A mass of vomited words about artist Ben Templesmith
       Wednesday, February 20th 2008

       Ben Templesmith really won me over when he told me I was the "most interesting person in the room" at the Scream Awards after party (he noticed the tattoo of Slimey on my back). This along with the fact he met me at The Field, one of my favorite bars in San Diego, to drink Guinness on a Sunday afternoon makes him a very awesome dude in the book, er, online writings, of the Princess.

       This smoothtalker is the artist behind 30 Days of Night. He was the co-creator of the graphic novel in 2002 with Steve Niles. If you recall, 30 Days of Night was the vampire flick that came out last year and starred the steaming hot Josh Hartnett. I confessed that I hadn't even seen his film because I heard mixed things about it. He said that the director and the final screenwriter "made it OK." He also said, "The film itself was solid. It looked beautiful."

       Although he is the artist of dark visuals, he told me he's not actually a horror fan and is more into the Sci-Fi genre. He prefers the Alien films to slasher flicks any day. An example of his very dark work is his series Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse, which he describes as "Dr. Who with demons." I found this description of it online - an "English-accented, beer-drinking, sentient corpse possessing a maggot expat from the Hell dimension."

       Aside from a few work-related items, we really didn't talk a whole lot about his job. He recently located to San Diego where he's working on projects specifically for IDW Publishing. I honestly knew virtually nothing about Templesmith when I met up with him. Since then I've been doing some online research on his work and I've determined that his work is really fucking rad. And here's a short blurb from his website www.templesmith.com: He has also worked on the Star Wars, Army of Darkness, Silent Hill and Buffy: The Vampire Slayer properties and produces art and design for music bands, dvds, toys, and film concept work.

       On that lovely sunny Sunday afternoon we chatted about a variety of things including his upcoming 30th birthday. He told me he's the "10th biggest thing to come out of Perth." Yup, he's Australian. He's the eldest of three, has a BA in design, has a wife and two cats, and thinks OK Computer is the best Radiohead album.

       Templesmith described himself as an angry young man as he went off on American politics and then told me how he asked Paris Hilton "Are those real?" while he was in an elevator with her. "She's a stupid rich girl with a good manager," he said. He then went off on Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan as well. Ah, Hollywood.

       Oddly, Templesmith brought up Easter Island, a location I've always wanted to visit since I read about it as a child in an encyclopedia Britannica for children. I've only heard it mentioned a couple of times since. He also gave me the rundown on Australian cities and talked a little about world travel.

       I had a good laugh when he told me he doesn't have his driver's license and then reminded me that he'll have to adapt to driving on the other side of the road and the other side of the car. I also had a good laugh when he told me he met his wife at Comic-Con (they were both working there – so he says). Also, I got to hear the story of the first time he was blackout drunk. After a night of too much Bourbon, he awoke with his pants undone with dried vomit on his checkered shirt.

       Other things of interest -- People think he's gay and/or English. He also claims that he never gets hit on by women. I assured him that I would have hit on him had he not been wearing a wedding ring (this goes without saying, eh? wink wink). He doesn't shave until he makes a deadline. "I'm not usually this hairy," he said.

       For a man who is not quite 30, Templesmith has accomplished plenty. He couldn't think of any real goals in his goal queue right now. But it's not because he's a slacker, it's because he's accomplished all he's wanted to accomplish - movie option at age 24 and has been published alongside comic art greats. What does he want to do now? "Keep doing what I'm doing," he said.

       But he won't leave you all hanging…"I wanna do the Worf nude variant cover," he said. Now that's a goal!