Tom King, co-creator and writer on HBO’s Lanterns, recently opened up about the film that “changed his brain chemistry,” tracing the obsession back to a childhood VCR his father bought when he was six and the only two movies that came with it..
Tom King on the Film That Redefined His Storytelling
Appearing on Straw Hat Goofy’s Get Rec’d podcast, King explained that his father, who he called “so freaking pretentious,” spent roughly $200 per tape on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Citizen Kane, and those were the only films available in their Boston apartment.
“He puts on goddamn 2001 and Citizen Kane over and over and over,” King said. “I WANTED TO WATCH DIFFERENT STROKES.”
King said he did not fully appreciate Citizen Kane until he rewatched it around age 24, but by then the film’s influence had already taken root.
“If you look at my work now, I feel like you can see there’s a little bit of that awe and pretention of 2001 and there’s a little bit of that grounded mystery of Citizen Kane,” King said. “I’ll never get out. It’s stuck in my DNA.”
King pointed to a specific scene, the famous dinner-table sequence where the table grows longer as Kane’s marriage falls apart, as a direct influence on his own visual storytelling. He connected it to the nine-panel grid he uses in his comics work, including Mr. Miracle.
“That comes right from out of Citizen Kane,” King said. “You’re getting that sort of claustrophobic feel of small panels, and every page you’re seeing bars and bars and bars, like he’s behind something.”
King co-created Lanterns alongside Damon Lindelof and showrunner Chris Mundy, and previously worked as a CIA counterterrorism officer before turning to comics and television full time.
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