Some time ago (September 27, 2007)  I conducted an interview with David Petersen about his book Mouse Guard (if you haven’t read it, go buy Mouse Guard Fall 1152 NOW), our home state of Michigan, and comics in general.

I conducted this for a class I was taking at Michigan State University (where I’m still a student after all these years). We were working on some pieces related to the Great Lakes region for GreatLakesWiki.org. It can be found on the wiki here. It should be said that I still do some (paid) work at the Great Lakes Wiki doing some software support.

Anyhow, I emailed David to make sure that he would be okay with me re-publishing the piece here, and he was comfortable with that.

The (admittedly not that great) piece I wrote on it is after the jump, but the phone interview contains a lot more cool stuff. If you’re into Mouse Guard (and a lot of us here at Beer and Comics are) its kind of cool to hear Petersen talk about it.

You can hear the whole thing here (26 minutes and 38 seconds):

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or download it: David_Petersen_Interview.mp3 (mp3, 12.2mb, 26:38 in length. Recorded 27 September, 2007)

Mice with swords. Mice defending other mice from the dangers of the rest of the animal world that looms both literally and figuratively overhead. Not something you might pick to be a hit comic book.

“You’re walking around any comic convention, and you think who on earth would want to buy a comic about mice with swords? [There are] spandex-clad heros everywhere, and heros with enormous guns, and boobs and butts, and there’s so much of that in the marketplace, that I just didn’t think there was any chance.”

Despite that, illustrator and comic book artist David Petersen had a hit. Maybe not a blockbuster, but among the independent comic book community, Petersen’s Mouse Guard was what you could call a serious success. National distribution and name recognition on comic shop shelves, not to mention its position as the first book to see publication in the current “mice with swords” trend in comics, are all a testament to the quality and depth of this book. And lets not forget sales. Mouse Guard holds a position seemingly both at the top of Petersen’s resume and at the forefront of his income.

Yet interestingly, Petersen doesn’t live in New York, where major comic publishers Marvel and DC are based. Nor does he live in any of the other major hubs in American publishing, like Atlanta, Chicago or Los Angeles. He doesn’t even live near the New Jersey offices of his publisher, Archaia Studios Press.

Petersen lives right where he grew up. In Michigan.

The draw of your home, of the place where you grew up can be understandably alluring. But for Petersen its more than that. His art owes as much to this state as he himself does. The terrain and foliage of the Great Lakes State permeate his work, both consciously and unconsciously.

“This is the environment that I grew up in …so I think I just absorbed that. [S]ome of it is just inherent because of what I’ve experienced, and then some of it is because I go around with a camera and make sure I have good photo reference for trees, and close ups of flowers, or close ups of pine boughs and things like that. And because I’m here in Michigan, that’s where my photo reference comes from.”

There is at least one locale in Mouse Guard that comes from a very real place. “Its just a little south of Luddington. There’s actually a little peninsula that sticks out there in the lake, called the Buttersville peninsula. There’s a little campground kind of at the end of it… It was one of our favorite spots. That’s where that part of the story takes place in my mind. Right there on the beach, so that was very intentional, where when I knew I had to do a beach scene, I couldn’t pick another beach but that beach.”

What about the rest of the locales elsewhere in the country? Surely there are other places where he could find the same things. What is it about Michigan?

“After having the experience of being in almost every state in the contiguous 48, I prefer Michigan. I’ve been to the other states, …but I really like Michigan. I like the climate, I like having four seasons, I like that we’re surrounded by these beautiful lakes that, you know when you get in them nothing’s going to hurt you. And we’ve got a huge range of types of terrain here. You go up into the Upper Peninsula, and Tahquamenon Falls area, and you know, a totally different type of topography, and even some of the wildlife. So there’s all sorts of places here in Michigan that are fun to go and visit and I like being so close to all of them.”

As Petersen points out, his loved ones might not let him leave – not that he would want to in the first place.

“My family is here. People were worried in my family that because of Mouse Guard’s success that I might be bound for somewhere else. …I had to rest them all assure that no, I’m staying in Michigan. I really, since I was a kid, kind of knew, I wasn’t going to be leaving Michigan.”

And why not? Petersen is the first to admit that technologically, there is no need to be anywhere else.

“Between FedEx and electronic file transfer and stuff, there’s not a whole lot of reason… And I like that. I like that I can just be here in Michigan and I can be doing my thing, and I get to be where I want to be.”

Besides, what would he get out of being anywhere else? “This is the environment that I grew up in. …And so I think I just absorbed that. And that’s [what] I try to put into Mouse Guard. …Mouse Guard is also kind of like my love letter to Michigan.”

David’s website is David Petersen.net