Mustard and Ink: a Ted McKeever Interview
by Antonio Solinas

 

     Hi Ted, your work is very appreciated in Italy. Do you want to introduce yourself to our readers? You have Italian blood in your veins, if I am not mistaken…

     I have much appreciation for Italian culture, as my mother is full-blooded Italian.
I grew up in a big family, 35 aunts, uncles and cousins, my father being the only “outsider”, hence my Irish last name. My Grandmother came to this country first, and my Grandfather literally followed her here, only knowing she was located somewhere in NY, and through persistence, he found her and they married. Now THAT was love.

     When did you first get interested in comics? Is it true that Italian comics played a big part in your interest in comics?

     My most memorable interest came when my Grandmother returned from a trip to her Italian Homeland in the late 60's, and brought back a couple of small black and white comic books (I later learned were called “Bonelli Format”), one called Il Grande Blek and the other Tex.
One copy of each. I knew no Italian, but I devoured them cover to cover, over and over again.
The images and the textures, depth and tone, were unlike anything I had seen.
Having seen the usual mainstream “super-heroes” every child knows, it wasn't until I saw those two black and white issues, that I realized “I want to do this”.

     Do you want to describe how you first got into comics?

     Well, I was doing courtroom sketches for ABC television for about 4 years, then moved onto to doing editorial work for the Miami Herald for about 3 years. It was 1984 when I came down with chicken-pox. Not pleasant at all. And was confined to stay indoors, out of sunlight for about 3 weeks. So, I decided to start putting into action all my years of wanting to do comics, and utilize all the stories, and ideas I had had having spent years around the news media.
The idea for Transit was the result. And within about 3 months, I had completed the first issue, while working days at the Herald. Then went to Atlanta where I met with Archie Goodwin and Dave Gibbons, showed them the xeroxed entire issue, and both gave me the information how to shop it around. 98 copies went out, 5 contracts came back. The now defunct Vortex comics picked it up, and the day I signed the contract I quit my job at the Herald, and never looked back.

     You have a superb and very personal style. How did you develop it?

    Thank you or saying that, as I have consciously worked on allowing myself to just go with what feels right. Like a chef without a recipe book. I make it up as each project calls for.
I guess that comes from my years doing editorial art, and the courtroom sketches, not having the luxury of elaborate tools, but a guerilla-stile of working with limited time and pens.
Kind of made me work harder to make the images have a feeling that would convey or evoke an emotion immediately without words.
That has transfered to my working now, as I use a varied amount of tools and inks that aren’t very conventional by “art” standards.

     What are your influences? Is there any of your influences that might not be so obvious to spot?

     Honestly, my two biggest influences were, and are still, Jack Kirby and Richard Corben.
Not in style, not even in subject, but in their ability to be who they are, so specifically distinct creatively. There is no mistaking who they are based on their work. You look at a piece by Corben and you KNOW it’s Corben.
Today, for whatever good or bad it may be, I can’t tell 75% of the art apart from the next one.
Those two creators were, for me at least, monumental in me staying true to my individual ideas, and saying to myself “don’t give up”.

     You have been in the business for a long time. Has your approach to comics changed since you began your career?

     Good question. Actually, after being in this field for 20 years now, I can honestly tell you I have much more appreciation for what I did in the first 7 years than I did while I was doing them.
To think I went from a 5 issues b/w Transit series, to a 12 issue b/w Eddy Current series, to a 5 issue 64 page each, fully painted Plastic Forks series, by just suggesting an idea, no layouts, no pitches, is amazing to me now. Total credit going to the editors I had back then. One of which was one of the most brilliant and creative men I have know, Archie Goodwin. Who could see what I wanted to do, and gave me the opportunity to do it, unhinged and uncontrolled. It was an amazing time. Now, the way it’s changed, you have to have the entire package and look down on paper before they will even look at it. Just the way the world is now, I guess.

     Your style often touches on supernatural and/or urban themes (Eddy Current, Faith, Industrial Gothic, Metropol, even the Legends of the Dark Knight arc). How did you develop this fascination?

     I have always been fascinated by industry. For as far back as I can remember I was aware of my surroundings. The way an alley was lit at night, the muskiness of a shed in my back yard, the brickwork in a building I went to school at. All those things, the textures, and smells, the lighting and the atmosphere of buildings and streets gave me such an excitement of just being there. So, I would think now, that it comes through in what I love to do. Tell stories about places that have a feel about them, not just the characters as they are almost secondary, but of the lived in cities and lands they populate.

     Despite being quite “difficult” (i.e. very far from superheroes), your style seems very influential. How do you explain that?

     I don’t know. I have battled that demon for a very long time. Part of me, as I had said has always admires individuality. To see something of an artists work that has no similarities of my own is a joy to me. But then to know my work has influenced someone to become what they want to uniquely be, is as much a joy. What I meant by battling the demon, is that what really gets under my skin is when I am clearly ripped off. It’s sort of a violation without representation.
Maybe when someone is influenced by my work, in a good way, it’s what Kirby and Corben did for me, gave the inspiration to be individual.

     Many times, during your career, you wrote your own comics. Was this a conscious decision, to have total control, or just the result of people not writing the kind of stories you want to draw?

     In hindsight, I can say it was the latter. I wrote what I wanted to read. I wrote stories that were in my head, ideas that either angered me and I wanted to exorcise them out of me, or stories that I felt would be read, and hopefully enjoyed, as much as I had putting them down on paper.
I never thought of having control, I didn’t think that way. I still don’t.

     Which difficulties did you have to face when working on someone else’s script?

     I can happily say I never really had any problems with that. I think it was due to when I did work with a writer, more times than not, they and I got along so well, it was like a creative marriage from the start. Peter Milligan, for example, on The Extremist, was a complete joy to work with. He had is ideas, and I had mine, and we both took and gave as good as each other. Plus, I like having someone else do the stories sometimes, as it gives me a chance to explore visually a subject or place I might not have come up with in my own head.

     When you did Toxic Gumbo with Lydia Lunch, how difficult was to work with a writer that did not have any previous experience in comics? What did Lydia bring to the table?

     Well, that was a unique experience. Being that Lydia and I were friends for a few years before that ever happened. We had always talked about our works, and one time in NY she was on a radio show and she invited me in to sit on the panel. Afterwards, I said “hey, how about you coining into my field now?” And she did. She brought such a totally great spark with her, and when I say spark, I mean a damn bonfire. As the meetings with the editors on that book are legendary albeit a bit painful to recall.
She and I busted out asses on that book, and we stuck by our guns, and it paid off, I think.
What capped it off though, was the addition of an amazingly brilliant and  talented woman, Maria D’Agostino, who created by hand the actual “sad sally” dolls that appear in that book.
For me, her wonderful work made that book even more than what it was.

      You did some work on superheroes (Batman and Superman come to mind). How did you approach the job? Was it difficult for you to tackle such mainstream icons?

     At first I was told I would “never be allowed to do” Superman or Batman. And then the same editors approached me for the Metropolis, and Nosferatu books, saying they wanted an expressionistic take on the characters. In the meantime, I was asked to write and illustrate a two-issue story on Legends of the Dark Knight: the story was of a man who saw Batman as both a hero and a demon. Which was basically my take on him, as I didn’t really know much of his story, other than what I  remembered as a child. One of my personal favorites was to be allowed a place in the Batman: Black and White series. I wanted to show Batman as a tormented man who was basically a detective in a leotard. Not being funny, just that I wanted to break away the “super-hero” persona he had and show him as what he was, a man.
It wasn’t difficult then, as once again, the editors were of a mindset that WANTED newness and different views. Today it’s a bit more difficult to navigate, as the industry seems to have a more direct focus on what they don’t want to try.

      Metropol seems to be one of the comics you are most fond of. Can you explain why (besides being a fantastic comic, obviously…)?

     First, thank you for saying that.
What brought that about was my philosophy that every person has within them a core based on good or evil. It’s in our make-up to be who we are no matter how we might pretend to be perceived. Take that, and couple it with my fascination with angels and demons, then surround it with what is essentially, in my opinion, the star of that series, the city.
Wall it up, and let havoc run wild. It was a dream project to say the least. Full freedom to explore characters who grew and changed permanently. To take them on a journey or self discovery in the midst of a nightmare.  And then to have the opportunity to combine two of my previous series, Transit and Eddy Current, and send them off in a whole new direction, truly made it a once in a lifetime experience, that only my miniseries Industrial Gothic has ever come close to echoing.

     Your works have got a surreal, almost Kafka-esque atmosphere. Do you want to talk a bit about your pencilling and inking techniques?

     I try to make the unreal real, but there comes a time when I start to work myself into a direction that pulls in one way or another. I hate stories that are “dreams”, and by that I mean you get to the end of a story and they character wakes up and finds it was all a dream. Can’t stand that. To me, it was a waste. All for nothing but effect. So, I try to make what might seem a nightmare an actuality, or a fantasy as real as flesh and blood. I approach my pencils and inks sort of the same way. With no particular way. I don’t know what the norm is, but I work pretty detailed in pencils, to give it a solid base of reality to ink over. Not a whole lot of filling in with shading or lines, but get the basic form down. Then when I ink, I’ll either follow the pencils with a somewhat scratchy controlled line, or obliterate them with smears of uneven inks and white spatter. Always keeping in mind that the end result HAS to be discernible and understandable, otherwise, it was all for nothing but effect.

      Your style is very strong both in black and white and in colour. What are the differences in the approach?

     Well, my black and white process is more organic working from a pencil base.
I can let go more often than not, and work in areas one way, with a pen nib, and then other times use a ragged bone and just smear it across the work.
Whereas painting in color,  may look haphazard, but is, for me, painstakingly placed. In every aspect of the piece I try to have it as clear as possible in my head before I put brush to paper.
Very rarely do I just start painting in color and hope for the best. Even though I use an array of mediums and produce (Yeah, I’ve used mustard too), everything I do when I paint is thought out as best I can.
Where when I ink in black and white, the piece can change as I work on it.

     Do you still read comics? Which authors or series do you follow regularly?

      Not really, I don’t read as much as I probably should.
If only to see what’s out there.
Most of what I see these days looks the same to me.
I miss the days of opening a book, any book, no matter who was illustrating it, and knowing it would be individually unique, like it personally or not, but still being floored by seeing such passion on their pages.
I see more European books with that diversity now. So I am always open to seeing what they might have out.

      What are your current projects?

     Currently, I’m working on just the covers of a new 5-issue Zombie series coming out in a few months, from IDW.
I just finished another 5 issues painted covers for a Silent Hill series, which started coming out now. I think issue #3 just hit the stands.
I also did new covers for three volumes collecting all 12 issues of Eddy Current, with some added extras that pretty much have everything Eddy has been in.
And I’ve just started layouts and character designs for a 5 issue series that will be adapting Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Princess of Mars novel, which Dan Taylor will be scripting, and I’ll be illustrating. Again, for IDW.
Other than those, I’ve kept my schedule open so I can focus on each project, as well as begin work on a story idea I have been wanting to start on for years.
I have been away from writing my stories for way too long, and I have been wanting to get back to the days of Metropol and Eddy Current. So, I just need to find a publisher who wants creator owned ideas, and an open mind to allow me to explode.

      Do you know anything about the European comics scene? What about Italy?

     I know enough to enjoy much of the works by Bilal and Jean Giraud, and most of all I was, and still am a big fan of Liberatore.
But as for what’s new now? Not as much as I would like.
I always am looking for Liberatore’s works, but lately, they are few.
I know there’s great works out there, I just need to have a  comic-book tour guide.

      The trademark Comics Code question we always ask: what would be the three comics a genuine comic fan should have on his shelf?

     Well, I’d have to say, as far as diversity and uniqueness and damn good stories as well… Kamandi by Kirby, Den by Corben and Ranxerox by Liberatore.