Auteurs et autrices / Interview de David Petersen (VO)

Hi David, could you please introduce yourself?
I grew up in Flint, Michigan, which was a great mix of being a city with a lot of rural areas to explore. I started my degree at a community college there, and then transferred on to Eastern Michigan University where I received my bachelors in Fine Arts with a speciality in Printmaking. Before college I wanted to draw comics, but became discouraged since my work didn’t look like popular comics of the time. In college I was leaning towards doing children’s book illustration. After graduation I was assembling sample portfolios for book publishers when a friend encouraged me to go to a local comic convention. There was some interest in the Mouse Guard sketches I had (Mouse Guard was a comic & writing project I tried started and stopped early in college) so I self-published the first issue of Mouse Guard to see if it had an audience. I found out quickly that it did!

Two completed series, a third one on the go, a spin-off… The Mouse Guard world is now well established… but how did it all start?
I love animal stories. In high school, I started a fantasy story to echo some of the medieval role playing games I was playing, but using animal characters. It was more Disney’s Robin Hood than Mouse Guard. In college I dusted the idea off again, and decided to try and widen the scope of the animal species while at the same time, making them more like the real animals than human bodies with animal features. I began by making three characters whose personalities would play off of each other (create interesting character conflict and dynamics) and made the characters to be mice out patrolling the big wide world. And it all spun out from there!

You are already planning a 4th series called “The Winter War”… can you tell us a bit more about it? Show us some sketches maybe?
It takes place just a few years before Fall 1149 (my first book). It’s the big weasel war I’ve mentioned several times. So (almost) all the characters from Fall and Winter will appear, including Lieam, but before he is a Guardmouse. This story will explain more about what that war was, and how it led to some of Midnight’s discontent in Fall. I’m hoping to delve more into weasel culture as well...which scares me, because it was daunting to draw Darkheather (the weasel’s home) in Winter when it was abandoned and in the dark... populating it and showing it in full will be difficult.

Sorry, I have not started to do any artwork for that series yet, so nothing yet that I can share.

How many series are you currently planning on releasing? Do you have a set number in mind, or will you keep going as long as inspiration comes?
I have no fixed number. I have major events/plots planned for Winter War (or Weasel war... I’m not sure on the final title yet) and a fifth series as well (yet to be titled). That fifth book picks up a few years after Winter 1152, and will be the payoff fans have waited for of Lieam as the Black Axe. Beyond that I get new story ideas all the time. I’d really like to do a story featuring Saxon & Kenzie joining the Guard... and perhaps another story of Celanawe too.

You have also published an anthology “spin-off” entitled “Legends of the Guard”. Was this something you initiated? Did you approach the different artists involved yourself, or was it all done through your publisher? Did you enjoy the experience?
It started when Jeremy Bastian and Mark Smylie provided some pin-up artwork for the Mouse Guard issues of Fall. I really liked both Jeremy and Mark’s take on my mice, and I have nothing but the highest respect for them as storytellers. So I told them that someday I’d love for them to do a Mouse Guard story.

We planned Legends of the Guard to feature a mouse storytelling contest... so each of the guest artists was creating the mouse storyteller’s entry into the contest, but in comic form. That way they could do fun and exciting stories in the Mouse Guard world that wouldn’t take up too much of their time, wouldn’t mess up any of my ongoing plots, and offered a unique artistic voice for each tale. I handpicked all the artists who participated. And I enjoyed the experience so much I’m currently co-editing 12+ stories for a second volume with a whole new crew of handpicked artists!

The “square” format of your books is rather unusual, especially in America… What motivated this choice?
When I was planning my first convention appearances, I toyed with how I would get a book of mine to stand out without increasing my printing costs. In those days, print on demand wasn’t as well known, so I was planning on doing mini-comics (standard sheets of paper folded in half and stapled together to make a little booklet.) I thought that if I went with legal-sized paper (8.5”x14”) I could get a wider comic that would stand out without increasing any printing costs.

I also liked what it did to the panel shapes. It gave the horizontal panels more weight, and I love a good panoramic establishing shot (like a David Lean movie). When it came time to print my self-published first issue of Mouse Guard, I found a printer that did custom sizes for no extra charge.

You have received a couple of Eisner Awards back in 2008 (congratulations!), including one for “Best publication for kids”. Does this label bother you?
The label doesn’t bother me at all. While I don’t write the book specifically for children, I do include them in my audience target range... which pretty much encompasses everyone. I never dumb down content or vocabulary for kids, but I never include situations or words that are ‘adult only’ type material. I think there is a great deal of American comic material that is very narrowly targeted towards 30-40 year old men, so any hype towards my books that shows children that there ARE comics for them too, is wonderful in my opinion! (I feel the same way about any hype to get women of any age, grandparents, teachers, and people who have never read a comic to pick up a comic and show them more than capes and cowls).

You feature all sorts of Mouse Guard related “fan art” on your blog (drawings, videos and even crafts!). Do you receive a lot of contributions? What’s the most amazing item so far?
I do get a great deal of it! The role playing game increased that amount too. My fans are very cool about not only being loyal fans who want to express themselves in some mousey way, but also for sharing their appreciation & talents with me and my blog followers.

I don’t know if I could narrow down which was the most amazing, but one that stands out as being unique and up-my-alley was a student at animation school who was doing stop motion puppet building and made a few mice with poseable armatures and real fur on top. I love stop motion animation, so that was a real treat, but like I say, all the fans who take time out of their day to create something Mouse Guard-ish is pretty amazing.

You have also published a Role Playing Game based on Mouse Guard. Was this something you enjoyed working on?
I did enjoy working on it. Thankfully, Luke Crane did the game design and mechanics for the game system, so I just had to focus on artwork and filling in all the blanks in mouse history, how a mouse becomes a guard, city information, the scope of the animal species that would be encountered, etc.

Luke is a good guy to work with, and him putting me on-task to come up with all that info (which I hadn’t fully developed at that point) is where some of the story ideas for that Saxon & Kenzie join the Guard story I mentioned earlier came from.

There were talks of a film-adaptation a few years ago. Is this still on the cards?
Unfortunately, no. That deal fell through. I’m not against an adaptation, but when that deal fell though, it was both unfortunate, and a bit of a relief. The relief came in the lowering of my stress level. I spent a lot of time and effort in the business and even a bit into the creative side of getting a film adaptation going, and it affected my output when it came to new Mouse Guard stories. So having that off my plate gave me some renewed energy to get back to telling my stories in books. As I said, I’d still love to do it, but I have to wait until another offer comes that is right at the right time.

Your books seem to contain quite a few hidden references. So far we have spotted a line from Watchmen’s Rorschach, the owl from Blade Runner and possibly a reference to Game of Thrones… are we doing well? Are there many more?
Ha! I have put in some hidden references, but I’m not aware of the ones you mention. Well, that’s not true, the Rorschach line was pointed out to me after the fact, but I wasn’t thinking of that when I wrote the line in Mouse Guard.

Many of the references are to people I know or places in Michigan:
-The glassblowers in Barkstone are friends of mine who once owned a shop called “Starfish”
-My parents make cameos in Barkstone as well showing off some hobbies
-My pal Jeremy Bastian’s Cursed Pirate Girl’s costume is worn by a mouse in Barkstone
-several city names are references to Michigan cities: Flintrust=Flin, Woodruff’s Grove=Ypsilanti, Dawnrock=Petoskey...

There are also a number of Star Wars hidden bits in Mouse Guard
-A Han & Luke mouse
-a tiny AT-AT
-Darth Vader’s lightsaber
-R2D2
-the Millennium Falcon

I’ll put my web designer’s cap on now: the Mouse Guard website is awesome, and manages to feature tons of content whilst remaining usable and beautiful. Who created it?
I did an overall concept design that was executed and improved by a friend of mine named Eric Lynch. He and his brother-in-law have a company they started called Build Create Studios to handle web design.
I know sometimes it’s hard to jump in to a book series, or perhaps after you have you are lost with character names or locations... or you just want more content or activities.
So I came up with content that would be useful and fun to new and existing readers, and Eric built the site in such a way that I can easily update and modify that content when I need to.

What are you currently working on?
Mouse Guard (in one form or another) occupies most of my time. I’m either working on new pages, editing for Legends of the Guard, working on blogposts (where I share my process and thoughts on comics, art, storytelling, etc.) writing upcoming stories or dialogue, or doing something on the business end. I have been doing a few covers here and there. I had a run of Muppet covers for Boom, a Fraggle Rock cover, a Jim Henson’s Storyteller & Dark Crystal pinup for Archaia, and a run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles covers for IDW.

You are coming over to Europe this month… England, Germany… but not France! Any plans to visit us one day? Have you ever been to France?
I would LOVE to come and visit France! I’ve never been to France and I’ve wanted to come to Angouleme for years. This month’s trip to Europe started with a convention in London, which was extended a bit for some London signings, and then again when my German publisher offered to bring me into Berlin and Leipzig after London. So the extensions were not planned in advance, and so far I’ve also been invited to Spain and Italy as further extensions of this trip, but I couldn’t fit them in. It shows me that I need to plan another European trip soon with plans for France, Italy, and Spain!

David, thank you very much for your time and wonderful books, and all the best for the future!
Thank you very much. I hope my French fans enjoy the upcoming books, and will be patient with me as I make more. Perhaps they can visit my blog or visit me on Twitter: @Mouseguard if they want updates or to peek at what I’m working on between book releases.