Ben Templesmith

Ben Templesmith

By Daniel Robert Epstein
May 4, 2007

At the young age of 29, Ben Templesmith has already become one of the most popular comic book artists working today. He first broke through drawing the Steve Niles written 30 Days of Night and since then has become one of the premiere horror comic book artists. 30 Days of Night is being made into a film starring Josh Hartnett. The story is about a small town in Alaska where it becomes night for an entire month and then a clan of vampires show up to tear the town apart. But Templesmith has also just released the trade paperback of Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse, which he has written and drawn, and it is about a sentient maggot who lives in a corpse who hangs around in a strip club on Earth protecting us from evil and often very stupid beings.

Check out the website for Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse

Daniel Robert Epstein: I liked Wormwood. I like stories that are kind of anti-climactic [laughs].
Ben Templesmith: The whole thing is a bit of a piss taker. I’m trying to poke fun and not be serious about anything. I’d much rather have ended it in a weird, strange way than have a big action scene. We didn’t have any action scenes anyway.
DRE:
You had some action.
Ben:
Yes but it got interrupted by a phone call.
DRE:
Did you know the ending when you started the book?
Ben:
I knew the ending but actually my wife made an offhand comment, which led to the new ending being written.
DRE:
What was her suggestion?
Ben:
I can’t remember exactly how it came about. I just remember, she said some offhand comment like, “Oh, that’s good. But just make it that he had a connection and that it is all a big misunderstanding.” She is helping write the next story as well. We brainstorm that stuff between each other. She is a credit to my work.
DRE:
What is her name?
Ben:
Her name is Lorelei. She used to work for Wildstorm and IDW.
DRE:
I read that Wormwood, the character itself, has been around for a long time in your sketchbook.
Ben:
Pretty much, he’s being published about two years ago in Lo-Fi Magazine before it went under.
DRE:
What stuck out about it?
Ben:
I came up with the whole character thing in high school but it’s changed and evolved before it actually got published properly. It all comes from me wanting to draw skulls and people smoking. I think everything works around what you want to draw.
DRE:
What do you like about drawing corpses and worms in people’s eyes?
Ben:
I don’t know. I usually call it a fetish. I just get my depravity out on paper. Skulls and people smoking cigarettes are typically what I like drawing.
DRE:
It is interesting because you are pretty young but you seem to be into some pretty good horror stuff. You’ve got a lot of tentacles in the book.
Ben:
I have an acquaintance who is into the sub-genre of tentacle sex in Japanese anime. He gave me a brief introduction to that and tentacles have stuck with me ever since. I’ve been scarred for life, I have to draw tentacles now.
DRE:
So it wasn’t like Lovecraft was a huge influence on you.
Ben:
Not Lovecraft but people who have been influenced by Lovecraft have influenced me. Now I’m going back to the source material as well. [30 Days of Night director] David Slade gave me a gift of Lovecraft’s first novel. He wanted to get me into Lovecraft for real.
DRE:
I am not saying that you are specifically poking fun at Hellboy or anything but Wormwood is a bit of an “occult detective.”
Ben:
A little bit. Hellboy takes it a bit more seriously and seems to be more straightforward with the source material. I just go off on a tangent and do my own thing. But there is the genre of that kind of detective like Hellblazer. It all comes from a frustration of what I couldn’t do with Cal McDonald because I had my own ideas about how I wanted to do some similar things. It comes from a variety of sources. I am hugely into Hellboy but it’s not a parody of it at all.
DRE:
You have written books before Wormwood, right?
Ben:
Yes Wormwood is the second thing that I have actually written but is the first one that is what I was intending to do all along. The first thing I wrote, Singularity 7, was a learning experience and trying out an idea I had but I wasn’t as confident as I am now.
DRE:
What made you more confident?
Ben:
I had a bit more work under my belt but also this was the first thing I created and planned out. I didn’t want to do Wormwood as my first thing because I wanted to be more confident. That’s why it wasn’t the first thing, but it was always intended to be “the thing.” I think I will do Wormwood as long as I’ve got stories I want to do, rather than moving onto something else. Sort of like Ashley Wood’s Popbot.
DRE:
Did you ask any of your writer friends for advice?
Ben:
No, but I can confidently say that I definitely learned a lot from seeing the way Warren Ellis approached the scripts for Fell. The dialogue is key and once you have that you can make anything else work within that. I never used to work that way, but now I do. So I would credit Warren Ellis with teaching me to write a comic.
DRE:
Your devil character in Wormwood had a very traditional look to him.
Ben:
Yeah he’s got the Minotaur look to him. What does an apocalyptic demon need to look like? They all have horns.
DRE:
Have you always used computers with your artwork?
Ben:
When I was at university they were just bringing in computers as a design tool. I took it from there and just started working on it on my own. Certainly in a professional capacity it has always been part of my work. I figured I could do the whole thing rather than just pencils and inks so I have complete control.
DRE:
Would your artwork be a whole lot different if you decided to not use the computer?
Ben:
It probably would be. But I tend to use the computer for things I can’t do in real life anyway. I can color in real life but people use computers to color all comic books now. I couldn’t get the same colors without the computer. But it would look roughly the same. I’m going back to using less computers anyway. All I do is compile stuff I’ve already got into the computer so it already exists. The computer is a compilation tool for me.
DRE:
Each one of your books has a very distinct look to them.
Ben:
You’re one of the few people to tell me that. I try to approach every project a little differently.
DRE:
But do you try to vary it because it is a different book or does the script dictate that?
Ben:
Partly the script because Warren’s scripts are brilliant. All the information is there but he’s leaving it to me to try to make it work. He doesn’t tell me exactly what camera angles to use which can be tough. If you’re doing an interrogation room for 16 pages, you’ve got to make that interesting. But really I’m just trying to keep up with Warren because he’s writing pretty well and he’s working with me!
DRE:
Is it nice to do Fell because each story has an ending which is pretty unusual in comics?
Ben:
I like it. I think it might be a nightmare to write because he’s got to write a 16 page short story in every issue. I don’t know how he does it. But I really enjoy doing them because then you have a short story you can give anyone. It’s like a TV episode to me.
DRE:
I like the fan-made Wormwood trailer.
Ben:
Oh yes, by Karen Stever. She’s brilliant. She put a lot of work into that. I’ve met more interesting, crazy people thanks to Wormwood than for anything else I have ever done. That’s very strange and very cool. I’ve met some girls that I’m offering to put into the book as some guardian demonic immortal dancer ladies with the living tattoos. There’s a whole back story to it.
DRE:
But no one asked Karen Stever to make the trailer?
Ben:
No, they just said, “This is something for you.” Then she just sent me the videotape. Karen did the music for it as well. The whole trailer blew me away. It blew me away the fact that people will spend that much time and energy on something I did. It’s scary to have people more enthusiastic about your stuff than even you are. I’ve never had that before. Well a little with vampire people.
DRE:
The vampire people must love you.
Ben:
Oh yeah, I am a half vampire person myself. People usually think I’m a horror fan. But I’m actually more into science fiction with horror elements. My favorite films are all science fiction horror.
DRE:
Do you think you and Warren will always keep to this format on Fell?
Ben:
I guess he’s sticking to the format but he works within the nine panel grid. Each of the three panels on the top become one panel and that happens on every page so it’s a slight change in format. It should make for an interesting effect.
DRE:
Does Fell show that policemen are the same all over the world?
Ben:
I guess so, because Warren’s British although they get all the American cop shows. I’m not into the American cop scene myself. I watch a lot of the British cop drama stuff. But I do love Homicide, it was one of my favorite shows.
DRE:
So I read that you went on more than one trip to the set of 30 Days of Night.
Ben:
Yes I did. I liked it so much and they wanted me back so I had to go. I’m in Australia and they’re in New Zealand so it wasn’t like flying there from America. When is that going to happen again in my lifetime? To go to the movie set based on a comic book I drew. I went twice and I even brought my wife.
DRE:
Steve Niles has said that the movie does keep the look of your artwork. Would you agree?
Ben:
My work’s a bit more abstract so obviously it can’t look exactly like my work but it keeps the integrity of the artwork. It looks like I would have drawn if it were real. They kept a lot of the design elements and characters are actually going to be in the movie. So the movie is more me than the actual writing because they’ve added to the story and given it more layers. Anyone who’s read the comic will recognize a lot of the elements that were really me. David Slade fought for a lot of elements that were me.
DRE:
Had you heard of David before Hard Candy?
Ben:
No I only found out all he done after he was already on the movie. After he told me all that he had done I was amazed to find out that he’s one of my influences in a roundabout way on a few things. Especially The Aphex Twin videos. It’s very strange. It’s a small world.
DRE:
Are you going to go to the premiere of 30 Days of Night?
Ben:
If I’m allowed and if I can get there, yeah. I don’t think I’ve been to a movie premiere before.
DRE:
I read a pretty good description of your vampires on Wikipedia.
Ben:
Yes I was aware of that.
DRE:
It described your vampires as seeming like a great white shark that’s been stuffed into human skin.
Ben:
[laughs] The shark teeth were something I wanted to put in there. They are eating machines. They are not really the romantic gothic vampires. There is some evolutionary thing that happened a long time ago so there are reasons why they are like they are. They don’t really drink blood, they eat everything.
DRE:
[Laughs] What else are you working on beside Fell?
Ben:
I am actually writing a 30 Days of Night comic. It doesn’t deal with the current stuff. It’s mostly in the past and nothing to do with anything. It comes out roughly around the time the movie comes out. More Wormwood and I have an art book coming soon. Also I’m doing a bunch of stuff I can’t really talk about that’s a licensed property.
DRE:
What made you want to write and draw this 30 Days book?
Ben:
It’s the only way they would get me to do anymore 30 Days and Nights stuff because the original storey was the best. I was happy to have left it at the original story but we did two follow-ups. I thought the trilogy was my limit but then I had a good idea.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

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