 "Ty Templeton")
Who is Ty Templeton? Only one of the gods in a pantheon of comic creators. And he is here in India, attending Comic Con Delhi, brewing up quick sketches of Batman for a line of fans, which is getting longer by the minute.
The Canadian comic book artist and writer, who is known best for The Batman Adventures comic-book series, is here for a special session on the art of comics, and of course, his own body of works. Before he walks out to greet his fans, however, I find him sitting in a huge white tent, which is the green room, looking excited about the Comic Con. What was his first thought when he knew he was going to a comic con in India?
“My first thought when I was invited to Comic Con in India was ‘Wow, this is terrific I can’t wait to go!’. I have never been in India before. I really want to see what Indian comics are like. I am a huge comic fan myself, and I can’t wait to find out what kind of comics you people make,” Ty says.
Ty comes with a nearly clean slate on India’s comic scene though. “I have only been here for ten minutes, I don’t have had any experience of an Indian comic con yet. I have heard a little bit about Indian comics. I have seen a few here and there, and am hoping to see a lot more this weekend.”
Apart from drawing a few mainstream titles for Marvel Comics, DC Comics and Bongo Comics, Ty has also written and drawn his own graphic novel series, Stig’s Inferno, a parody of Dante’s Divine Comedy, which won him great acclaim. For someone who is equally renowned for his drawings as well as his stories and plots, I ask him, about how he balances the two.
“They are both about telling stories, both forms of communication. In the same way that a singer can also be a song-writer, both are the same thing in my mind. I don’t separate them out. There is no first, and they are both happening at the same time. When I write, I write with the picture in my head, and when I draw, I am telling the story through pictures,” Ty answers.
“When I get an idea, it is usually that I think of a situation that a character should be in and then how that situation would look. So when I am thinking of Batman fighting Joker, who is in a balloon dropping bombs on the city, I immediately start thinking about how the balloon looks like, where is it going to be, how is Batman going to reach him. So as I progress through the story, I am visualising the progress, and translating that to paper,” he explains.
Visualising Batman – now that is something quite in trend these days. Ben Affleck is the latest in the line of long line of on-screen Batman(s). What does Ty have to say about all these visualisations, reinterpretations?
“Nowadays, Batman is a computers and jet airplanes guy, which is correct because he is now a twenty-first century character. 1950s' Batman was very goofy, 60s’ Batman was swinging and hip, in 70’s he was very sour, in 80’s he was very technological. He changes every ten years. Sometimes the changes might appear wrong, but then in the next interpretation, they can be ironed out. That’s the process of evolution. And I am very interested in seeing how Affleck does it.”
What about of Man of Steel? What does Ty think of the latest highly criticised retelling of Superman- another wrong interpretation? “Oh he is not superman at all!” Ty emphasises. “Superman does not kill in millions or snap necks. Superman is supposed to make me feel good, not tensed and angry. That is for Batman. At the end of the movie, I do not feel good. He is supposed to save people, not snap necks.”
Okay that’s the card then. Let’s return to India. There is whole batch of upcoming young graphic novelists in India, What would be Ty’s advice for them?
“The best advice that I can give you is that whatever you are doing – drawing, writing or both – just do it a lot, never stop doing it. I don’t think there is any such thing as talent. It is all about experience and Skill. The first time would always be bad. Get the bad things out of the way as soon as possible. As you keep doing the bad ones, you learn to do the good ones. You keep getting better. If you start to like what you do though, then you are done and finished, and you will not learn anymore. I am still learning.”
Speaking of learning – Benoit Peters, a renowned comic critic and scholar will be joining the Lancaster University, offering a PhD in Comics. Ty himself teaches classes in comic book writing and drawing, known as "Ty Templeton's Comic Book Boot Camp". I urge him to speak his mind about comics in academics and research.
“It is very essential of course. I am very surprised, how both art and literature find exalted space in academic discourse, but when they come together in the form of comics, its value falls. Comic artists have always been innovating and experimenting with art forms, and narrative styles. There have been writers like William Eisner who have done marvellous work in comics, even before DC and Marvel became famous. Often one does not recognise how powerful their works are at the time they are publishing. However, much later, someone might have picked up Eisner’s The Sprit, and realised its value. Similar is the case with Art Speigelman’s Maus. Speigelman serialised Maus from 1980 until 1991 as an insert in Raw, an avant-garde comics and graphics magazine, long before it was appreciated, and finally went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. Like literature or art, a thorough study of comics is essential to bring out their unexplored value.”
We are at a comic con, where by definition major publications and big titles are supposed to attract a larger crowd. Artists flock to get their art recognised by these publications. So will Ty say that the rise of publications like Marvel and DC, and then the Comic Cons, are pushing a Speigelman or an Eisner-in-the-making to side lines?
“Not at all,” he replies emphatically. “It’s the opposite. You cannot only have artists and writers drawing and talking about a Batman or a Superman in Comic cons. If you have to engage all the myriad interests of your guests at the comic con you have to start moving out of the mainstream characters. And therefore for the success of any Comic Con, it is imperative that a Speigelman or an Eisner would get as much space and attention as any other. Hence Comic cons are a great place to be that ways. In fact I am not worried so much about the big comic-book artist crowding out the little comic book artist, as I am worried about movie stars crowding out the comic book artist. When Ben Affleck played Daredevil, I was at a comic con where he was the guest. The queue to meet Affleck was so much longer than the queue to meet Frank Miller who wrote comics about the character Affleck was playing.”
Ty is worried about the movies and movie stars clouding out the comic artists. He believes comic books aren’t versions of movies. Movies are version comics.
That brings us to the end of our conversation, as Ty heads out for his autograph session. I take my leave, not forgetting to mention how big a fan I am, before heading out to soak in the carnival around.
About an hour later, I meet Ty Templeton again, in the middle of his Batman-scribbling session, and repeat my earlier question: how does he find his first Indian Comic con. He can barely look up thanks to the huge queue of fans. But he smiles wide and says, “Its fabulous, its crazy.”
