The Art of War with Tyler Jenkins [Interview]

One of Image/Shadowline’s most successful modern books, “Peter Panzerfaust” from Kurtis Wiebe and Tyler Jenkins launched in 2012 to instant sellouts and critical acclaim. Now in it’s fourth arc, the book has evolved a steady fanbase and has already racked up two different adaptations, including a live action BBC adaptation and a motion comic, and is one of the most continuously solid books on the market.

So now, in honor of the book’s current arc and inspired by our recent piece on the role of artists in comics, we’re ramping up our interview series to talk more and more with the artists behind some of our favorite books — and today we sit down with Tyler Jenkins to talk all about his art and process.

Read on as we talk about Tyler’s artistic origins, his work on “Peter Panzerfaust” and some upcoming projects as well.

Let’s start with the easy question. This is my staple question, what I like to ask people the first time I ever chat with them: why comics?

Tyler Jenkins: Why comics? Well, you know what’s interesting — when I was in art school and I graduated, I swore that I would never, never do comics. We had one assignment in school that was comics, and we did it and it was so much work. SO much work. I could not see myself doing that fora living. I figured it also tied into the competence in being able to draw things over and over, stuff like that… I had this dream of doing covers for novels, like Frank Frazetta-style, but the more I kind of started doing illustration and stuff, the more I fell in love with telling stories, and that’s why comics. I can now look back and recognize that everything I’ve done in my life has always tied around telling stories, from how I played as a kid to every kind of illustration I did. It was always painful doing just one illustration when there was so much story to be told about these things. So to actually get into that, find the finite details of the acting and the performance of the characters? That’s why comics. And on top of that, as opposed to any other storytelling medium, it’s a very small group of people making it happen.

So you went to school for art — did you go to illustration, or something else? What were you majoring in?

TJ: I have a Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication, with a Major in Illustration. It’s like an illustration degree. It dabbles in all kinds of different areas.

I went to art school myself, so I’m familiar with people who did that and branched out afterwards. So I’m curious: when did you initially get into comic books? Because you said you were hesitant about doing them for a living?

TJ: Yeah, well, I think it was more than anything just a lack of confidence in my abilities to actually do it. But what got me into comics was actually Kurtis (Wiebe, writer of “Peter Panzerfaust”). [Laughs] Strangely enough, it was when we met. My wife, who is also an illustrator, we had a table/booth kind of thing at the Calgary comic convention, mostly from the point of view of selling our illustrations; we were doing prints, whatever, that sort of thing. And Kurtis saw our table and came over and asked if I wanted to work something. This was just about when he was starting to work in comics, too, and he asked if I wanted to work on something and… I never really believed in saying no to anything, so I said yes — and I haven’t looked back on doing anything else. Once you get into it, you can’t stop doing it.

That’s interesting. I’ve always known Kurtis to be pretty open and friendly, but I like that. Had you considered any comic pitches before this one, or did you just say, hey, lets give this Peter Panzerfaust thing a go?

TJ: Oh, this was way before “Peter.” Before we did “Peter,” he pitched something and we did I think 12 or so pages of a viking story we were going to do. We had just started pitching that, and the same year, Brian Wood’s viking saga started and, well, obviously at that time we were just starting out, so. The quality of viking book that we had put together paled in comparison. [Laughs] So, we did another pitch and then I started working for a film studio, doing illustration for them, and I was working on a crime piece and thought, why don’t we make a comic out of this? So I talked to the movie’s producer, the owner of the studio, about doing a comic about it that Kurtis could write, and that was the first time we started working together on an actual title. Kurtis wrote this book called “Snow Angel,” and we built it together; it was a crime story during the 80’s drug wars, and that was the first actual thing we really worked on together that was a complete story.

I worked on other things and he worked on other things for a couple years while we were talking about “Peter,” but we never felt like we were ready for it. The year we got “Peter” picked up, we were both at Emerald City and pitched another story called “Buckshot” to Jim (Valentino) at Shadowline, and he didn’t like it. So we said, well what about “Peter”? And that’s when we put that pitch together, that week, and sent it in and that’s… that’s when we started “Peter.” So, probably five or six years after we met.

What was it about the Peter Pan story that fascinated you?

TJ: To tell you the truth? Nothing. I never liked the Peter Pan story. [Laughs] I was never interested in Peter Pan specifically. The genesis of the story was more the idea of, well, at the time I was watching Apocalypse Now, and this idea of boy soldiers and the Lost Boys being in Vietnam, in a very surreal, very, very dark, psychedelic story. I told Kurtis that, and he was not interested in doing a Vietnam story at all; on top of which, it’s pretty hard for two Canadians to write a Vietnam story that will sell, I think. It might not come off the way we intended it to come off, you know? [Laughs]

So, we’d both been in love in studying about World War II and he thought it would fit better, so he started putting together all the pieces. Tonally it’s a completely different thing, but it fits way better with World War II. The goal was never, from my point of view, a love of the Peter Pan mythology at all, though; it was more the idea of those kind of iconic characters sitting in that world.

And I imagine that doing a war story is also appealing because there’s a lot of interesting visual elements to play with in there as well.

TJ: Oh, for sure.

Where did your interest and background in military items come from? Because obviously there’s a lot that you can study and work on specifically, whether it be tanks or uniforms or machines or weapons, anything like that.

TJ: Actually, me and my brothers — I have three brothers — for pretty much most of our lives have played historical war games, mostly focused around World War II. That’s kind of where my interest in that came from, with war games and tactics, everything about the history of war and the history of human conflict more than anything. Probably since I was 12 or 15, I’ve been seriously involved with reading and studying historical warfare.

Is there any particular era or story from history that you’ve always found appealing or fascinating?

TJ: Specifically? I would say, nothing specific; more, just the entire idea of human conflict. I find it really fascinating that there’s always so much talk of peace and that the natural way for humans to exist is in peace with one another, but that doesn’t seem to be true. We, in the last two thousand years, there’s some soem statistic that less than fifteen years of that entire time there wasn’t some major conflict, major war happening somewhere in the world. It doesn’t really speak to the idea that we are peaceful creatures. It’s more interesting that we are warring tribesman and that that has never really gone away.

The different mindsets particularly of people as they go into these conflicts, that’s probably what I find the most interesting. How different the world viewed going into World War I than going into World War II, and then Vietnam and Afghanistan. The idea behind war, the reasons for doing it and the romance to it has slowly been stripped away. That’s not a personal comment, that’s just the way it was; people went into World War I very romantically. The idea of marching off to war, heroes everyone… it has slowly been changed how we view the idea of human conflict.

So to prepare for “Peter Panzerfaust,” what kind of research did you do for the visual aspect of the book?

TJ: Not too much. I had obviously mentally a very clear idea of how I wanted it to feel. For each issue, for each thing I have to work on or draw, that takes specific references; a church, a Panzer, whatever. But overall, it was more how we wanted to represent the war aspects of it — and I didn’t want it to have a Saving Private Ryan look. I didn’t want it to feel like that. I wanted it to feel more like Kelly’s Heroes, that 60’s-70’s kind of feel to it where it’s still serious and it’s not taking an obnoxious tone about the war, but it wasn’t the ultra-gritty, realistic view, spending all its time focusing on the damage and mental anguish. It’s more about the characters living in this world as survivors, so we want to have some aspect of adventure here.

See, I think it’s interesting that you say that, that you’re trying to stray from the ultra gritty war archetype. Traditionally, Peter Pan is more about the children and how they’re in this amazing fantasy world, so I think it’s interesting how you dilineate between the two aspects of the story here.

TJ: I think that’s more important to us, to capture the emotional reality and the importance of these events than showing arms getting blown off, all that kind of stuff. All it adds is to the horror aspect, and those are sort of a superficial representation of what was truly horrifying about surviving in a war. It seems to be more important to focus on how the effect of losing a loved one is than losing your arm; it sounds callous having never lost either one, but that’s more of a true betrayal of what is important about these conflicts.

One thing that I like about “Peter Panzerfaust” is that, one of the things that’s really clear from the book is you growing and becoming more open with the series illustration as it goes on. Do you find that a relatively fair assessment?

TJ: Yeah, I would say so. I make a goal, every time I do a goal, I make a very specific goal of something that I’m going to focus on improving. There are issues where I’ll say, ok, the goal of this issue is to advance my understanding and my application of storytelling and page layouts. So I think you’re right, because I’m making a conscious effort to improve those specific things, to make them more suited to the story. Just to get better at everything, really.

And I also think that as the series goes on, it gets… well, “better” isn’t the right word, but you do a lot more in terms of iconic imagery. The Hook arc has all these amazing moments in it, I think, such as the one scene with Hook and Wendy in issue #8, and he’s asking her to dance.

TJ: With Wendy in the ballgown?

Right — and in terms of things you’re focusing on, where you’re making these iconic representations of characters or delivering these powerful moments, something that happens a lot in the second and third arc with these big, splash page moments, how do you approach those aspects of the story as opposed to the ones that are broken down into multiple panels?

TJ: They’re certainly not more difficult as far as including them, because more often than not those are just part of the scripts that Kurtis writes. Those moments, where you have a splash page of Wendy in the ballgown and all that, that is very much from the script; so it’s not more difficult for me, but Kurtis creates those scenes becase those iconic, impactful moments are important to the characters.

From the point of view of the art, I find it more difficult in that — Well, I don’t know if they’re more difficult. They’re equally as difficult as the rest of the pages, but certainly less difficult than covers. I find covers extremely challenging.

Why are the covers more challenging?

TJ: Because it’s not about the acting. My focus is, I love portraying the acting and the performances in the story, capturing emotion — whereas covers are more metaphorical, or iconic. They have to summarize. They’re not part of the narrative. I think that’s why I find them more difficult.

As you sort of spread things out, the second arc really ramps it up in the amount of panels per page count, certainly, and the third arc definitely. There’s that one sequence at the end of the third arc in issue #15, the memory sequence of the lost romance — there’s all these tiny moments so beautifully captured, it’s my favorite in the series so far. So is putting things into a bigger scale make it easier to capture emotion than the tiny ones, or is it vice versa?

TJ: I don’t know if it makes any difference to me, whether it’s a big moment or a little moment, or something that’s quiet and sweet or something that’s fear-oriented or action-oriented. I’m interested and enjoy drawing both.

When looking at the way the characters behave and their facial foibles, are you looking at anything specific in terms of the acting?

TJ: Myself in the mirror more than anything. [Laughs] And I suppose some of the performance is probably influenced by those old 60s-70s war movies, where they weren’t… they weren’t over-acted, but they were iconically acted, I think. The characters aren’t stereotypes, but heroes are heroes, you know? More than anything it’s about channeling my love of those older movies and watching myself in the mirror acting it out.

So more Night Train to Munich than Inglourious Basterds.

TJ: Yeah, much more like that. I enjoyed Inglourious Basterds, but it’d be more the opening scene I look at than all the nuttiness that came after it.

One thing I wanted to ask about, but I think these characters — Peter, Hook, Wendy — we all have these basic images of how we think these characters look like. And it’s partially due to Disney and Hook and the general illustrations found in any version of the JM Barrie novel. In creating your own Peter and your own Hook, was it difficult to get away from those previous ideas?

TJ: No. Actually, I didn’t find that a challenge at all. I mean, I’ve seen them and those movies, but they never really had much of a hold on me. I was never in love with the character of Peter Pan, he always came across as a real spoiled brat to me. Even in the Disney animated one. I would say my Peter Pan is more patterned off of, if we had to compare it to a Disney character, it’s more like Robin Hood where he’s a fox. Much closer to that kind of portrayal of a character, that sense of adventure, that sense of action and heroism and looking out for your fellow man. Emotionally, Peter Pan in a lot of these things is just incredibly selfish, seemingly, and chasing after adventure from a child-like point of view. Our Peter is a hero, closer to Indiana Jones and Han Solo, those actual hero archetypes.

So visually, there was no draw from those kinds of character designs. Obviously it has been pointed out in many reviews that a lot of the characters had visually similarities between them, and some of them were hard to tell apart. I think they only separated themselves over time, and the visuals became more clear as we learned who those characters were. Before we started the series, I did some character sketches and stuff like that. I suppose they didn’t capture where we went with the characters, though, because I feel like I didn’t know who they were when we started; we had to discover who they were, and the visuals separated naturally as they became more of their own character.

I think the visual look of them came just from who they were. There was nothing specific that I looked at for where these characters came from outside of them creating themselves from who they were, though that sounds kind of weird.

So before we move on to the current arc, the last general “Peter Panzerfaust” question that I have is that, especially in World War II, there’s so much imagery surrounding it — whether it be the posters or propoganda, famous photos and all. Have you tried to incorporate any of those specifically into the book? We talked earlier about iconic imagery and splash pages, and that sort of gets into the general idea, but there’s no direct references to Rosie the Riveter or anything like that.

TJ: I have tons of books on World War II and books on different aspects of World War II. Some of images are pulled from online, pulled from the era and the time period. But there’s nothing specific that is pulled from them other than the general feeling. You look at that kind of stuff and absorb it, and it comes out. There’s nothing that I looked and thought, oh, I’ll draw this building or that; it’s more like pictures of cities that have been bombed that I’ll take bits and pieces from and build into it. So no specific photographs to build from.

Exclusive first look at the fourth collection

The current arc, with a new issue out last week, you’d mentioned earlier that every time you work on a new issue there’s something you want to push yourselves towards, so what are you pushing yourself towards with the Tiger Lilly arc?

TJ: Specifically, #16 was a focus on drawing the characters with more detail, the buildings, the background, the setting — just adding in detail to all these things that make the scenes really come alive. #17, the one that came out last week, it was more of a continuation of that, the detail orienting, but this was more focused on the costumes and the cars and the props, as well as the setting. I’ve been learning when to drop backgrounds for impact, or when to incorporate more details.

That’s interesting, because I wanted to know if it was difficult to ascertain in which scenes less is more.

TJ: I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. It’s not a specific, conscious thing; it’s more saying, I want to make sure… I don’t know how to describe this without sounding stupid. I just want you to subconciously focus on something. I read an article, I can’t remember who said it — it might have been Frank Miller — but it was that you can teach how to draw, but you can’t teach storytelling. I agree with that, but you are able to get better at it, which is odd. So I think it’s about forcing yourself to be aware you’re doing these things, and it’s not a conscious action of dropping out the backdrop or adding it and more about how it feels. It’s not scientific at all. Does this feel right?

And also, part of it comes from composition. Like, what looks really cool, what will create something that is iconic and interesting and will get people’s attention. How do we focus attention on the right things here? What are the characters reacting to? Something interal, something external? If it’s internal, do we need a background? Does it say more about the character if we’re not focusing on what they’re reacting to?

It sounds like a bunch of nonsense, I’m sure.

No, no, it’s good! So, by now we have 17 issues and I’m sure you’ve done more, but this far into working on the series with Kurtis, how has the collaborative relationship evolved since back when you first did “Snow Angel”?

TJ: To tell the truth, I can not remember how things were with “Snow Angel.” [Laughs] I can’t remember! But it hasn’t evolved. It’s only got more easy to work with Kurtis, because of our shared interests. It’s funny, because we hardly ever like the same movies or the same comics, we don’t like the same books. We’re like polar opposites on almost everything — but I always know what he’s thinking and he always knows what I’m thinking. We’re so easily on the same page that I always know what he means. There’s only been, in 17 issues, once or twice where we disagreed over one or two panels. One specifically that stands in my mind, I can’t remember the issue, but they’re trying to escape and the boat is blown to smithereens, and they all survive and are under the water in the next issue. But I drew them in a tiny rowboat! If they were hit by a bomb in a rowboat they should’ve been obliterated, and I didn’t pick up on that. So that’s the only time I didn’t pick up what he intended.

But in terms of everything else, with storytelling, we talk through where we’re going, how we want this to feel, all the rest of it. I’m always on the same page as him and we know exactly what we’re trying to accomplish, and I know where’s going.

Have there been any particular things, in looking at this not as a strict adaptation or “Peter Pan” but more of the general idea, can you look at anything from the book and say, this is what I wanted to stray from “Peter Pan” the most?

TJ: Oh, yes, very specifically the character of Peter himself. Like I said, I did not want him and never did want him to come across as a selfish, spoiled, self-absorbed type of character. We wanted him to be a hero in the best sense of the word, the hero that really does lead, that really does take care of his troops and care for them. Someone that really is not there as a selfish endeavor. He really is a good person. That’s what I wanted. And it really is a battle between good and evil, and that’s where I wanted to stray from as much as possible from the original book and stories.

This is probably one of the worst questions in the world, but 17 issues in, with all these characters that you’ve now redefined and reimagined and all these things, is there any particular character that you find is your favorite?

TJ: Oh, for sure. I like different aspects of different characters, but Felix has always been a favorite character of mine. You know what’s funny? When I was doing the Felix arc and was asked that question, Felix was my favorite. And uneqivocally up until that point, Felix was my favorite. And now that we’ve seen more of Tiger Lilly and Julian, I have a hard time saying it’s not them. But I would still say that Felix is my favorite character.

My favorite characters to draw, though, is the Twins.

I would imagine those would be more difficult.

TJ: Actually, no. By far not. [Laughs] The Twins and Julian are probably the easiest to draw, and by far the hardest is Wendy. By far. Which is funny, because Tiger Lilly, I really enjoy drawing her. Maybe it’s just that I don’t know the character of Wendy as well as I know the character of Tiger Lilly. But, yeah, Wendy has always been the hardest to draw.

Looking forward into the series, is there anything you’re particularly looking forward to drawing, whether it be any specific moments from the classic story, any characters like, oh, I don’t know, the return of Croc perhaps…

TJ: No, not really. To tell you the truth, there are things I want to draw again, but the stuff I look forward to drawing the most is the character moments of all the characters. It’s not a specific thing or tank or whatever. I want to draw more airplanes, but that’s kind of shallow. I want to draw the characters, and what I look forward to the most is developing Wend and developing Peter and the rest of the characters. That’s what I look forward to the most by far, over anything else. And I never want to draw a wedding again. [Laughs]

I’d like to move onto this other thing that you’ve been teasing me with, but the problem is that I don’t know what it is. So I guess my first question is, what is this thing that you’ve been teasing me about over e-mail?

TJ: Well, there’s actually two. One I can tell you mostly about, and the other I can hardly say anything about.

I’ll tell you where it comes from. There’s been a lot of talk about the speed of artists, having books on the shelves and getting your name out there. There are very few artists that have that reputation of being able to put out a lot of content like Riley Rossmo, right? And my inspiration here is, like, Riley and Becky Cloonan who, regardless of working on all these titles that may be their “main thing,” they’re doing all this other stuff too. So a couple months ago, I did a short, single-issue 22-page viking story, and it’s going to be serialized in “Dark Horse Presents” in the summer. So that’s the first thing. I wrote it and lettered it and drew it, and the new colorist on “Peter Panzerfaust,” Kelly Fitzpatrick who took over with the new arc, and her coloring is phenomenal, so she’s coloring that for me as well. It’s called “The Chaining,” it comes out I believe in the middle of the summer.

And the other series, I’m actually starting a new series that will run concurrently with “Peter” through Dark Horse. But I can’t tell you anything about it other than I am working on a new mini-series with a totally different writer and team altogether.

You’re talking about your short is vikings again, and I can’t help but remember you mentioning that vikings was one of the first things you tried to do in comics, right?

TJ: Yeah, but it’s totally different. Strangely enough, until you just asked that question, I didn’t even connect it. [Laughs] This one is not a historical viking kind of thing, it’s more of a, well, it’s set in a viking-type world but it’s not historical. It’s just a story. No, it’s very quiet, but with some fighting. I just wanted to draw some vikings.

So you didn’t make the connnection before I made it, but obviously you seem to like vikings. Was it fun to go and explore that idea? Especially since vikings have a very rich mythology that’s pretty crazy, so there’s a lot to pull from.

TJ: You know, I’m probably just being unfair to vikings by calling it a viking story. It is visually a viking story, but it is probably, story-wise, more akin to a fantasy series. Even though there’s not any fantasy particularly in it, maybe, it’s much closer to that. It’s more like, as much as I hate to say, more like Game of Thrones than true, pure viking stuff. Whereas, the viking story Kurtis and I did before was a historical story about vikings that actually existed.

Interesting. And, you can’t say anything about the other Dark Horse comic?

TJ: [Laughs] I’m sworn to secrecy.

Is there anything that you can semi-tease, or is it just that it is a book and that it will exist?

TJ: It is a book, and it will exist. [Laughs] And it’s, ok, I think it’s as far away from “Peter Panzerfaust” tonally as possible. It’s completely a different world.

We had sort of talked about how your art style has evolved since the beginning of “Peter Panzerfaust” and that now in the fourth arc it’s so much more open and playful, especially with layouts. Is that something you’re hoping to explore more in these other books, and playing with the design elements? Are you approaching the new projects in a different way than you approach “Peter Panzerfaust”?

TJ: Completely different, actually. “The Chaining,” it’s nothing like “Peter”; it does not have a sense of adventure, it’s about personal bravery rather than heroic bravery. It’s about meeting one’s end with bravery, with nothing heroic about it. Tonally it’s completely different, so visually it’s also very different. It’ll be out in three installments, and if “Peter” is intended to be a little more flamboyant, this is very grounded and cold.

The other mini will be, again, stylistically and tonally completely different, much wilder and looser. I actually am really looking forward to it, and that’s why I wanted to do these different things. every time I step away from “Peter” and work on something else, every time I do that, I come back to “Peter” way stronger. Stepping out and working on the viking thing, the “Peter” pages just fell into place; I’d broken bad habits that had built up over 15 issues of working on “Peter.” Things I saw that I hated, all these little bad habits of drawing and staging things, stepping away just allowed me to stray from those bad habits and come back to it with fresh eyes. So every time I do a new project, everything else just gets stronger.

“Peter Panzerfaust” #17 is on sale now. You can also find Tyler in the “In the Dark” anthology soon, with a short story written by Justin Jordan and colored by Kelly Fitzpatrick.