Artist and Writer Ben Templesmith of the new comic book from IDW Welcome to Hoxford, stops by the Septagon News Blog to talk about his upcoming comic book. Fans of Wormwood and Singularity Seven should be prepared for another ride of fantastic art and great storytelling. And yea…there will be blood.

NickD
1.) Thanks for doing this interview Ben. First off, tell us a little something about yourself?

Ben Templesmith:
I am a pastey white human male, 6ft, brown hair, with an accent most Americans assume is English, as I don’t run around all the time shouting “Crikey!” while wearing a Crocodile Dundee outfit. Sad but true. They just never have one in my size. I also write and draw comics for what passes for “a living” these days, and am very lucky to do so.

NickD
2.) How long have you worked in the comic book industry and what got you started?

Ben Templesmith:
I guess about 5 years now, broke in twice, via networking on the net and showing my work, first with Joe Casey and Heidi MacDonald oer at Vertigo, though that project never saw print, but at the same time as that I was asked by Brent Ashe, former AD at TMP to take over the book Hellspawn, after the master himself, Ash Wood left.

NickD
3.) I’m a huge fan of your works. Tell us about your new comic book Welcome to Hoxford and how did you come up with this concept? What is the story about?

Ben Templesmith:
It got started when I got a letter given to me by my publisher, IDW Publishing, that they’d recieved from the Colorado Correctional Department over them explaining another of my books, ( 30 Days of Night: Red Snow ) was too dangerous and hate filled ( it’s a book with Nazis and Soviets!! ) to be allowed to be brought in by an inmate. Got me thinking on a book set in prison basically.

Hoxford is a rather dark book, “darkest thing I’ve yet done” according to Chris Ryall, Editor in Chief. Basically you have a bunch of the sickest murderers, rapists etc in an institution with a few secrets…focusing on a bloke named Raymond Delgado, who is completely insane and has severe OCD with the biting… Oh and there will be monsters.

NickD
4.) So when should fans expect your book to be available for purchase or pre-order?

Ben Templesmith:
Well, right now if you have the Diamond Previews catalog. Order code to give your retailer is: JUN08 4025 if they’re nice and like serving their customers, they may even get it in for you. The book itself will be out late August. monthly, 4 issue miniseries.

NickD
5.) For the fans that don’t already know where to find you, could you give us your website? And will there be any promotional imagery or preview pages coming soon that we can look forward to?

Ben Templesmith:
My website is www.templesmith.com, my blog is http://bentemplesmith.blogspot.com and on http://twitter.com/templesmith . I try not to be hard to find. Besides the regular updates on all those, I’ll have a dedicated www.hoxford.com  site up shortly, with covers, works in progress and lots of info.

NickD
6.) What’s next on the Ben Templesmith agenda? Are you working on any other projects besides Welcome to Hoxford?

Working on 4 things right now, but can’t really announce them as they’re more books than comics with a much longer gestation time. For now people will see Deadspace and Hoxford coming from me in comics, after that, maybe some more Wormwood and something completely new. (and some more Fell, since we haven’t completely forgotten it)

NickD
7.) Thanks again for joining Septagon Studios and talking about your project. We greatly appreciate it. Do you have any final comments that you would like to share with the readers?

Ben Templesmith:
I have been told some people do not have mullets in America. They have “Carolina waterfalls”. I can only assume this is the polite term for what is otherwise a hideous blight on humanity.

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