Thief of Thieves #35 comes out in just 2 weeks and continues the Gold Rush storyline. Our good buddy and Thief of Thieves artist, Shawn Martinbrough, sat down with The BlerdGurl to chat about his career in comics and all things Thief of Thieves!
The BlerdGurl:For those readers who are unfamiliar, please tell us how long you’ve been in the comic book biz and some of the imprints that you’ve worked with.
Shawn Martinbrough: I landed my first professional job from Marvel back 1992. Since then, I’ve continued to work with Marvel, DC, Vertigo, Dark Horse and currently, Robert Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment and IMAGE.
TBG: The new ARC of your long-running series “Thief of Thieves” (#32) came out right before SDCC and I see there’s a new team, & more danger, but where’s my girl Liz?
SM: We all love the character of FBI agent Elizabeth Cohen but the story for this arc of TOT is primarily set overseas in locations such as London, Dubai and Russia. The new players and adversaries are international so Cohen doesn’t fit into this storyline. I do have an idea of how we could possibly bring her back for the next arc but we’re still figuring out the direction of the story.
TBG: Was Elizabeth originally written to be an African-American female character? Or did the concept change as the story was developed?
SM: No. When we started working together on the series and I began designing the characters, Robert sent me a description of “Elizabeth Cohen” and her role in the TOT story. He didn’t specify her ethnicity or age. I thought it would be interesting to make Elizabeth a woman of color and Robert went right along with the idea. In his words, “Oh, Elizabeth’s black? Cool.”
To read the rest of the interview and see more of Shawn’s art, head over to The BlerdGurl.
