the peripherals for about eight years.

I would get a cool gig. I got one that was a Star Wars book where it was a Elseworld's tale where Han Solo and Chewy are running from Thai fighters and they need to, you know, Han needs to input directions on the computer before he goes into hyperspace. Otherwise, he could end up hitting a sun or something. Yes, right. So in this story, they're like, we don't have coordinates, whatever, just hit enter. So they do.

and they accidentally end up on earth. Right. And they counter some Native Americans that murder them. Yeah, right, right, right. And then years later, it's 1930. And there's a mysterious figure looking at this weird, you know, the Millennium Falcons covered with moss and trees. So it looks like it's just a cave right now.

And it's being explored by this famous archaeologist who turns out to be Indiana Jones. Right, right, right. I loved it. So it's funny. that story is sort of known in the industry, but very few people know that it was me who drew it because I had such a different style back then. Yeah, it was a lot simpler looking, I remember.

Yeah, and it was more house. It didn't stand out. It would look like a bunch of different styles. But yeah, so I would get a gig like that every now and then I'd take that money. I'd spend it a little as possible, and I watch my bank account go down, and I get scared and think,

oh, do I need to work at Best Buy now? And then I get another gig with, you know, Activision and I'd watch the money go down. So I was kind of like a skipping rock for a bit. And it wasn't until like 2008 when I did Hellblazer, which is this horror book for Vertigo Comics, which is owned by DC. And that's when I actually got in with an editor. She really liked me.

And suddenly I was making, you know, 80 a year, which was insane because I was only making 20 a year at most for a long time, like poverty level wages. Yeah, and then once I started getting a hit to success, I just like clawed my way in. I remember that. Also, I didn't realize Hellblazer. He's an Alan Moore character, right? He started in Swamp thing. Yeah.

I just not all the way through, but I got the like six, the six trades of like the Allen Moore Swamp thing. I was like, oh, this is where he started. And that, okay, yeah, he's John Constantine. And I watched the Keanu movie. So I kind of like, I kind of have a clear picture of a. all that. But man, that's so funny because I thought you were, from the outside looking in, I thought you were crushing it like I know that you did kind of on spec, like a Batman, Mr. Freeze story, the Star Wars thing. But for a lot of those eight years, you weren't really writing,

right? No. Those were mostly just like artists for hire. Yeah, I wrote off-road, which was a coming-of-age indie book. Right. It was like autobiographical sort of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kids in Jeep, get stuck in the mud, you know, coming of age story. Pretty basic. But I wrote that because I just started reading screenplay. And my friend was a Hollywood writer, student of Hollywood writing. Yeah. And he put these books in my hand.

So I read all that stuff. And off-road is my first time. Like, all right, let me do a really, really simple story and see if I could do like a three-act structure. But I didn't think of myself as a writer. I was just, I didn't have any offers. So I just decided to just do it all myself. And then I didn't really write again until 2008 when I did punk rock

Jesus, which was a lot more ambitious. Yes, and long gestating, right? Yeah, you're writing about religion and politics, and you're writing about a story that takes place over years. So I was looking at like Forrest Gump and how that handled slow time and changes and, you know, it's just a lot to go. It's a very ambitious book. And then it worked in this whole angle with the Irish Republican Army.

So you got terrorism now. Yeah, and like the ethics of. modern science. There's a lot going on. Yeah, there's a lot in that book. I'm sure if I read it again, it could be dialed back and cleaned up a lot. And it ended really abruptly. Like I ran out of space at the end. But I think like a punk song, it goes fast and hard. You dive into controversial subjects. You get in, you get out. It's not perfect, but that's what punk is. It worked. That's a great way of putting it. Also, was this the, I've noticed a character. pop up.

Do you know where I'm going with this? Yeah. You have a burly black-haired Irishman, snub-nosed, close-crop hair, weave in and out of so many books now. And I think this was the first time I clocked him. So Thomas is the Irish Republican. He thinks himself as a freedom fighter, but he's an ex-terrorist. Yes. He's got, he has a Catholic cross, tax.

tattooed on his back for every person he's killed. So he's covered in crosses. So they call him the cemetery because he just, he brings death. Yeah. And the story of punk rock Jesus is like, there's this clone, they clone the from the shot of Turin,

the DNA of Christ, and they turn into a reality show. So it's like the Truman show with Jesus. Yeah. And every day it's like Super Bowl ratings. And, you know, they start messing with the quote unquote characters and they kill off his mom for real, just for ratings.

And the whole thing is told to the, eyes of his bodyguard who is this ex-IRA terrorist who's extremely capable. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, every book I've done, I slip that character in. Even in Zorro, I have him called Tomas, because, you know, that's Spanish and clever. Yeah, and he's like El Cemetery or something like that, right? I read it just now. It's sort of like how Tarantino has is like the Vega brothers.

Like, there's this common threat. Like, when you're an artist, it's like, yeah. just drew the same guy. It's not a real guy. He just looks the same and like somebody like Jeff will clock that this guy weaves in and out of stories. Yeah. I don't think he's popped up in a Batman though, has he?

Not yet. Well, you could argue Bruce Wayne is a lot of his kids. Bruce is quite, yeah, he's a very, he's nearly Bruce. So one of the criticisms I get or jokes I get from my readers is I draw grizzled brooding men very well. Great. So, if you're like an alpha male with a bad day and it's raining out and you haven't shaved and you've worked out, that's the scene that I end up drawing. A lot of my guys look very samey, same kind of face and glare.

I don't know. You just kind of get used to your hero face when you're drawing comics. Right. I tend to go back to like what I'm used to. And Thomas pops up in a lot of different ways. So is Thomas Sean Murphy, I guess is my question. You know what I mean? Like it's sort of like your most.

most fingerprint of a character. Well, what is it? Directors cast a better looking version of themselves to play the lead. So Tim Burton cast Johnny Depp. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, I think there's some truth there. Let's jump forward a little bit, a lot of bit, and talk about the last driver. Sure.

I was excited about this because you came out to L.A. We went on a hike and went to Mousseau and Franks, and we just kind of were talking about music specifically like Kavinsky, Carpenter Brew. Yeah. Really like good synth. Good synth wave. I'm into that sort of shit. Yeah.

And you're good at it. Oh, thank you. If anybody you know synth wave, the record photos on the record, the picture's on the record. It's like a glowing speedometer or like a pink grid with a Lamborghini driving to a aqua sunset. It's like very samey, a lot of the imagery, which is cool. And I thought this book would really lend itself to that kind of John Carpenter-esque synthesizer type thing. Like a lot of the synth bands, it's like they're writing soundtracks to movies that don't exist.

Yes. In a way, and you can kind of make up the movie in your head. But then in the story, I have the main character in the future. So he's an outlaw. He's off the grid. He doesn't even have a cell phone because he doesn't want to be found. He's the last driver. He's the only one that knows how to drive an actual car.

And someone needs him to pull off a heist. Like a gas car? Yeah, like a gasoline car. He's like a 65-year-old ex-race car driver, stuntman. And he agrees to do it because he needs to get an organ to save his granddaughter's life, basically. So he has no choice. And in this just car chase that lasts the whole book, the streets are exploding. The cops don't know what to do about this guy.

It's like demolition man. Or in the future, all the cops are pussies. And AI is taken over. And there's this grid system where no one. needs to actually know how to drive a car. And this is like the only guy to actually knows how to, so no one can stop him. And through his journey, which starts off as complete chaos, he starts winning over the city. These people that are happy with their pods, their automatic cars, and they're happy with their

AI lifestyle, they start to awaken and be like, wait, this guy stands for America. This guy stands for something that we've lost. And he starts to get support and people running out in the streets and like blocking cops and, you know, throwing cans at robot cops. And this guy didn't ask for it to be considered this folk hero, but he ends up becoming that through his journey, basically. He's like Luigi Mangione. Exactly.

I hope that age is poorly. For you're sick. So one of the gags is the only way he can listen to music, because he can't use Spotify because then the cops will find him. He has to find like an eight-track player or cassette tape or a record. So he tries to, the whole story is trying to find his favorite song,

which is by the band Boston called Smoking. And at the finale of the story, his big disappearing act, he launches an EMP in the engine of the car and it like short circuits, all the cops and all the robots and the TV cameras and the drones. So the car literally is smoking at the end.

So I thought it would be kind of a cool play onwards. Well, damn, dude, I'm excited for last driver. I want to see those pages. Yeah, I want to show you, man. I'm excited. And if I could get some more people to appreciate Dutz. Oh, yeah.

Love that. I'm lucky because, like, not only have I known you since, like, the early 90s from fucking New Hampshire, and no one in entertainment, except for Adam Sandler and a few other people who ever made it. Yeah, Sarah Silver. Thank you. So those two, great. And not only that you survive, but you're actually really talented.

Like, I'll put on Dutt songs. And I'm like, fuck, Jeff's really. really good. I don't even have to lie to him. Don't say that. Thank you, buddy. We've never collabed. This is going to be like, no. We might have sketched spawn together. Oh, yeah, maybe. Collabbed in a paintball battle once when we each had ponytails. Yeah. Are there any pictures of us? That might be good to have just for like this.

I don't know if we put this out, however we put this out. I think I have a photo of us paintballing. where we were wearing ski goggles and holding our guns up. Me, look, in my old stuff. I might not. I might also have, this is different, but you once drew a comic of the art class that we were in back in the day. Two volumes.

And then I did one that I like didn't even finish, classic Jeff. Typical holiday. I remember thinking, yeah, a lot of talk, not a lot of follow. or that I probably still have those somewhere or at least a scan or something that'd be good for me to find if I get a movie deal I'll be like if you do hire someone to do the soundtrack I insist you look at my buddy dutz because you were the giant zipper and it's yes Sean my boy you got yourself a deal great to talk to you man where can people find you or do you do the social media I know you're on there a little bit but you also have a tortured relationship with yeah I quit

Twitter computer my sister yeah Yeah. Instagram is the best place to find me. Sean Gordon Murphy. And yeah, my books, Sean Murphy. You look at my name and Batman and comics. It'll pop up pretty easily. Yeah, we barely touched Batman.

Isn't that crazy? I know. A lot to get into. I feel like we're the Joker right now. I barely touched him. Well, that'd be good. We could have like a, we could do a follow up at some point. It gives us somewhere to go.

Well, damn, dude. Good to see you. How's the fam? Very good. I'm looking forward to the holiday. I want to come out to L.A. for the convention in a few months. I might. I might not. I'm not sure yet. But I'll keep you. Let me know. Let me know if you do. Of course. Great, man. Good to see you.

Good chatting, buddy. See you. All right. Cheers.