Batman: White Knight Creator Sean Gordon Murphy Revs Up Last Driver

Artist Sean Gordon Murphy has always had a rebellious indie streak to his work.

He wrote and drew a creator-owned book for DC imprint Vertigo titled Punk Rock Jesus, centered on the clone of Jesus Christ. Even his mainsteam work, notably Batman: White Knight, operated on the edges of the superhero realm as it became a surprise hit franchise for DC.

And let’s not even get into his obsession of drawing vehicles, cars and motorcycles alike. (Actually, we will get into that, just keep reading.)

Now, Murphy is taking his anti-establishment vibe  — and cars, we can’t forget the cars — into high gear with his first creator-owned work in almost a dozen years.

Murphy has written and is drawing The Last Driver, a new ongoing series that is set to debut in August from Image Comics. Described as having shades of the dystopian vibe of John Carpenter classic Escape from New York and the chase-across-America cult classic Vanishing Point, the cyberpunk action comic will tell the story in a way not seen too often in modern publishing. Namely, Last Driver will be published in a landscape format to be read horizontally.

The story is set in an America where as technology advanced, cities began creating the Grid, a robotic transportation system that not only made cars obsolete, it made them illegal. Against this backdrop, an outlaw named Clutch has no choice but to get behind the wheel one more time. What starts out as a race to save his granddaughter’s life quickly turns into a rebellion against technology, fascism and the future of a divided America.

In an email, Murphy said he was inspired to create the book while in France, seeing old race cars literally being put out to pasture.

“I was in France when I started to think of this book, at the race track at Le Mans,” he wrote. “The museum was doing construction, so they moved about a billion dollars worth of cars to a nearby hangar located in a cow pasture. It was an amazing sight! And it made me wonder who was going to take care of such valuable cars in the future—not just race cars, but movie cars.

“Not only would this story be an excuse to draw cars, but I could compare the dying of car culture—switching to electric cars that drive themselves—and use it as a metaphor for people ceding control to government control.”

 He also decided to make his main character someone who would symbolize the country’s loss of freedom.

“For America, I wanted the main character to be Native American—someone who understands freedom in a different way, because of how it was taken from him.” Murphy wrote.

But let’s get back to the cars. Murphy described himself as a big car guy, someone to loves the open road and car culture. He also admits vehicles are “a pain in the ass to draw,” which is why a lot of artists lean away from them.

“I love the technical challenge,” he explained. “It’s gotten me a few gigs outside of comics as well—from Harley Davidson to designing vehicles for Warner Bros.”

Murphy doesn’t just talk the talk. He drives the drive. The cartoonist owns a restored and modified 1978 Datsun that he takes to car shows. He’s even some two awards, so far, for best 1970s muscle car.

“A Japanese car winning that award usually annoys the traditional American muscle car guys,” he said.

Having Last Driver be such a vehicular-centric book led him to being open to changing up its reading style and choosing to put it out in a landscape format.

“Cars are usually long and wide, so I felt that the horizontal format allowed me to frame them, and the action, better,” he said. “The two-page spreads were definitely a challenge, though—my paper was so wide that it made it hard to fit on my desk in the studio!”

The first issue of Last Driver is due to hit shelves Aug. 19. Check out a preview below.