Blog-It Llama!

By Nick - July 12, 2009

This month Nick and Marko will join comic book artists David Petersen (Mouse Guard), Hope Larson (Chiggers), and Steve Lieber (Whiteout, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Creating a Graphic Novel) along witih Jacque Nodell (granddaughter of Green Lantern creator Martin Nodell and a cartoonist herself) on a panel at Comic-Con International in San Diego, California, to discuss the value of education for comics creators.

Ben Templesmith - who attended Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia - had hoped to join them on the panel as well but ultimately had a conflict interfere. Nevertheless he discussed the topic so that Nick might share Ben’s thoughts during the panel.

Ben Templesmith (left) gesticulates as he converses with Nick Langley (right) at Wizard World Texas in Arlington, Texas.

Nick: What education do you have?

Ben Templesmith: Bachelor of Arts in Design. I majored in Illustration.

Nick: Do you feel like it has helped you at all?

Ben Templesmith: No, the only thing it ever did for me was introduce me to the program Photoshop, and that is a key program to use. And I thought, “Oh that’s good.” So I ran with it and bought my own copy, set myself up, and rather than just for work, I used it for art. So they didn’t teach me to use it for anything I just discovered Photoshop. I was doing actual art on it, which was really great. The second thing was because it was a design degree, you have to do regular presentation things where you speak about whatever your project is, advertising bull**** and whatever it is. It gave a taste of the aspects of design: graphic design, advertising, interior design, photography, lots of stuff. And that’s stopped me from being very shy. Because I used to be very shy about being artistic. Well, back when I was like two. No seriously, from two to four, they thought I was possibly autistic because I didn’t want to engage or look at people or anything. But I was very shy as a young, young boy. But I was always shy, and it broke me out of that. And that is freaking useful for meeting fans and talking to people and I don’t mind doing it. I guess that is a skill.

Nick: So, it helped your career a little?

Ben Templesmith: Yes, comic books are a career where no education really helps. No, that sounded bad. I mean education does not matter, talent does. And I’m of the opinion that you can’t really learn good art. You either start out with some talent or you don’t. But comics are sort of like acting where it’s a field that you break in. You don’t submit a resume. You submit a portfolio, the same way an actor would audition. But yeah, you could be a hillbilly with no schooling after age five, but you can do some good art and you can find work. It’s the same way if you are a freaking Rhodes Scholar, education makes no difference.

The only difference comes in where I guess, career management, sort of how you operate or professionalism in a sense of self-control and keeping deadlines, appearing professional, managing your money and finances. I, myself, operate as a corporation, so I like operate with a shell around me; so I never get paid for my work, my company does. I’ve met people who get paid a load more than me and pay personal income tax. It’s probably the same in America as it is in Australia, where you pay personal income tax on every single cent you make – which is not good then for you because you might have a bad year, then you might have a really good year. But you get taxed really heavily one year and you pay a lot less tax on the other. But what if you could even out your income so that you actually end up paying less taxes overall because you need income on a more regular basis? So that’s where the company that holds the money that pays you the wage. So that’s just like people who don’t know that, they don’t think. They do a lot of work and pay a whole lot more tax than they probably should. It’s not un-patriotic because all I’m doing is storing the income potentially for a rainy day and evening it out throughout the years. It’s a really handy thing, especially if you get a movie option or something, on a comic book you do. You are not only paying the corporate tax, but also the personal tax and then you keep the tax in the company for whenever you want to pay it to yourself.

But if you have had an education, that’s where it would be. But it pays off because that’s where you know how to do things like that. Then you can be a smart operator. Actors who operate this way have small companies too, I’m only guessing because I’m sure they have the money to. As individuals we get paid money, as freelancers if you aren’t smart, it will hurt after a while; because personal tax rates are higher than corporate tax rates. Sorry if I’ve muttled this up completely, but trust me, it works.

Nick: No, No I think that is something that people would want to hear out of you.

Ben Templesmith: Because it pissed me off there was this guy who was talking about politics, he was grumbling about taxes and I was like “Oh, you pay taxes on all of that?” He said yeah, and I said, “You don’t use a company?” He said “Well, I’ve been thinking about it…” and I was thinking well that guy deserves to pay that much on taxes. But the American tax system is a little bit different. I make 35 cents on the dollar because I don’t need that much to live on. I save up to keep my cost down on the lower tax rates. It’s all about the tax rates. Well this has nothing to do with education…people at your school probably don’t even care about that they just care about doing the art. There is a lot more to do than just the sitting at a desk drawing, honestly.

Nick: Did you know you wanted to go into comics before you went into college?

Ben Templesmith: Yes, I wanted to do comics since I was in high school.

Nick: Did your professors tell what your interest was?

Ben Templesmith: Yes, a couple of them were comic guys. They ran a very small comic course which didn’t teach me anything. No, no, it was because they were just fans and it was just an excuse to do a couple of comics. So I did that. It was good because I met some good people and one got a job later on. He was good but he wasn’t me. And he was one of my lecturers. He’s reminiscent of my style, ironically, but he’s a good guy. But it’s funny because I got him a gig.

Nick: Did any of your professors ever help you at all, like with connections or anything like that?

Ben Templesmith: Well when I started at the University I went to, it was a university of technology, and I only had one professor. I don’t know how many professors you have, but it’s different.

Nick: Yes it’s very different.

Ben Templesmith: Well, we don’t have more than one professor. Ours was more of a focus on actual working professionals instead of theoretical lessons. It’s design, it’s all about industry. The people that have worked in the industry come back and do the teaching. I mean, there was one professor, and the rest would do as much as the teachers. I mean teaching was their second career. They were teaching after they had already been out there doing some stuff; as opposed to being mathematicians. So that’s the course I did, and of course they aren’t all like that.

Nick: What about other professionals that know that you have a degree, how do they react?

Ben Templesmith: It never comes up. Most of it never comes up. As a professional, you have to agree on some things, most of them potentially art-related but it never usually comes up. But I’m not a big component of education. That sounds bad, that sounds worse than I actually mean.

Nick: Well then, how do you feel that you need to educate yourself?

Ben Templesmith: You always need to educate yourself. In what way?

Nick: How did you educate yourself outside of school? How did you go about learning?

Ben Templesmith: School never gave me the education I wanted. I’m a fan of history and they never taught good history in school so I had to learn it myself. I read a lot of books and watched a lot of documentaries.

Nick: So what are you re-educating yourself with lately?

Ben Templesmith: The histories of the American presidents. So I’m doing a presidential book because I like history. American history is pretty good. I’m doing a portrait book with basic facts on all the presidents because I want to concentrate on all of the unknown ones, the idiots. Like the one that was in office for two months because people said he was too old so to prove that he wasn’t too old, he did his inauguration speech for like six to eight hours, caught pneumonia, and died a little while later. Self-defeating, right? Or a self-fulfilling prophecy. But stuff like that is interesting.

I mean some of them did drastic stuff, like Bush. But nothing to do with the homefront as much as a lot of people in the old days. It is a political statement.  But in the scheme of things, you have to look at the context. I like history and seeing people freak out about little things in the modern day-context. It’s like did they not understand how things used to be? Or like all of society is really violent now…were they not aware of 6 million Jews being killed or gypsies or retarded people? And 20 million Russians died in the 1940s too in WWII. People forget about that.

Nick: So what’s your next big challenge?

Ben Templesmith: Living down this interview? And rambling about things, I’m tired, I was drinking last night I’m just rambling about stuff.

Nick: No this is great stuff. You have no idea.

Ben Templesmith: I was reading the news and now everyone’s obsessed with Obama’s dog. That’s how you know that you have a media that works for you.

Nick: But what’s your next big project that you are working on?

Ben Templesmith: Well the president thing that I will get finished, but I haven’t even started yet so. I’m doing a comic book that is written by a friend of mine which is actually an alien race of  Roswell-y type of Area 51 thing. There’s a little bit of historical stuff in there but mostly it’s a lot of fun. It should be fun, and that’s a miniseries that’s coming, my best miniseries to date. No, seriously it is, it’s a pretty good critically reception and pretty good sales. So it did pretty well for me….Werewolf Prison Drama. But it’s always hard to say what’s coming up with my plans because I’m always looking in front of me instead. Like, I’ve got stuff planned for the next two years that I can’t talk about. But I’m also doing, eventually, hopefully, a little bit of G.I. Joe because my publisher does G.I. Joe and also Transformers and Star Trek and Dr. Who. I don’t know if you know Dr. Who.

Nick: Oh I know Dr. Who.

Ben Templesmith: Well I’ll be doing a Dr. Who one shortly, that’s like my next endeavour.

Nick: I saw that you did this one piece with David Tennant and Martha Jones, recently.

Ben Templesmith: You have to actually treat the fans right, that’s part of being professional. Am I being nice to you?

Nick: You are being very nice.

Ben Templesmith: Any more questions? Because we can talk.

Nick: What’s something you’d like to work on?

Ben Templesmith: You’re talking to someone who does whatever he wants. I don’t usually work for hire, I mean jobs come up occasionally, but I don’t have to convince anyone to do anything. My publisher is happy to print anything I want to come up with. So I’m already doing whatever I want to do.

Nick: How do you find a publisher that lets you do whatever you want to do?

Ben Templesmith: You get very lucky and do something successful that gets them on the map and you become friends with them. But I do all right so far, I don’t have to justify myself. And they make some money off my book.

The education thing is really not relevant to a guy like me, not for what I do. Like most comic guys, I’m really self-sufficient. I do everything. The only training I’ve had in comic books I’ve basically done myself because I haven’t done any courses or anything like that. Other people might disagree and say they’ve done stuff and learn things, but I just naturally do stuff. And that has worked so far. It’s kind of lucky or kind of stupid, either way.

Nick: Well, you’ve worked to get here and you are clearly talented.

Ben Templesmith: Well, not really, but thank you, you are a good liar.

Nick: And one last question, the most important one, what’d you have for breakfast?

Ben Templesmith: Nothing, I had a hot chocolate. Yeah, I don’t eat much.

Ben models his Rocket Llama sticker.

Categories: Convention, Interviews
Tags: 30 Days of Night, Ben Templesmith, Chiggers, Comic-Con, David Petersen, Green Lantern, Hope Larson, Interviews, Jacque Nodell, Martin Nodell, Mouse Guard, Steve Lieber, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating a Graphic Novel, Whiteout, Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse