Lea Seidman has an amazing career working on characters such as The Little Mermaid and Teen Titans GO! She’s also a SDCC veteran of 32 years! This year you can visit her in Artists Alley BB-9, let’s learn more from Lea…
What are your expectations for SDCC this year?
To have fun, and cosplay at SDCC for the first time EVER!
What makes SDCC so special?
For the last four years, it’s been special because I’ve been fortunate to be an artist on the Teen Titans Go! comic. The crowds and lines I wished for my whole career finally arrived. Teen Titans Go! fans are nice people who like to laugh. Getting see people in person for the first time in real life, or reuniting again after years.
What’s your typical SDCC day like?
Drag myself through the morning routine, speed-walk to show, getting more excited the closer I get. That excitement hasn’t dimmed in the 32 years I’ve been attending!
Getting to the table and go, go, going for hours at a time! I didn’t get up and walk around last year, and I felt like I’d missed the show! When I walk around, I’m looking for cool stuff like Pullip dolls, mercy, friend’s tables. This year, my daughters and I are getting kigurumis (pajamas) and having Pajama Sunday. When the exhibit hall closes, my family and I always consider dinner out and usually get delivery. Except for Saturday. That is our go out to dinner night.
Who and what were some of your early influences?
Tezuka, Lela Dowling, Speed Racer, Jack Davis’ Mad Magazine and ad art, Paul Coker’s Rankin-Bass holiday specials designs.
You have an amazing resume, working on Teen Titans, Little Mermaid, and even Tori Amos… did you ever have an “oh, sh-t” moment? What was it?
Selling my first graphic novel, Cathedral Child, to Jim Valentino at Image Comics in 1997.
Also getting an email that I’d get another Teen Titans Go! story after my first one.
When did you know you wanted to do this as a career?
As a kid, being an animator when there was zero support, and no internet for research, was impossible. But comics, the next nearest thing, was possible. I didn’t have to go to a school, and no one could stop me from making them. I’m pursuing a second career as a storyboard artist for TV animation now, though!
Any secret San Diego spots you recommend people check out?
Hmmm. I don’t know! My advice is to walk around and try things! Talk to people! Play PokémonGo! You’re among friends!
What’s the worst of SDCC?
The sexual harassment that I and other women (and men) have had to deal with for decades. At least now, you can hit Twitter and put someone on blast and get backup. In 1987, you’d be told to get over it. In 2005, actually, I was also told that. Twitter wasn’t around yet. Comics needs to clean house.
What’s your favorite SDCC memory?
Hands down, the year I sat with comics legend Ramona Fradon. Such a good artist, so elegant, so sweet. There was a guy who visited her, who was blithering about how women were partially responsible for domestic violence because they didn’t leave.
Ramona responded to the guy with a story that I can’t repeat, not yet, and the shade was like a city-eclipsing space ship was above us. Absolutely, utterly, devastating.
Also, I got to meet a friend, an artist named Dan Haring, in person. We’d became friends online at a really tough time in my life. It was beautiful.
Where can we find you after SDCC?
With Teen Titans Go! the comic ending (and not being hired to write or draw any other DC kids’ books, whaaaaat), I’m doing webcomics again, and working with a storyboarding mentor. You can find my Patreon at HERE, where I’m developing a story called FALSE AGNES, or THE GOVERNESS’ GUIDE TO USEFUL MAGIC (please support!), my art Twitter is PenPencilPixel, my activist-vote Democratic-close the camps saltyaf Twitter is SeidmanLea.
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