Welcome to a new column about science fiction graphics by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer . Artist Ben Templesmith ’s daring , horrific , and sometimes just plain wayward glide path in graphic novel like 30 sidereal day of Night and his solo creation Wormwood , Gentleman Corpse is regulate by the science - fantasy cosmos of H.P. Lovecraft ’s Old Ones and the piece of work of H.R. Giger . However , Templesmith say “ The biggest influence on me sci - fi Isaac Mayer Wise has to be the BBC property and nontextual matter departments on old Hellenic Doctor of the Church Who episodes . ”
If you ’re anything like us , then Eisner Award finalist Templesmith ’s art will bring out the hide Decadent in you — the one who likes to snort powdered absinthe and scream out Rimbaud poems on New Orleans street turning point just for a lark .
Templesmith also nominate Ronald Searle and Ralph Steadman as influences , and it ’s this mix of comic and horrific influences that gives Templesmith ’s images such heartiness , along with a gay inability to ban himself . His latest book is Wormwood , Gentleman Corpse : It Only Hurts When I pass water , and it features the continuing escapade of the said man corpse .
Wormwood is , as they say , “ rebelliously uncanny , ” in the direction the great unwashed use “ weird ” when they ’re at a loss for countersign . Templesmith ’s black sense of humor , his unambiguously finespun yet muscular mode , his nuanced but bold consumption of colour , and his hang for find just the right detail to make a panel or page amount to liveliness — these traits in compounding make the art and words work so well for lector .
Templesmith told us :
Wormwood is really just me having play and strain to through in as many disgusting perversions of my old childhood influences . [ And I do ] call it my Riffian on Doctor Who , if it were more demonologically oriented and written for very puerile adult with a sick gumption of body fluid .
Despite his flirtation with SF influences , Templesmith has a conservative if positive family relationship with the modern world :
I am afraid of it . Always reluctant to plunk in and bosom it , but once I do , I pretty much fall in love with it . ( The tardy being “ Twitter , ” which I ’m hook to ) . I [ also ] seek to keep my calculator work fairly simple . I do n’t want to switch completely to the computer to do all my artwork . I still treasure the personal core - world spot and only use technology for the bits I ca n’t replicate physically myself . Some multitude think I do it all on computer , but I think I ’ve just mold out a organization that plays to the strength of all the mediums , rather than overly rely on just one .
Templesmith recently moved from Australia to San Diego , also the base of his publisher , IDW , who has backed him to the hilt creatively . He says :
I literally have no constraint from the publisher , they just countenance me do as I bid . Well , so far anyway . I ’ve yet to be litigate or separate ‘ no , you ca n’t put Paris Hilton in the book and have her decapitated corpse used as a play matter by a band of sexually demoralise redneck zombies , Ben . ’ Wormwood is really my personal project , so just the fact I get to do it at all is the play bit .
Despite the commercial success of 30 Days of Night , include getting the major motion picture treatment and gain ground a Spike TV honour , Templesmith is refreshfully oblivious to the idea of adopt up by cohere to any one formula for success . In addition to continuing to work on Fell with Warren Ellis , he ’s starting a newfangled series call Welcome to Hoxford that face like it ’s going to be a no - holds - bar psychiatric hospital weirdo - fest . Our guess is that Doctor Who wo n’t figure into this one , unless he picture up as a patient role . . .
Ben Templesmith
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