For nearly 50 years, illustrator and comic book creator Bill Sienkiewicz has burned, splattered and slashed his way across the page with his expressionist approach to visual storytelling. Now he’s getting a full length documentary retrospective produced ComicBookPros film studio founded by Sienkiewicz’s longtime manager Sal Abbinanti. A trailer for the film debuted today on a panel at San Diego Comic-Con featuring Sienkiewicz and some of his notable colleagues, including director Remsy Atassi (“The Legend of Kingdom Come”), and producer Sal Abbinanti (“The Legend of Kingdom Come”).
Sienkiewicz got his start in comics back in the late 1970s, but today his colorful and recognizable style has expanded into illustration, animation, film and TV, book and album covers, advertising and fine art. Some of his career highlights include character-defining runs on Marvel’s Moon Knight and New Mutants, his collaboration with Frank Miller on the 1986 miniseries (later graphic novel) Elektra: Assassin, his own Stray Toasters and Voodoo Child: The Illustrated Legend of Jimi Hendrix, and Daredevil: Love and War, whose visual vocabulary including depiction of Kingpin was incorporated into the art direction for the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse animated films.
The documentary traces the arc of his career, full of testimonials from fellow artists and celebrities discussing his impact. Some of the familiar faces testifying to Sienkiewicz’s impact include Vincent D’Onofrio, Kevin Smith, Peter Ramsey, Jim Lee, and Denys Cowan.
This style of film tends to follow a predictable formula, especially when one goal is to build the artist’s profile in an effort to increase the commercial value of his or her work. Fortunately, film is a visual medium and Sienkiewicz’s magnificent artwork provides top shelf eye candy as the shifting cast of actors, directors, art collectors and artists extol his work.
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Threading through the film is Sienkiewicz’s own voice animatedly discussing his process and approach.
“When I’m working, I feel like I’m both the driver and the passenger,” he said in an exclusive phone interview last week. “Sometimes what happens on the page is a surprise, not just to the viewer but to me.”
Throughout the movie, we get glimpses of Sienkiewicz working in his studio, frenetically composing his mixed-media works with a combination of precision detail and pure chaos. Initially drawing inspiration from illustrators like Bob Peak and Bernie Fuchs, with their colorful shape designs and eye-catching compositions, Sienkiewicz got into comics by incorporating the dramatic realism of artist Neal Adams. Eventually he fused the different approaches into something unique, personal and ever-changing. By constantly shifting and evolving his approach, the 68 year-old artist has managed the unlikely feat of remaining in the avant garde for nearly half a century.
For all his success, Sienkiewicz has never lost the sense of wonder at being able to do work that motivates himself personally. “I’m just glad to get to enjoy creating pictures and telling stories. It’s like finding the person you’re going to spend your life with at, like, age five: all the obsession, friendship, comfort and passion. It’s literally like having a relationship with another entity.”
That’s a long journey for a kid who grew up in rural New Jersey as a nerdy outcast who found escape in comics and art. Asked who he wishes could have been part of the documentary alongside the cavalcade of celebrities and big names, his first answers are the grade school teachers who encouraged him and his first professional mentor, Adams, who died in 2022.
“In the end, I hope people come away from this movie, maybe not necessarily thinking I’m a great person or a great artist, but that I’m a person who hates bullies and wants to find the truth. Art to me is a way to find beauty behind the lies and exaggerations. I believe in the power of art to transform. I’m just the messenger.”