I figured the best way to approach this was to step back and remember who this character was, or better yet, why he was. In the beginning I played around with the idea of keeping the comic based on the 4 or so characters from the drama school. The problem was, the more I wrote and sketched out concepts the more complicated the comic became. I also didn’t want it to become just another group vigilante story. I was already skating on thin ice trying to create a unique individual vigilante story, which in the end would probably just be considered a rip off of Batman or the Punisher. I knew no matter what I did with the story, there would be comparisons to the other vigilante characters. In the end I figured, a vigilante is a vigilante, the only thing I could do was to make this character and his origin a little different from the rest. So once I decided to not go down the group story line of the Landscapers, I was a little stuck. If this story wasn’t going to be based on actors from a drama school being harassed by teenage gangs, then what was this Landscaper story going to be?
Ok, so we have one person, The Landscaper. A man who carries two nail guns and has this weird symbol on a hooded sweatshirt. I absolutely knew one thing, I wanted to keep to the original idea of underage gangs driving a person to want to take law into their own hands. I got a little flack from people around me for this. The idea of writing a comic book basically advocating this type of violence against children. The thing was, unless you were there, or had similar things happen to you, you really wouldn’t understand where I was coming from. This book was in a way a therapy session for me to create a visual scenario of what I wanted to do when these events were taking place. So I really wanted to stay true to reason The Landscaper was created in my head, even though I knew it would turn some people off from wanting to read past the first page of the comic. I believe some of the more interesting stories are created by taking things from your own life and trying to incorporate them in a way that would be interesting to a reader.
So now we have one concept, the character is created to take on underage gangs, because of his own frustrations with these particular groups. Now – why the outfit? Well, that’s what I would do. I always tried to put myself in the shoes of the Landscaper, which wasn’t really all that difficult for me. I think he wears the hooded sweatshirt to in a way mock these kids. The majority of the kids that gave us trouble at the studio would wear these hooded sweatshits and beanies. I thought it was interesting how their faces were always cast in shadow. It kind of made them look more menacing, even though they were just 15 or 16 years old. I liked the idea of the Landscaper wearing something similar. This is also why I put Caleb in a similar outfit. I felt the LS and Caleb mirrored each other. I also wanted the Landscapers outfit to be the same one he was wearing the night he was attacked in the first issue. I thought it would be more symbolic to have the blood and mud stains still visible from the night he was created, when he was coming back for his revenge.
