Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1474575
2 6 P E R S P E C T I V E | J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 2 2 Samuel Michlap Samuel Michlap is a native of So Cal and since a young age, always had either a pencil or a basketball in his hands. The dream of pursuing a career as a comic book artist eventually won the tug-of-war between art and basketball, and in 1991, while in college, it was the film Beauty and the Beast which captured his imagination of becoming an animation designer. He pursued this goal relentlessly, and upon graduation in '92, was hired onto The Lion King at the Disney Studios. Grateful for the solid film training he received while at Disney, his career was supercharged in 1995 when DreamWorks invited him to join their newly formed studio as a concept artist for Prince of Egypt. Sam helped style several key sequences, Ripper is a personal project I am developing and was born out of my interest and love for Victorian era London, around the time of Jack the Ripper. Inspired by the events of 1888, I just started doodling one night. My thinking is usually made clear once a pencil finds its way onto a piece of paper. Using Sharpie pens, and working fast, I began to see a world emerge, which intrigued me to keep going. Gradually as I sketched different moments from this story, patterns of thought, points of view and emotions began to take shape. I want to see into the shadows. What does it look like from within the Ripper's mind? How could his distorted view be portrayed within the format of a graphic novel, but set apart from what has been done before? For me, abstract design is the foundation for all of my illustrations. What lies beneath the surface is much more interesting than what we can actually see. My initial question was simple but complex—How could the mental state of one of the most notorious criminals in history be visualized? Pictures are worth a thousand words. I begin with pictures. including parting of the Red Sea, and contributed color/light keys for many other films during his 22-year run in animation. In 2014, director Kathryn Bigelow contacted him to collaborate on her personal film—an animated PSA concerning the ivory trade. His work was used as the overall style guide for producing the three- minute short, now shown worldwide. Along with his full time career in the entertainment industry, Sam teaches students how to create engaging illustrations for film. He works as an adjunct professor at Art Center College of Design and Center for Creative Studies in Michigan.