By Meredith Nudo and Kristin Baker

Triple Eisner winner Mouse Guard enchants audiences of all ages because of the fully-realized characters and immersive adventures. Written and drawn primarily by David Petersen – the delightful Legends of the Guard anthology, featuring creators such as Terry Moore, Gene Ha, Katie Cook and others being the only exception – the narrative follows the eponymous squad of noble (and some not-so-noble) rodents tasked with keeping their society protected so they may continue to thrive. Or, more accurately, survive.

Petersen’s infectious love for his cast and the world he created for them makes itself known in every panel and spread of every page. Whether it be the twisted, pained, and agonizingly human expression on a mourning ferret’s face or the gripping, white-knuckled confrontation between Conrad and crabs, he packs his scenes with resonant detail inspiring readers to move forward, learn more about the universe he’s crafted and how its inhabitants approach the challenges it presents.

Above all else, though, Mouse Guard is fun. Even when your eyeliner drips out your eyes and snot slithers down your philtrum because sometimes Petersen enjoys delivering a suplex to the emotions, it’s fun. Adventurous, romantic, imaginative, engaging fun.

Space City Nerd was fortunate enough to speak with David Petersen during Comicpalooza 2014.

Space City Nerd: Obviously, you’re very influenced by the mythology and folklore of the British Isles and the Saxons. I see a lot of that in your artwork. What are some of your favorite stories, especially from the medieval period, that have influenced your work? Maybe some that aren’t necessarily British that you’ve incorporated?

David Petersen: I’m actually not all that well-read on that stuff, and so it’s more like this general idea of what Arthurian legend is without actually having read very much of it. There’s some folklore stuff that inspires me, like stories of red caps, or leprechauns and clurichauns and stuff like that. And I don’t know if that stuff enters into Mouse Guard directly, but just in that sense of cool fantasy stuff, really. Just fun adventure fantasy that never goes too deep, too twisted, too messed up, too plot-heavy. It just works because it’s fun and cool.

SCN: And that’s why it’s done so well with an all-ages audience. I know small children that absolutely love Mouse Guard and I know adults that do, too. I guess the focus on fun and not being so heavy also explains your love of Ninja Turtles.

DP: Sure!

SCN: Why the human character amplification to mice and the weasels and ferrets, but not other creatures like the owls?

DP: A lot of people assume that it means that the other animals can’t speak or don’t have culture. The way I view it is… when white man first encountered Native Americans, they saw them as primitive savages, no culture. To them, they were like cave men. They went, “Look at these things. They’re almost not human because they’re wearing animal skins and they’re – ohmygosh, they’re living in tents!” And so the idea was that they have no culture, no background, no nothing.

No, Native Americans have some really rich, deep cultures with all kinds of mythological and spiritual history and lore and art to what they wear and how they conduct ceremonies. There are some really rich cultures there, it’s just you’re so white man-focused, you can’t see it. I think there’s some of that with Mouse Guard because we’re seeing everything from the mouse’s point of view.

So we see a crow with no clothes on or we see a fox just roaming around and you’re like, “Well, that fox is just a fox.” Well no. I believe that fox has just as much of a culture, it’s just that their culture doesn’t necessarily have clothes or helmets or castles because it doesn’t really need it. The mice need all those things in order to survive. The fox has way fewer predators and really good natural weapons, so it can just walk around naked and still be like, “Yeah. I’m cool.”

SCN: …So you just said that there wasn’t really anything heavy, and yet you wrote this very heavy postcolonial narrative here! Somewhere there’s a Ph.D. student that’s like, “FOUND MY DISSERTATION TOPIC!”

[laughter]

SCN: Will humans ever play a role in Mouse Guard?

DP: No. It just messes things up, and for two reasons. One is because it starts connecting it to some kind of real human history. People want to do way more connecting the dots. I have a lot of freedom where I can say, “Oh, it’s Mouse Guard 1152,” and that’s a kind of medieval age that you can just roughly keep in your brain.

In human terms, I completely break that all the time. I have done that with spyglasses and glasscraft. Things like that would’ve never have been able to be done because they’re way more technologically advanced and showed up centuries later than 1152. But because there are no humans, there’s no other reference points to human history. I think the audience kind of goes along with me and goes, “OK, it’s a vaguely medieval year, and now we’re just counting off from that. That’s fine. It’s its own thing.”

If I started having humans show up or other signs of human civilizations or even just showed a foot, it is now a link to the history you as a reader know and understand. And that doesn’t work. In a larger way, the human thing doesn’t work because it’s one more outside force that could work for good or evil. They almost become godlike or devil-like; they’re either going to mess everything up or they’re the ones that, no matter what bad situation a mouse gets into, the reader could be thinking, “Oh, this is the part where a human hand is going to come in and scoop up the mouse.”

Not that because they know they’re saving the mouse, but because they want to keep a mouse pet or whatever. It’d just ruin things. They become these weird god creatures or demon creatures, and I don’t want it to be that. I want Mouse Guard to be this lighthearted, but bleak, survival tale where they look around and they realize, “This is all we got. Everything wants to kill us and eat us. And the things that don’t eat mice are larger versions of us that eat the same grain source, like rabbits and squirrels. It’s really hard being us!”

They look around and go, “And all we’ve got is each other.”

There’s no outside help. Same reason I keep religion out of it. One, because religion is a taboo that you don’t really want to poke with a stick. All you have to do is make up some kind of religious aspect, and a real-world religious group will take offense that you went that route. Or because you went against scripture this way, or went against their beliefs this way. I don’t want to deal with any of that. But also because I don’t even want the mice having the hope that if they pray, things will change.

Not that it necessarily even would … because for the purpose of this story – and, right now, because I’m actively excluding religion, I’m probably going to get people upset about that – all they have is themselves and the stuff that they find and build to keep themselves alive. I don’t want them having any kind of safety line beyond what’s in that.

SCN: I think in a lot of ways leaving humans out completely kind of makes the story more human. There’s less of an interaction with something larger than itself, and it does focus on the known. What we know, and what we can relate to.

DP: As a reader, your analogue is the mice. The minute I put a human in, you relate to the human. And now the mice are creatures. And you start thinking, “Oh, if I was the human, how cool would it be if I wandered onto a mouse city, and blah blah blah blah.”

For the most part, now, when you’re reading Mouse Guard, you’re going, “How cool and scary would it be if I was a mouse?” I want that perspective.

SCN: I kinda want to be a ferret. Because I love the ferret kingdom. They’re my favorites…

DP: That’s OK!

SCN: What actors would you have voice the mice in the film adaptation? …If there ever was one…

DP: I’ve done some live readings of Mouse Guard. The first one of those, I actually had a bunch of friends of mine who do community theatre take on roles. Some of the characters were based on those same friends! So we each got to do our own character, but it was really hard getting everyone together and making it happen so that everyone was in the same place, same time.

And I travel around the country going to conventions and talking to schools or libraries. I knew I wanted to keep doing that, but I can’t bring everybody with me. So I figured out how to do enough vocal range to do it all on my own. When I’d get to Celanawe, I found I was really doing my best Ian McKellen impersonation. The voice that he uses when he was the polar bear in The Golden Compass. It’s a little more rough, it’s less hippie ethereal Gandalf and a little more [switches to a gruff voice], “RRRRRRRRR!!! I’ve seen things, kid!!”

[back to regular voice] So for a long time, Ian McKellen was not only who I envisioned, but also who I impersonated anytime I did Celanawe. But recently, when my wife and I were watching Downton Abbey, I was drawing and not actually looking up at the screen and Mr. Carson – whose real name is Jim Carter – he’s kind of like the head butler at Downton … I watched a couple episodes of the show and it didn’t dawn on me until I wasn’t looking at him, but just drawing and hearing the voice, and I went, “Oh my gosh. That’s Celanawe! That’s a better Celanawe than Ian McKellen is Celanawe!”

Now, if Ian McKellen wanted the job, I don’t think I’d turn him down.

Beyond that, I had thought about Jude Law making a good Saxon, because Saxon is arrogant and a pain in the ass, but I also don’t want the audience to hate him. Jude Law pulls off those characters well. So I thought he’d be a good vocal version of that – kind of a jerk, but charming at the same time, where you don’t mind that he’s a jerk.

SCN: He’s more fiery than a total jerk.

DP: Yeah. And the guy I’ve had in my head for the longest time for Liam is Jim Sturgess.

Mouse Guard‘s old, and I’ve had the characters rattling around in my head since 1996. I didn’t start working on the comic until 2004. Around those early days, when I was imagining who would play this, if ever, my main trio: I had Jeremy Irons as Kenzie, Gary Oldman as Saxon and Ewan McGregor as Liam. It only took two years of doing Mouse Guard before pretty much all of those guys were already too old to consider, because by the time you go into production on a movie – not that anything was coming my way anyways – you’re going to have to come up with a new cast list when it’s time.

Irons especially. It’s just not an age-appropriate role for him.

I still think he’s a great actor, and he’d be fun to put in. But that was my original group and I had to retool it. Jude Law ended up filling the Saxon role in my mind, and Sturgess for Liam. But I’ve never come up with a really good Kenzie. Leave something for the movie people to do, right?

SCN: At any point, will the mice ever evolve out of medieval weaponry? And what is the reasoning behind keeping the tech in more of a pre-modern setting? We haven’t seen too much evolution in terms of technology – is that planned for any future stories, or will it stay a little more static?

DP: I think it will stay static. Mainly because that’s the kind of stuff I like. I feel like if you start trying to do arms racing stuff or building on the technology, it almost feels like maybe as a writer I’m trying to say something. Everybody’s going to try and read between the lines: “Ooooohhhhh, what does this mean? It’s a metaphor! It’s a parable for something else! What’s the message Petersen’s trying to get across?”

Nah. I just like swordfights and that kind of stuff. For the most part, I think I’ll just stay there.

I could maybe see a day where I do some kind of a war machine along the lines of a trebuchet, but I don’t think I’ll go further. I also don’t want to change it too much. I’ve got something that’s working, and if you start evolving down that path, you kind of have to keep going. It’s not like you can go, “Well, I did one major tech shift…” That’s not going to work.

Now, there might be some tech shifts and things like metallurgy and maybe healing. But still very primitive stuff. They don’t know the word “acetylsalicyclic acid,” but they chew on this bark and it alleviates their pain. Someone basically discovered aspirin. I’m not going to make a point of it, but that kind of thing could be a discovery. I don’t want to go too far – I don’t think gunpowder, even in a primitive sense, is ever going to play in.

SCN: So you’re not going to go for the postcolonial allegory or the Cold War allegory? Our hypothetical Ph.D. student is veeeeery disappointed.

DP: Well, maybe I will in terms of societal stuff, but it wouldn’t be a direct, [announcer voice] “AFTER THE HORROR OF THIS KIND OF WAR!!!”

There could be a horrific war, but it’s fought the old-fashioned way.

SCN: Because of course we have to ask this question. What would your deathbed drink be?

DP: Can I choose the elixir of life?

SCN: Yes. Yes you may.

DP: I think the root of the question is what I like to drink. It really boils down to what time of day it is and what I have to do. It’s either a latte, because that’s warm and soothing, or a Coke, which is a pick-me-up that’s cold and refreshing, or a scotch! Which is the opposite of both of those things. Well, it’s kind of warm and soothing…

Special thanks to Sasha Blaschka.

You can find Mouse Guard at any of your favorite local comic shops and also more about David Petersen at www.davidpetersen.net