Broken Frontier

February 14 sees the release of Se7en: Sloth, the third in a series of seven — duh! — one-shots by Zenescope Entertainment and New Line Cinema zooming in one sin from the classic thriller, Se7en .

Next week’s installment is written by Mike Kalvoda with art by David Seidman, who provides cover for all seven releases, but handles interiors for the first time here. Sloth centers on a too-lazy-to-live drug dealer and how John Doe forces him to pay for his laziness with his life.

Seidman recalls how he felt the first time he saw the movie. “Like most people, I was shocked,” he says. “The movie was like nothing I had ever seen before (or since). From the obese man sitting bloated and dead in the spaghetti bowl to the way they rolled the ending credits backwards.

“Each time I watch the movie, I get giddy with anticipation for Kevin Spacey and his 10 minutes of screen time. Not to take away from Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman's amazing jobs, but the monologue Kevin Spacey delivers in the car ride to the desert is the most captivating and intriguing piece of acting in the entire movie. He sums up his whole existence by the way he refers and talks about God, his victims and his purpose.

“The movie was not only smart and well written, but artistically it was breathtaking. In 1995 (the year Se7en was released) I was a junior in High School and just started to take my art seriously as a possible profession. I drew a lot of my inspiration from films back then, as I do now, and Se7en was there as I was taking my first steps as an artist.

With the movie having had such a huge impact on Seidman’s artistic vision, he tried to stay true to the look and feel of the film while pencilling Sloth, while at the same time trying to bring his own identity to the issue. “Se7en had inspired a lot of what I did before I started work on this project. When I got the news I was illustrating one of the sins, I felt very confident I could handle it, even though it was one of my first attempts at sequential art.”

When it comes to the breathtaking covers, Seidman says there are virtually no words to describe how much fun he’s had creating them. “I love illustrating, and these covers have been a dream job. The guys at Zenescope have been great and pretty much trusted me with whatever I wanted to do. As far as process goes, I have photographs that I love and I have painting that I love, so why not combine the two. Taking a photo, something a viewer would normally take at face value, and adding something to it to make them think twice, that’s what I love to do.”

It turns out the creator lucked out providing interiors for the Sloth one-shot, since it covers his favorite sin (and penalty) of the movie. “The way John Doe turns each sin on the sinner is so brilliant, it is hard to single one out. Not to sound biased, but Sloth always disturbed the Hell out of me.

“The fact that he was pumping the victim with his own poisons, keeping him alive for a year, and still take the time to realize he should hang some air fresheners to keep the apartment from smelling like a decaying body! That sin left a lasting impression. When I read Mike's script, I was floored and knew that I wouldn't have a problem bringing his words to life... or in the case of the victim, death.”