Scott Hampton Talks His New Art Book Something Wicked Updated

A Wicked Look Back

Veteran comics artist and illustrator Scott Hampton has a career that goes back to the 1980s. Currently he is running a kickstarter campaign to fund his art book, Something Wicked, and Tripwire caught up with him to find out more…

TRIPWIRE: What was the genesis of this book?

SCOTT HAMPTON: I’ve been dreaming of putting out an art book with lots of material that many of my readers have never seen for decades now. With Kickstarter, it’s now possible for me to put the book out myself and control it. Being a control freak, this is Nirvana.

TW: How did you choose which images are to go into the book?

SH: The book will be broken up into chapters, roughly along the lines of published material, unpublished but intended for publication, conceptual art, and personal work. I want to offer readers a window into the process from roughs to completion.

TW: Why did you go for crowdfunding rather than the traditional means of publishing? 

SH: The technology surrounding printing and publication is now advanced enough that I can print on demand at a reasonable price and control distribution. It’s a lot of work, but it’s truly a dream come true to be able to present a lot of my stuff in a personally curated fashion. I’m also enjoying the collaboration with all the backers. They’ve all been so supportive with comments and sharing the project, as well as helpful when I’ve had issues with the ins and outs of running a Kickstarter campaign. It’s been a lot of fun.

TW: You tried to fund it on kickstarter at the end of last year but you weren’t quite successful. What have you learnt from last time that you can put into practice this time?

SH: I was working on Wicked the graphic novel at the time and I had really no idea how complex the task of adapting that book was until I got into it. Universe building is daunting at any time, but there’s a certain amount of extra pressure when you have a book this popular and a property that has changed the face of culture. Adapting the story and these beloved characters to comics left very little room for other creative endeavours. At this point, I’m in the middle of the second book and I feel like I have a real handle on how I want to proceed so the timing to include some attention to this personal project is much better.

TW: What perks can people get here as well as the book itself?

SH: Among the add-ons are a number of original art commissions. Some are painted with acrylics, some are black and white. All but one are on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of Bristol board paper. There is one that is 11 x 17 and is more finished. I am also offering Trespassers, my horror graphic novel, as an add-on. Since the campaign just reached the 100% mark, we are going to announce the first stretch goal later today. I’ll be offering a nice quality print of a Batman painting I did a while back which has an interesting provenance. It started life as a convention sketch but I sort of liked it and wanted to expand on it so I took it home with me and added a bunch of surreal elements and it turned into this illo set in Cornwall of Batman conjuring water demons with floating islands all around him. I’m not sure where all that came from.

I have added a new stretch goal too to the campaign: As soon as we hit $15,000 pledged, we’re going to include a piece of my published original art from my comics randomly in each physical copy of SOMETHING WICKED: THE ART OF SCOTT HAMPTON( examples below). These will be variously painted or black and white pieces that appeared in jobs I’ve done over the last twenty years or so — AMERICAN GODS, SIMON DARK, HELLBOY, TRESPASSERS, BLACK SPARROW, RAGE, THE GOD LIST, HOLY DIVER. Done on technical vellum paper and ranging in size and dimensions up to 8.5X11 the art will be signed with my full signature if space allows.

Examples [The first three images show a number of them as a group to indicate various sizes; the rest singly to show detail]:

TW: How do you feel looking back at your old work presented here?

SH: My art has undergone some rather distinct changes in style over the years and it’s interesting to see what lands with people and why. My comics painting can be divided into No Holding Lines (up until 1995 approximately) and Holding Lines (1995 and onward). The end of my No Holding Lines period was an especially creative time for me. When I had the idea for a graphic novel I did called The Upturned Stone I was in the middle of producing Batman: Night Cries with Archie Goodwin and I couldn’t get to this ghost story for about a year. Once I finally did get started, Kevin Eastman, Paul Jenkins and I decided to offer it as a feature in the magazine, Heavy Metal, in September 1993 and then have the hardback come out one month later. So my most personal project followed quickly on the heels of what was probably my most commercially successful one. You could say 1992-1993 was my sweet spot professionally.

TW: You have had a very diverse career as an artist and illustrator so how important was it to reflect that here ?

SH: I guess I feel it would be dishonest to try to pretend that my work has not been all over the map for four decades. I think most people recognize my stuff and think of realistic painted projects, but I have an abiding love of cartooning and every so often I’ve had a chance to put that into play. It will be nice to present some of that here. I am pleased to offer above and beyond the published material some of my personal work that no one knows exists.

TW: Have you been working with an editor on this project as sometimes a second pair of eyes helps to better shape a personal book like this?

SH: Jennifer Lange is helping with this project in all of its aspects and serves as my editor. I couldn’t ask for a better one.

TW: You have also been working on the Wicked graphic novels so how much of that behind the scenes material is included in here?

SH: A fair bit. I have plans to put the two covers that I did for the first issue in this book. I’m also going to put in some of the material that I did conceptually prior to starting work. And if we meet our goal I intend to offer a section from Wicked that is entirely about process — casting my Elphaba and Glinda, also designing environments and costumes, etc.

TW: What do you hope to achieve with Something Wicked this time?

SH: My hope is to present an overview of my work in a way that will be entertaining and diverting. I don’t think I have more of a goal for this than that, but if anyone comes to me and says that they were inspired by it in some way, I’ll probably spend the rest of the day feeling like I won the lottery.

Support the campaign here