In revisiting his professional beginnings, Sienkiewicz reflects that he and his contemporaries were from a generation who loved superheroes and saw them as their own mythology. Naming Neal Adams and Curt Swan among his major influences, Sienkiewicz approached his deep love of the characters and stories with a desire to deconstruct them and get down their respective essence. This came from stories like Daredevil: Love and War, turning the Kingpin into a literal mountain of a man, and depicting Moon Knight as a figure constantly wreathed in the shadows.
“We were literally trying to dismantle it and add our own bits and pieces to the medium and to the lore,” Sienkiewicz explains. “I do know that if I had come in with the style that I later developed, with The New Mutants and my own work, I would not have gotten hired because I literally had to come in dressed in the wolf’s clothing of Neal Adams because he was such a groundbreaking artist. He was so loved and accepted that I came in under the cloak of being like him. Underneath that, there were so many other things that I wanted to try.”
Upon getting to know and befriend Adams, Sienkiewicz continued to see him as an inspirational figure as he started his own career as a comic book artist. Sienkiewicz remembers being impressed by Adams always being visibly enthusiastic and loving his work, with a focus that Sienkiewicz has carried over into his own career and artistic process. In working and speaking with Adams, Sienkiewicz cites a specific piece of advice from his mentor and friend that he found both esoteric and versatile.
“A line represents three things: It represents the inside of the shape, the outside, and itself,” says Sienkiewicz, quoting a piece of sage wisdom from Adams. “It sounds really abstract and artsy, but there is also something very musical and a life message about that. It can be extrapolated and taken to so many different arenas.”
Of course, Sienkiewicz’s work has touched and influenced countless fans worldwide for generations. Even more saliently, Sienkiewicz’s influence and legacy can be prominently seen in movies like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and The New Mutants, as well as television shows like Legion. For his part, Sienkiewicz lauds the work of actors like Anya Taylor-Joy and Dan Stevens in breathing life into his characters and making them their own, while seeing his influence in other art and media forms informs his own continual process of self-discovery.
“It’s wonderful and more than I ever could have imagined,” Sienkiewicz smiles. “None of it is taken for granted.”