Liam Sharp draws big men, women, weapons, sometimes leaning against trees, sometimes ripping them in two. Working for all major publishers, with highlights on Spawn, Hulk, Death's Head II, The Possessed and more his work is big, brutal and packs a punch. So what deep psychological scars is he hiding? What trauma has seen itself manifest in his artwork? And would I dare ask these questions if I was face to face with his hulking frame?

No, no I wouldn't.

Thank goodness, because at one point he seems to be having a brutal no-nonsense interview with himself.

RICHARD JOHNSTON: You won a scholarship when you were a nipper from the Gifted Children's Society. Seeing your current body of work, do you think those gentlemen and ladies would have been quite so generous in providing your education?
LIAM SHARP: LOL! I think many would not be surprised, I always did this kind of stuff! But many would shake their heads in despair wondering where they'd gone wrong...

RICHARD: What would they have preferred you be doing? Any career advice you recollect?
LIAM: I remember one teacher saying "but you might be the next Henry Moore! Why do you do this stuff?" Another remarked "but isn't it just pornography?" They would certainly have liked me to be a fine artist, a modern conceptualist perhaps. My problem was that I was too technically proficient too soon. I peaked too early really, and I looked to the old masters because they could really draw, but when I was doing art at school drawing really wasn't the thing. I was gifted, but immature. All art is subjective, but I knew I was too young to be trawling my soul at 17, 18. It would have been self indulgent sh*t. But then perhaps that's what they would have liked! I wanted my work to be effective, not affected.

RICHARD: Well, you did come to prominence, it seemed, drawing over the top barbarians and underdressed ladies lounging against them. I just did a Google for your name and found gallery upon gallery of bouncy ladies and big swords. Do you celebrate the demand for such imagery or do you despair of it?
LIAM: Actually I'm not sure how much demand there is! I mean, I'd have thought I would be a natural for this kind of stuff, but I kept getting gigs on superhero titles! Most stuff that you see online is stuff I've done for myself, unpaid. The only published barbarian type work I've done was Frazzetta's Death Dealer comic for Verotik...

To be honest I love to do more of this genre - but paid please! LOL!

Hopefully, with the success of the Conan series, and LOTR, there might be more demand now...

RICHARD: Are you disowning Bloodseed now? And you always seemed to bring a touch of the barbarian to, say, The Hulk. Is there any series you can't make look like it comes from Hyborian depths?
LIAM: Oh yeah, Bloodseed! My techno barbarian! That was done with such ambition and excitement, but it kind of got messed up along the way. Sold like crazy, but I lost heart. I suppose I even made Man Thing like some crazy barbarian strip - certainly Lovecraftian, touches of Clarke Ashton-Smith I think!

RICHARD: Who'd win in a fight between Conan The Barbarian and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, anyway?
LIAM: Did you ever see the pecs on that Conan Doyle fella? Man, he could have benched an elephant. He pulled the Stevenson Rocket three miles with his teeth, legend has it...

RICHARD: You're not so bad yourself mate. Some might consider you're compensating for something, but I've met you. You're like a brick shi*house. Bisley's the same. What's going on there? Fed up of painting muscles, you decide to develop your own? Which came first?
LIAM: There's a LOOONG answer to this that goes right back to my childhood, and probably is to do with deep rooted psychological issues, but basically I've always been a lover of swords and sandals epics, legends of the stars, and generally all things mythic. The twentieth century has a lot to answer for in destroying the popular interest in what is basically the oldest storytelling subject matter, from Gilgamesh, through the Illiad and Oddessy, the Aeneid, Beowulf, the list goes on. Heroic sagas became a thing to be laughed at as we increasingly became, in the cultural west, obsessed with self, and our own predicaments, our own times. What had once been cultural has now become the domain of a perceived geeky minority subculture...

Man, don't get me going on this! I'll talk your ears off for hours over a pint or six... As for muscles, I'd like to say I worked out more, but I haven't for years. It's a sedentary life, being an artist, and I had an interest in human anatomy, so working out combined my interest with exercise. It's the same for Simon, and before us two, Richard Corben. Joe Jusko is huge too.

RICHARD: Long answers are good, but you might want to keep your childhood locked up. After six pints, I'd be afraid you'd be asking me to punch you in the stomach as hard as I could. So what from your own body have you used for reference most?
LIAM: No, my childhood was great, but I was a shy wimp. The rest of your question is somewhat personal...

RICHARD: Heaven forfend I should get personal. Okay then, what is it about the nipple that draws such fascination... and revulsion? In the UK, Page 3 of the Sun is an institution. In the US, it attracts record fines and turns a broadcast industry against itself.
LIAM: It's so stupid isn't it? Cover up everything and we make nudity a thing of depravity! If we saw nipples all the time there'd be no big deal about it. It's alright in fine art though. This is another issue I'm likely to go off on one about.

I had a big conversation with a friend of mine, Sally, a few weeks back, regarding my artbook - which, as you say, has a fair bit of female nudity in it. She's very much of the opinion that I have great facility but terrible taste artistically. On the fantasy art front she does quite like Lord of the Rings type art, but finds my stuff aggressive and sexually overbearing. She had issues with my naked female figures, questioning why I didn't draw as many naked men.

First off, if people don't like my subject matter that's fine by me. What upsets me is when people can't tell I have ability - after all, I've spent my life so far developing and honing these skills, so it ought to show by now. As such it really didn't offend me that Sally didn't like my artbook because of the content. However, she assumed it was work for hire, not work produced because of a certain passion or will on my part. It's hard for many people to understand that an artist might be DRIVEN to produce this kind of work, not simply produce it for commercial reasons. Much to her embarrassment, I pointed out that my artbook contains work I've done for the love of the subject matter. I also went on to say that regarding Lord of the Rings type imagery there wasn't a whole lot I could add to that field. There are innumerable paintings of bearded wizards and dragons and elves, etc. without me just rehashing that territory. I explained that I am almost always trying to reinvent the fantasy genre with unusual compositions and costume elements, touches of horror and science fiction, while still channeling my subconscious to find out what lurks there. Ultimately, I pointed out, I'm a fantasist, NOT a realist. I predominantly produce what I hope to be beautiful work that appeals to me, and therefore - most likely - other men. I do not produce conceptual, distant and challenging work that appeals to intellectuals - though there are all kinds of sub-contexts here for those who choose to look.

Why beautiful women? Well, I'm a heterosexual man.

Why not naked men? Uh, like I said, I'm a heterosexual man.

Why not ugly people? Why would I want to do that? It's been done before by people studying the human condition through their art. I'm a FANTASIST! I'm studying the extremes of my fantasy world! Actually, I'm happy to do all kinds of ugliness, but not in a manner you'll find in this world!

Why muscle-y men? I'm a guy! It's wish-fulfillment! It's fantasy! The ancient Greeks did the same thing on their temples!

Why don't I paint proper pictures? What? What's that? Who says what's a PROPER picture or not? Why should art that deals with icons, subconscious symbolism and imaginary compositions of fabulous realms and impossibly beautiful people not be PROPER art?

Why don't I do landscapes? I DO do landscapes! I also do portraits, abstract paintings, sculptures, photomontages, you name it. I just happen to do more fantasy work than anything else. It doesn't make it, in my eyes, any less valid. It shouldn't be what defines me. It's all honest, if there is such a thing in art.

But just because my girls are beautiful, it doesn't mean they're not dangerous! What I DON'T do is fay, leg-hugging babes without minds of their own. Look in their eyes and you'll see they're a match and a half for any number of the dull-eyed brutes that stride relentlessly through my imagination...

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