DF Interview: Sean Lewis tells of battles fought for a stake of the world’s fabric in ‘Bear Pirate Viking Queen’

By Byron Brewer

Bears. Pirates. Vikings. And Queens—all battling for their claim to determine what the world will become. Bear Pirate Viking Queen is a gorgeous, high fantasy story about the blood spilled to make countries. With 72 pages rendered in stunning watercolor artwork, this new comic book series is sure to be one of the most beautiful and thought-provoking books of the year.

Writer Sean Lewis (King Spawn, Thumbs) teams with artist Jonathan Marks Barravecchia for a blood-splattered story of conquest in the forthcoming Bear Pirate Viking Queen. This three-issue miniseries is set to launch in May from Image Comics, and so I hied me over to chat with my buddy Sean Lewis about this unusual series.

Byron Brewer: Sean, Bear Pirate Viking Queen certainly seems to be a special project for both you and artist Jonathan Marks Barravecchia. Tell me how this wondrous coming three-issue mini-series came from, as Jonathan put it, “a meeting [with you] over drinks listing random ‘cool’ things to draw”?

Sean Lewis: Well, Jonathan and I discovered we were neighbors. It seems we both moved to the same upstate NY town about a year ago. Jon had posted a cover of Above Snakes (which I did with Hayden Sherman) and it was amazing. I reached out through Instagram and – bingo – it turned out we lived a mile away from each other.

We got together and we got talking comics and the type of books we wanted to make. The type of books we loved: European comics, David Gibbons, early Vertigo, underground comix… the whole thing.

And I think the meat of it is Jonathan and I are both very good at what we do, and the thing we do is sometimes outside of the traditional expectation of comics and I think we were like, well hey… maybe we don’t worry about that and we just make something different and surprising and beautiful.

Byron: Before we get to the meat of the mini-series, talk about the process of Jonathan and you working together on the book. It was extraordinarily collaborative, I have heard.

Sean Lewis: Sure. I mean, I think with every book I do it comes down to mutual ownership in the creation and ideas and conception. I asked Jon what he wanted to draw. And we had this disparate set of things. And one thing connecting them was water.

And I started to think about how all things come from the water: empire, our lives, our bounty. In any case, I took those things and wrote a big epic poem, like Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

I gave that to Jon and he started breaking down pages and panels. We live really close so we’d just get together at each other’s house or this local coffee shop and kind of work through the book page by page.

It was great.

Byron: What can you tell readers about the story you will be giving them in Bear Pirate Viking Queen?

Sean Lewis: Bear Pirate Viking Queen changes every issue. It twists and turns and constantly surprises you. In issue one, you meet a former naval officer turned pirate. The Queen’s navy abandoned him at sea and as he was drowning… he met this bear.

Is it real? Is it imaginary? Is it a god? Is it a servant?

All this Pirate knows is that England owes him and a massive storm is in the distance with its own surprises.

Byron: Introduce us to your main protagonists.

Sean Lewis: Reddish is the pirate we first meet. He was wealthy, he had a good life and then the empire left him behind to drown. And he realizes that’s what empires are: these massive things that swallow their parts. These things that outlive all of us who buy into them.

The bear is a big protagonist with a lot of mystery.

And don’t worry. The Viking and queen are on their way. With ancient grudges for each other.

Byron: You said, when setting out to do this book, you wanted “something with historical scope… something that felt BIG!” How does the comic satisfy this desire for you as writer and co-creator?

Sean Lewis: I just wanted to match Jonathan’s art. It’s big and imposing when you see it. So an historical story with expanse and kingdoms and cities and snowscapes seemed like the type of epic undertaking we both needed.

Byron: Was there any research done for this massive undertaking by Jonathan or yourself? Or is it creating its own history in the process of world-building (literally)?

Sean Lewis: I looked up some stories. I had gone to a pirate museum in Cape Cod and read a few books on Vikings. I am first generation Irish, so I grew up with endless stories about the British empire and had books around me all the time about it.

Byron: Seventy-two pages rendered in stunning watercolors? Wow! Talk more about the contribution of your co-creator, artist Jonathan Marks Barravecchia.

Sean Lewis: Jon is incredible. A fine artist working in comics. I’ve been very specific about the artists I’ve worked with. Caitlin Yarsky is so undeniable in her actors, the life she gives to characters faces on a page. Hayden is the most kinetic artist in comics, their panels almost seem like they are moving. Jonathan has this big history of art grammar he can articulate. Each is incredible.

Jon puts so much into each page and so much thought to how they will unfold as a whole book. It’s gorgeous.

Byron: Sean, what other projects in which you are involved, inside or outside of comics, can you tell readers about?

Sean Lewis: The life of a writer is tons of stuff you can’t talk about that is exciting but might also never happen. In comics, there’s a big announcement coming from a classic horror property I’ll be contributing to. I’ll be writing a few mini’s of characters in the Spawn Universe as well and Jon and I are setting up our next book.

Outside of that, I have some film and TV projects I am developing. I’m very lucky right now but the business is very fleeting. I am attempting to be as grateful as I can.

Dynamic Forces would like to thank Sean Lewis for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. Bear Pirate Viking Queen #1 from Image Comics is slated to be on sale May 1!

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