Mouse Guard week: David Petersen talks Legends of the Guard

In May, Archaia will launch the “Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard” anthology.  This four-issue limited series is Mouse Guard’s first comic-book spin-off, and will feature tales from Gene Ha, Guy Davis, Jeremy Bastian and Ted Naifeh.   “Mouse Guard” creator David Petersen will provide covers and chapter breaks.

NERDAGE: Can you tell me about some of the people you’re working with on “Legends of the Guard”?

DAVID PETERSEN: Jeremy Bastian is one of the ones who kind of inspired the project in the first place.  He’s a buddy of mine.  He did a pinup for the first series and he just does amazing work.  I said to him when he turned in his pinup, you’re welcome to come play in the Mouse Guard world whenever you want.

Jeremy Bastian, Gene Ha, Ted Naifeh of Courtney Crumrin fame, and he also did Polly and the Pirates.  Some of the names Archaia is holding back on for now because we’re waiting to get confirmation on scheduling.

NERDAGE: Just the names out there so far seem like a pretty all-star cast.

PETERSEN: Mark Smylie is also one that as long as the schedules can allow, Mark does a book at Archaia called Artesia.  And he was another one that when he turned in his pinup, I was just, I felt like he got it, he understood what mouse guard was, and it was him and Jeremy that kind of got the thing going.

My initial push was to try to find creators who are both artists and storytellers, just like I am.  I do everything on Mouse Guard, and I know that there are other people out there who do that on their own books.  And I thought, those are people who are in the same mindset of what I do for Mouse Guard.   So I think that’d be good to bring them on, to do their own stories.  I’m going to be doing covers, and then I do pages in between their stories.   The setup is that it’s a storytelling competition at a tavern in the Mouse Guard world.

NERDAGE: And as such, you don’t have to worry about interfering with continuity, because they could just be tall tales.