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A Close Look At The Young Career of LeSean Thomas [Updated]

Posted: Thursday, February 26
By: J. Brian Ewing

Updated with images!Sitting in the small office of LeSean Thomas' apartment in Greensboro, North Carolina I'm surrounded by hundreds of books of reference material and anime posters. Thomas has a small boom box on the floor playing ambient music softly. Thomas' office is neat, and professional, reminding me of a saying an old editor of mine had, "A man's office is who he is" and I can't help but think that in the case of LeSean Thomas that can't be truer. Thomas is coming off an ill-fated run on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Dreamwave, his second book for the publisher to be cancelled. But where most young artists would be bitter about getting the ax twice in a row Thomas is characteristically upbeat and looking ahead to future projects and big moves. Through the afternoon Thomas opened up about the early beginnings that helped ready him for the unstable world of comics, what he believes went wrong with Turtles, and whether he's had it with the industry.

Thomas is an anomaly in what has been the recent flood of anime/manga inspired artists, an anomaly because his work is creative, unique and consistent. But it wasn't comic book work that developed this fresh young talent; rather it was Thomas's first love, animation. Thomas busted his chops and honed his skill while working on Disney's Lizzy McGuire. While there Thomas acquired the nickname "the Chameleon" because of his versatility as an artist, "I could draw cutesy Lizzy McGuire all day then the editor could hand me an assignment for a hotrod and he'd know they both would look good." During this time Thomas was also working on his own project, a comic book pitch called Canon Busters. It was this work that got Thomas recognized by Pat Lee, president of the then new publisher Dreamwave

Thomas' early years in animation taught him a thing or two about the perils of freelance work but Thomas admits to going into comics a little naïve, "I didn't have an idea of how bad the industry was." Pat Lee's first assignment for Thomas was Arkanium. Though the book itself was panned critically Thomas's art was well received. A fatal combination of almost no PR for the book (Thomas claims that most of what was written about him and the book was of his own doing), missed deadlines and bad timing (Dreamwave launched three other books at about the same time) lead to an obvious conclusion, cancellation. Thomas admits it was a simple equation, green creative team + green publisher = poor sales.

Dreamwave recognized that Thomas’ work had little to do with the book’s lack of success and quickly pulled him off the sinking ship so that he could begin work on several new titles for the company. Thomas was apprehensive about leaving the title on such short notice plus he was uncomfortable with how DW planned on replacing him, "They were like 'we're going to get someone who draws like you’ I hated that when I was a fan. It was like the company thought you were too stupid to notice." Thomas offered to find his own replacement, an offer that DW was surprisingly receptive to. Thomas quickly began his search and shortly discovered via his website a talented young man named Travel Foreman.

Even though co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Peter Laird had recently launched a reprisal of the title DW opted to produce their own version of the 80s hit. DW vigorously publicized the new TMNT book with ads in trade magazines and a promotional tie-in with the Konami video game, which included character designs by Thomas. The book had a strong creative team as well, Thomas' art would grace pages alongside words provided by comic book great Peter David.

However positive Thomas felt about the project it wasn’t enough to keep the book afloat. Hindsight being what it is Thomas explained that he feels the creative direction for the book was all wrong saying, "Eight issues and no Shredder? I mean come on!” Thomas explained that there was a creative decision by DW to have the book resemble the late 80s TMNT cartoon and not the early work of Eastman and Laird, a decision that Thomas felt was a mistake. Thomas also admits to being slightly uncomfortable with the working relationship between Peter David and himself. Thomas explained that he and David rarely spoke, a practice not uncommon in professional comic books but one that Thomas admits he is uncomfortable with.

The rest is recent history. The book has not officially been canned but both David and Thomas have acknowledged that DW has halted their work on the title. As for Thomas he's walking away from DW with a pretty good view on what was and will be. "I don't want to badmouth Dreamwave, they're all good people. Pat Lee didn't have to give me a chance but he did. They're running a business the best they can. These aren't my books so I can't be mad about them being cancelled but I do wish they would have let me finish the story arcs because it looks bad on me, people are going to say, 'The two books he's done have both been cancelled'. I even told Pat that I would finish both books for free but Pat said the numbers were just too low. I would work with them again though, I feel like I still have a good working relationship with them."

If Thomas is disappointed about the way anything was handled at Dreamwave it would be his creator owned title Canon Busters, the material that first caught Pat Lee's eye. Thomas claims that Lee was very excited about the title and wanted to get Thomas on some work so that there would be a built in fan base for the Dreamwave launch of Canon Busters. A year later when TMNT was underway Thomas brought launching Canon Busters up to Lee. Thomas claims that Lee informed him that he no longer made those decisions and referred Thomas to Dreamwave Creative Director, James McDonough. McDonough, Thomas claims, informed him that Dreamwave would no longer be investing in creator owned projects.

Thomas was disappointed but not devastated and after a short bit of shopping around has found a home for Canon Busters at Com.X the English publisher of sleeper hit Cla$$ War. With Canon Busters Thomas again takes the position of quasi-editor bringing aboard new artist Corey "REY" Lewis and a soon-to-be announced hot industry writer will be scripting the adventure (watch SBC for this one). Other projects include a yet to be titled post-apocalyptic samurai tale that draws its inspiration from the cult hit Warriors and another big move this time to the west coast. That's right, Thomas is headed for La-La Land where he will be drawing storyboards for Warner Brothers big hit Teen Titans. Fans shouldn't worry about getting their LeSean Thomas fix though, his work will be showcased in upcoming Bazooka Jules issues as well as some cover work, and don’t forget Canon Busters, which is sure to be a hit.