iFanboy Upstarts: LeSean Thomas

Okay, I admit LeSean Thomas is no newcomer to comics. But given that he’s only dabbled in comics and spent most of his professional career in animation, he is still an outside force that could make a big impact in comics. Coming from a similar school of thought for comics as Brandon Graham and Skottie Young, if and when LeSean decides to do comics again it will be big.

I first learned about Thomas’ work through the blink-and-you-missed-it series Arcanum at Dreamwave in 2002. Although that series was short-lived (and never collected), Thomas’ talent landed him in the spot of relaunching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic at Dreamwave in 2003 with writer Peter David. Problems with the publisher brought down that series prematurely as well, and while Thomas did do some early work on a creator-owned series called Cannonbusters he was ultimately lured away from comics into the world of animation. LeSean’s dynamic style became a big draw in cartoons, leading to him working in several capacities on The Boondocks as well as Ben 10: Alien Force and even two DCU movies, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies and the 2009 Green Lantern: First Flight. In 2009 he pulled up stakes and moved to South Korea as the first full-time American animator working in South Korea, where he currently works on The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra.

Given he hasn’t released a new comic in over seven years his chances of a comics return might be slim, but Thomas continues to release details of the long-gestating Cannonbusters series online and in two artbooks he’s released. Whatever form it takes, when Cannonbusters does bust into the market it’ll definitely be a project worth buying.