Not long ago an adventure began that has captured the imaginations of adults, children, and families everywhere. With beautiful artwork and a compelling story, Mouse Guard caught many of us by surprise. Soon the Mouse Guard adventure will be continued, and we talked with David Petersen the creator, writer and artist of Mouse Guard to get you all the details…
NC: Hey David, Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today.
DP: Thanks for having me!
NC: Lets start by talking about the early days of MouseGuard, How did these stories come about? Are they a idea you’d had for a long time, or the product of a story idea that just came to you?
DP: MOUSE GUARD grew from something I came up with in high school. It was a medieval animal fantasy story, but it was more like Disney’s Robin Hood. It had lots of species of animals all about the same height with human body proportions. Later on I dusted off the idea, but wanted to make the animals more like real animals and less like humans. The species list grew with mice and brown bears representing the smallest and largest creatures I would write about.
The mice being the most vulnerable, I started working on their society, figuring a way for them to survive when everything else would want to eat them. Once I had the Mouse Guard developed, I became aware that the rest of the world just needed to focus in the background, because these mice were the heart of a good story by themselves.
NC: What’s it like receiving the praise for you work from so many fans and critics?
DP: It’s amazing! I work on the book trying to make it as good as I can. But I work alone. And few people see the book before it hits shelves. So when I get that praise, it helps fuel me for another few months of working alone hoping I’m still doing everything right.
NC: How has the experience changed from the early days, to now wen you have a title known and loved by so many?
DP: Well, the pressure is on now, that’s for sure! When MOUSE GUARD started I worked a day job and drew the comic at night and on weekends. I now do MOUSE GUARD and various other cover work full time. But other than that, not much has changed on my end. I still work out of my home on the same table.
NC: When you started the “Fall” run, did you have any idea it would be such a huge success? It’s beginning it’s 3rd print run correct?
DP: Yes, we just went into the third printing! When I started FALL I thought I had something that could be successful, but was aware enough that indie books don’t usually “hit.” I thought the concept had a nice wide range of appeal, but that the format and subject matter might be a hard sell. I did well locally with the self-published version of issue #1 I had done, but was surprised when I was offered a deal with Archaia so quickly. Then when issue #1 came out, we were getting feedback from stores. We were at the first New York Comic Con the Friday after the issue came out, and storeowners were telling us they couldn’t keep it stocked. I never could have guessed that would be the reaction so quickly.
NC: So at the time you started, how far into the stories did you have planned? Was Fall the only story at the time, or were the next volumes already on your mind?
DP: I started working on this concept back in 1996 and didn’t draw issue #1 until 2005. The first issue I drew was, in many ways, a one-shot. I was self-publishing and didn’t know if I could move my inventory at a local convention. I left the end of the first issue open so that I could continue if I wanted. That nine-year gap from conception to first issue meant I had a lot of ideas and Mouse Guard history floating around, so I could easily put together enough issues to round out an arc.
Once Archaia picked up the series and I was moving along, the main plot points for more series followed quickly. WINTER and its themes were there close to the beginning, and what will be the fourth series of MOUSE GUARD was the first idea I ever came up with for the characters back in 1996. I’d say I had four series ideas mapped out by the time I finished FALL.
NC: So right now, you have two more volumes on the way right? I understand one of those two is a collaboration of sorts, and that there is a 3rd project in the works involving Fraggle Rock?
DP: The project that involves FRAGGLE ROCK is an Archaia Free Comic Book Day “flip book.” It will have MOUSE GUARD on one side and FRAGGLE ROCK on the other when you flip it over. I’m doing an all-new story for the MOUSE GUARD side of the book. I just turned in the work for it and I’m really pleased with the result. I’m excited to see the fan reaction as well as the new reader reaction.
The other books you mentioned are THE BLACK AXE (the next arc in the Mouse Guard series) and an anthology spinoff called LEGENDS OF THE GUARD featuring stories by artist/storytellers I handpicked.
NC: What can tell us about the Black Axe? It’s a prequel to the first two books correct?
DP: Yes, THE BLACK AXE takes place before FALL or WINTER by about 40 years. It’s about the character Celanawe. In WINTER, he promises to tell Lieam the story of the day his paw first touched the Black Axe itself; this is that story. Just like FALL and WINTER, it will be a six-issue arc with story and art by me, and pinups by some awesomely talented folks (some you have heard of and others you have not).
NC: Now as far the collaboration is concerned, how did that come about?
DP: When Mark Smylie and Jeremy Bastian turned in their pinups for the FALL series, I was so impressed and taken by their work. What I saw was a real understanding of my world, so I told them both “anytime you want to play in the MOUSE GUARD world, you are more than welcome to, you have free reign.” That story eventually got around to PJ Bickett, who now is president of Archaia, and he said that if I wanted to do it, I could. The rest of the series artists were chosen by me and I’m blown away by the level of work people are turning in. They also seem to be really excited to get to draw mice with swords and capes.
NC: (Laughs) Ok so, do you have plans to continue the story of events that take place after the Winter volume?
DP: Yes. The plan, as it stands, is to pick up the post-WINTER story as the fifth Mouse Guard series. I am going to leave a gap of time between those stories. I want the reader to have some wiggle room for what they imagine could happen to the characters, which wouldn’t be possible if I mapped out every moment of their lives. I also want to have some things transpire “off page” so that when the reader is brought back to the story, they are already in motion.
NC: Now on the art side of things, I understand you do everything old school correct? All pen and watercolor?
DP: The art is all hand drawn, but the colors are digital. I have a watercolor background, so it’s flattering that people see what I’m doing digitally and think it looks like traditional media. When I self-published that first issue (which was black and white only), I sold off the pages so I could afford to print a second issue. I ended up signing with Archaia before I got to issue #2, though. And when Archaia wanted the work colored, I had no choice but to digitally color the pages. I tried to make the color look as much like the watercolored cover I did for issue #1 and to not fight the line work.
NC: What do you feel sets MG apart from other adventure tales on the market today?
DP: I don’t really know. I just aim for making it a true all-ages book, meaning that it’s not graphic and adult, and it doesn’t talk down to kids.
NC: How do feel today knowing that so many are enjoying your work?
DP: It’s great! It makes me nervous because now I have a lot of people waiting for the next book and expecting it to live up to the past work. But I always strive to be doing my best work, and that’s all I can do.
NC: We have a lot of readers involved in the indy comic communities, what advice do you have for them?
DP: To put your best work out there. Self publish, print on demand, use the web for digital distribution. Any way you can build a fanbase while honing your craft is going to benefit you.
NC: What is the creative process like for you?
DP: I tend to “pitch” plots to my wife or friends when I get a story idea. It’s through their reactions and multiple re-tellings of my pitch that I hone into what is important for the story. I’ll work from outlines for an arc as well as for each issue. But they are very simple outlines that just list the major events. I’ll assign a number of pages to each point on my list and hope that the result is 23 (the amount of pages I have for story in each issue).
I sketch ideas out from those outlines, using my page counts to tell me how long a scene can be. The sketching/page layout part of the creative process takes the longest, or is the most unpredictable. I can work for days on a single page layout if things are going really poorly. I scan my sketches and resize them on the computer in a template of the page so I can see what the page will look like. I can also reposition drawings and composite multiple drawings into a single page or panel if I need to.
The inking and coloring are the ones that typically are the most fun for me. They allow me to do a bit of auto-piloting. The dialogue is placed last, but could have been written anywhere between the outline and now..it all depends on when the words come to me.
NC: Well thank you so much for talking with me David, I hope we can do it again soon.
DP: You are welcome! Anytime. NC