FOWLER: Mysterius is a middle-aged magician (where the the words "middle" and "aged" are defined with undefined numbers) who hasn't fallen on hard times so much as lost some of his sense of direction. He makes a living as a magician for hire. It's a very good living but he's got a nasty habit of seeing past his clients to becoming solely fascinated with particular problem; often to the detriment of those same clients who will just as likely find themselves staked out in hell, or buried up to their necks in the Gobi Desert.
He's rude, driven, cowardly, abusive, cranky, lecherous, abrasive, manipulative, and bored*. until he finds his new Delfi (the pseudonym Mysterius gives all of his assistants). Then he becomes less bored.
Think of him as a magical Sherlock Holmes or Gregory House or Dirk Gently. A prickly guy who's so obsessed with whatever puzzle he's working on that he forgets about the people he's supposed to be helping by solving it. Delfi is really his connection back to humanity (or as close as he comes). he's an absolute bastard, and you love him for it**.
(* ironically, so far, all of this is also a perfect description of the artist...)
(** this too...)
How did this project originate and how did you hook up with writer/co-creator Jeff Parker?
Funnily enough, Jeff and I were gearing up to work on a project with another publisher, until at 6:02 pm one evening I got very polite email from the editor informing me that while he loved my work and would like to do something with me in the future it wouldn't be that book. At 6:03 pm that same evening I got an email from editor Ben Abernathy asking if I wanted to do a creator-owned book with Jeff Parker at Wildstorm. Jeff and I decided it was synchronicity and Mysterius was born.
One of the striking things about the book is that you and Parker really created a unique world. Any chance you guys will revisit it after this limited series is over?
We were very lucky to be given the opportunity to create the kind of world I think we'd like to inhabit (at least creatively). A world where magic is real, in an under the table kind of way, and everyone can have a lovely assistant. In a lot of ways it's our perfect fictional universe. I see it as being the place where Dirk Gently and Steve Zissou live, and where The Avengers (John Steed & Mrs. Peel) and The Prisoner and every Hammer film and episode of Doctor Who took place.
As far as doing more, we'd love to. Jeff's got stories to last us the next ten years, but we need to sell enough to make that happen, ...audience.
Let's play word association with some other famous magicians.
Houdini
Could take a punch.
David Copperfield
Can't.
Criss Angel
Should.
Siegfried & Roy
I'm allergic to cats.
David Blaine
Needs a bath.
Penn & Teller
Are two very nice men, and not at all a thousand year old Lemurian mystic and his lizard familiar in human form.
I loved the fact that your art was cartoony. Most comic book artists are hesitant to do work that isn't dead serious (or at least as serious as you can be drawing men in tights wearing capes). Has your style been an obstacle in getting work in the comic industry?
Well the that's the difference between "getting" and "keeping" isn't it? I don't know, I'm sure there are editors out there who are leery of it, or more likely their bosses. I get the dreaded "just need to find the right project" a lot. Truth be told I think Mysterius is that right project. From day one Ben said, "do whatever you want".For me that equals big noses and as a result Mysterius has been an absolute joy from start to finish. I'm at a point now professionally that I don't really care about trying to tailor my style to whatever someone thinks is the more salable hot, house style of the day. I just draw what I draw how I draw it (i.e. big noses). I'm far happier now to do that, and Mysterius has wound up being the best work of my career.
I'm often amused by the amount of internet armchair quarterbacking about whether a certain style fits at a certain company, or whether my cartoonier, "even european" (gasp) style will play to a certain audience, etc...I really believe that people want to buy a good story that's well drawn, period.
Whatever gets you there gets you there, as long as the people doing it put in the effort.
You are also a regular artist for MAD Magazine. Did you read MAD growing up and was it an influence on your work?
Everyone read MAD growing up, that's why it's so cool to work for them. Who wouldn't want to be part of the "Regular Gang of Idiots"? Every time my art director calls me an idiot i swell up with pride. (I'm not sure why he has to use all the profanity around it though...)
MAD was one of those things that I really didn't realize how much of an influence on my work it was until I got older. I'd try and do all this dark, maudlin work, but there'd always be a little glimmer of goofy trying to come through. Eventually I was reintroduced to the work of Jack Davis and everything kind of fell into place.
"Oooooooooooooh, so I can be dark, maudlin, and goofy. And dramatic. And suspenseful. And kinetic. And somber. And et cetera."
My two greatest influences to this day are Jack Davis and Albert Uderzo who's best known as the co-creator and artist of Asterix and, to my mind, the greatest inker of all time (Google him!)
Fowler pays homage to the great Al Hirshfeld. Count the "Ninas"!Right now I'm having an absolute love affair with Fringe. It is bar-none my favourite new show this season. It's the X-Files without the navel gazing. I'm a huge Doctor Who fan, but it's frustrating waiting for episodes in Canada, likewise the Venture Bros. (and if anyone says "Why don't you just watch it online?" I'll punch them in the danglies.) I'm also eagerly anticipating the return of Lost .
I'm reading Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union. I finally broke down and bought a second copy after the first one I was reading got lost when we moved house (easier that tackling the boxes in the garage).
I'm also (very slowly) reading/savouring Douglas Adams' The Salmon of Doubt.
1 comments:
I'll have to keep an eye out for this tomorrow. Love the art.
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