The Fabler

Last month we posted an interview with comic author and artist Gibson Twist, in which I dedicated several paragraphs to talking up the fantastic online graphic novel Our Time in Eden.

Our Time in Eden, which is written entirely by Twist, is an adult-oriented tale of teenage innocence and naivety lost.

This week, we bring you the other side of the proverbial Our Time in Eden Coin; an interview with Ben Steeves, the artist collaborating with Gibson Twist on the  project.

But the fun doesn’t stop there! Steeves also writes and illustrates his own webcomic about a zombie-by-night superhero named (what else) Zom-Ben.

Zom-Ben, which also features colours by Manny Peters, tells the story of everyman comic illustrator Ben Benson.

Benson is given a mystical bracelet by the Egyptian God Anubis with the ability to transform him into a (relatively) invulnerable zombie. From there, he does what any other comic fan who came into possession of a superhuman ability would do: he suits up, and sets out to fight crime.

Zom-Ben is first a humorous webcomic, second a superhero story with a heavy emphasis on the relationships that hero has in his ‘civilian’ life, and (contrary to what you might assume) the fact that the main character is a zombie slides in as a distant third aspect to the comic.

Zom-Ben has been called corpsetacular, cadaverlicious, and pretty rad. (The last by me.)

But seriously. Both Zom-Ben and Our Time in Eden showcase Steeves’ talent as an extremely capable contemporary comic artist, each presenting a totally different side to his work.

Slam that down arrow key to see the interview with Ben below:

KD: Can you provide a brief insight into what got you into comics and doing comic art yourself?

BS: I always remember having a handful of comics around, from a really young age, probably belonging to my older brother. What got me into comics, though was when I started spending my weekly allowance on the early 90’s Marvel Universe and DC Universe trading cards.

Not only did seeing the cool  characters on the cards inspire me to find out more about them by buying the associated comics, but I’d also create my own characters, drawing them on lined paper, and writing the vital stats on the back. I think my first attempt at doing a full comic was in grade 5, and then my first completed one came in grade 7. I’ve been hooked ever since.

KD: This interview will mostly focus on Zom-Ben and Our Time in Eden, but for those not familiar with your other work, what else have you done pertaining to comics/webcomics?

BS: My first webcomic was called Apt. 24 and detailed the “true” events of living in an apartment with co-writer/artist Colin Turnbull. Sometime after that I started doing a photo-comic starring my action figure collection (because I’m an enormous dork) with Jordan Roherty, which we called Pulp Stiktion. I later started posting Colin and I’s zombie epic Evil Dawn that we’d started in late 1999 and eventually finished in 2005.

I’ve also done guest comics on Gibson Twist’s Pictures of You.

KD: When Gibson approached you for Our Time in Eden, what was it about the comic that made you decide it was something you would like to do?

BS: Gibson originally pitched both Eden and Pictures of You, (this was some time before he started it in its current incarnation on Smack Jeeves) and both were intriguing to me, because they were so different from anything I’d worked on up to that point.

I’d covered super-hero comics, an action/horror comic, and irreverent comedy strips, but Pictures and Eden were both very real, dramatic stories. I’d opted for Eden, citing that Pictures of You seemed very close to Gibson’s personal experiences, etc. and he’d probably pull it off better himself. “His baby”, I called it. Since then I’d always seen Eden as potentially a very important comic: very mature, very dramatic.

Though it features children for two full chapters, there’s nothing childish in its content. Our Time in Eden is hard proof that comics aren’t just for kids.

KD: If you were to pick a single aspect of the story that resonates most with you, what would you say that aspect would be?

BS: The overall theme of Our Time in Eden is the loss of innocence and the difference between what you think your future holds as a child and how things actually turn out.

The fact that I’m currently working at a store and doing comics for free on the Internet, as opposed to being a well-respected member of the professional comics industry at this point, should tell you how much this theme resonates with me.

KD: How do you approach illustrating Our Time in Eden differently from Zom-Ben?

BS: The style I use for both comics is essentially the same cartoony style. I always liked the juxtaposition of my cartoon style with Gibson’s dark writing. But with Eden, I try to keep it more believable by keeping the facial expressions and body language more subtle than the sometimes goofy and over-the-top ones in Zom-Ben.

Definitely I need to be in a different headspace to do each comic. I tend to listen to more moody, less up-beat music when working on Eden, whereas I usually skip to the more energetic stuff on my perpetual iTunes shuffle to do Zom-Ben. Although I feel I do my best work on Eden, it probably says something about my personality that I find it much harder to work on Eden with its more heavy/dark subject matter.

KD: Switching focus more to Zom-Ben now, what is it about zombies that captures your imagination?

BS: Zombies are the only movie monsters that actually get a bit of a scare out of me. With vampire or werewolf stories, they come in, cause some trouble, and by the end the problem is usually solved.

With zombies, though, the stories are usually far more apocalyptic and that’s why I love them: they’re so darn hard to beat! On top of that, zombies are US. They’re our families and friends, the kid who mows your lawn, the friendly guy who helps you take in your groceries.

No one’s gonna fight Grandma off until she’s already close enough to take a bite out them!

KD: With Zom-Ben, any traditional Zombie mythos in the comic seems to take backseat to both Ben’s escapades into super heroics and the relationship-building in his un-undead life. Was that a conscious decision you made about the comic early on, or is that just the way it evolved?

BS: This is absolutely intentional. While I wouldn’t say Zom-Ben is a traditional zombie he does have that infamous hunger.

It was briefly mentioned in one of the early chapters and in the out-of-continuity 24 Hour Comic I did, but it’s more something that will creep up throughout the story than something that’s right there in your face.

KD: Why a superhero zombie anyway? And moreover, to what degree is the character (zombie attributes aside) based on yourself?

BS: There are a lot of zombie stories out there and a lot of different takes on them and “zombie super-hero” just seems like something that’s untouched in general and in comics specifically.

Zom-Ben was actually created out of boredom. I wondered what I would be like as a super-hero what my powers would be, so I blended three things I love: super-heroes, zombies, and Egyptian mythology, and voila!

The power to turn his drawings into reality came from me finding a really strange pencil in real life that looked to be entirely made of metal. I thought “Wouldn’t it be cool if it were mystical and could make my drawings come to life?”

The character is based on a past version of me. He’s very clueless and at the time of his creation I had been making a lot of stupid decisions that put me in some less than desirable situations. Though I can still be fairly absent minded Ben Benson represents that younger, “dumber” me.

KD: You had a recent poll on the Zom-Ben forums to determine who would be the next villain. You’ve also stated that you’d draw anyone who made a donation into the comic, and overall, it seems like having a dialogue with your fans is something that’s important to you.  How important do you feel it is to maintain that interactive element with the people reading your work on a regular basis?

BS: I love fan feedback and, moreover, I love being able to respond to their questions and comments on the spot in the way that only webcomicking allows. You might say I’m addicted to it. Having a dialogue with the people that appreciate my work is important to me because I can show them that I appreciate them as well.

Regrettably, putting donors into the comic became more of a chore than I’d thought, coming up with reasons for other people to be around when a good portion of a chapter is just two people talking alone in a room, etc. So, while it was fun to let the fans see themselves as I’d draw them and in a comic they like, I had to stop doing it.

There will be future polls for new villains, though. I started the Zom-Ben comic for me, to create the stories I wanted to see, but it’s the fans that keep me doing it. Without them I’d have given up on this comic a long time ago.

KD: Last, is there anything else you’re currently working on that you can share some info on?

BS: Aside from attempting to get paying work in the comics industry, there is an Evil Dawn prequel I’ve been developing with Gibson Twist that, as of now, is still on the back burner.

You can check out Zom-Ben for yourself at Zombenstrikes.com, and Our Time in Eden can be found here. For yet more Zom-Ben goodness, you can also head over to the official Twitter feed.

-Interview by Kevin de Vlaming