Of the many reasons art may be declined for a project, Russell Brand gave possibly one of the most shocking reasons to turn down sample work; it was just too good. Straight from the artist himself, comics superstar Sean Phillips recounts multiple projects in his career in his book The Art of Sean Phillips. In one offbeat tale, Phillips recalls a time working with the comedian and the interesting feedback he was given.
Published in 2013, The Art of Sean Phillips comes from Sean Phillips and Eddie Robson and is a retrospective on the career of Phillips. Phillips has worked as an artist in the comic book industry and has worked on multiple critically acclaimed series such as Incognito, Sleeper, and Criminal, for which he and Ed Brubaker won the Eisner Award for Best Limited Series or Story Arc. Sean Phillips has also worked on titles such as Hellblazer, WildC.A.T.s, and the first two volumes of Marvel Zombies and has also provided art for the Criterion releases of Blast of Silence and 12 Angry Men.
Phillips' comics success led to him finding other work outside the medium and meeting a number of entertainers, such as Bill Hader, for whom he provided drawings for Mean Magazine. Recounting the anecdote, Phillips notes in his book "...a couple months later, his manager - who also manages Russell Brand - rings me up. Russell Brand was launching his autobiography in America and he wanted to do a some bits of it as a comic, for advertising purposes."
As Sean Phillips recounts in his book, his initial plan was to "do 16 double-page spreads," but noted that "if you adapt prose into comics, you keep the dialogue and chuck everything else away because everything else can be done in pictures." Fearing that without dialogue the personal voice of Brand would be broken up over the stylization, Phillips opted to "do it as a single-piece page, like that, and put captions over the top and do 16 paintings of him" in an appeal to Brand's vanity. However despite receiving praise at the work he submitted, Phillips was told "it was too good. He actually did want it to look like Beano or something, so I graciously declined." It's an admittedly unusual response, but considering Russell Brand's unique sense of humor, it's quite in line with the comedian's sensibilities to want to have art that evokes a beloved British anthology gag-comic.
Any artist is bound to have their work passed over for one reason or another. Even professionals will find their work rejected the needs of their client clash with the vision of the artist. And even though Sean Phillips' work wasn't the right fit with Russell Brand, he got a pretty interesting story to tell out of the experience.
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