BEN TEMPLESMITH
angsting, I was just freaking out about a lot of horrible crap. I’m not emo. Although when you get a divorce, you’re allowed to be slightly emo. But I’m back now, and I’m okay. In fact, this conversation has enthused me to get back to doing stuff! I just need a house to do it in.
FM. Is that why you’re moving to New York? BT. Yeah. I need some time away from California for a while.
FM. So have you had any ideas incubating, or is it all going to be continuations of stuff you’ve already done? BT. I have ideas…
FM. Such as? Are you allowed to say? BT. No. It’s not firmed up yet, but we’ll see. I have nothing to announce except that I’m officially not dead!
FM. You’re not dead! BT. And I’m back on Twitter!
FM. So what did you grow up reading, or admiring as far as art goes? BT. Dave McKean. Ashley Wood. An illustrator named Victor Ambrus. He’s Hungarian. He’s done over 200 illustrated books, so you’ve probably seen some of his work. Very distinguished style. He’s my main influence. He’s an old guy now and he works on a TV show called Time Team in the UK. He’s done a lot of Arthurian stuff, dragons, vampires… No one else knows who he is. But if he saw his work, you’d probably go, oh, I’ve seen stuff like that.
FM. One of those know the work, not the person things. BT. Yeah. So those are the artists I grew up enjoying. I didn’t get into horror—well, okay, I did get into horror, but only movies, and comics, for a long time. I grew up reading superhero comics. X-Men, Hulk. Marvel stuff. A little bit of Batman… and I drew dinosaurs all the time. Which is kind of horror-y.
FM. You do dinosaurs? BT. I drew dinosaurs. I don’t do them. Fossils chafe. Sorry. I’m usually very professional. It’s usually the writers who end up being crazy. Artists, well, we just chop our ears off.
FM. And hibernate. You’ve been hibernating, like you said. BT. Yeah. It stops you from being productive. Because you have to be in a good place to be up there. I wasn’t really
6 THE GRAVEYARD EXAMINER • NOV 29 - DEC 5, 2011
FM. I did notice your absence. I was a little bit disturbed. BT. Well, after a while, it feels good not to be online much. No Facebook, no Twitter. It gets to like – okay, I didn’t do it yesterday, I don’t have to do it today either! Oh, this funny thing happened. But I don’t have to write about it on Twitter. I am one of the top tweeters in the geek world, though, just so you know. It was in a magazine about Twitter.
FM. How many followers do you have? BT. Not many. Close to fifteen and a half thousand?
FM. That’s a lot! BT. Well, most of them don’t read comics. Most of them follow me because I’m a bit weird. And I say some weird things.
FM. You talk about squid. BT. I do. The squid thing has become weird.
FM. “I like tentacles… but not in that way.” BT. Yeah, I have to keep saying that! Hey, look at this… I met a guy in Brisbane when I was… not doing anything much, just visiting friends across Australia… Describe that to the recorder!
FM. Somebody has a picture of H.P. Lovecraft tattooed on their chest. And there are tentacles coming out of his spine! BT. As far as Lovecraft stuff—okay, I can announce one thing! I’m part of a book about some Lovecraftian art. I may be doing some paintings to do with the Mountains of Madness.
FM. That’s like… the best thing I’ve ever heard. BT. It’ll be released from Archaia press, I believe. There’ll be
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