This interview came up in my local newspaper the other day and I thought I'd share it with my fellow CBMers. Kate Leth is a familiar face in the local Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada comic scene, working at the local Strange Adventures comic shop. She also pens her own web comic, 'Kate or Die!' and is one of a few writers who works on Adventure Time. The newspaper spoke with her on her upcoming Land of Ooo graphic novel, 'Seeing Red'.
Family reunions are emotional occasions at the best of times, but imagine if you’re a centuries-old teenage vampire, attending one accompanied by a shape-shifting dog. Especially when your dad is the overseer of a nightmarish underworld.
This was the task laid out for Halifax comics artist and writer Kate Leth, a member of the roster of creators working on Adventure Time Comics, the popular print offshoot of the Cartoon Network — and Teletoon, in Canada — hit series about the escapades of a brave boy named Finn and his rubber-bodied dog Jake in the magical Land of Ooo.
Creator of the online comic Kate or Die! (kateordiecomics.com), Leth’s latest Adventure Time assignment is her biggest one yet, writing the third Land of Ooo graphic novel Seeing Red. Debuting in comic book stores on March 5, the book focuses on her favourite character, Marceline the Vampire Queen, a musical and emotional young woman with an ancient soul on a mission to visit her relatives and retrieve her axe (literally, it’s an axe-shaped guitar) from the Dante’s Inferno-esque Nightosphere.
Seeing Red is a big deal in the world of Adventure Time, and Leth is taking a break from her day job working at Halifax’s award-winning Strange Adventures Comics Store to travel to Texas this week on her first book tour, followed by March trips to MegaCon in Orlando, Fla.; Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, Wash.; and the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. And of course she’ll also be signing copies at Strange Adventures on Wednesday, March 5, and Saturday, March 8, and also any time she happens to be working a shift behind the counter.
Hooked on Archie comics at an early age — “I read them ravenously,” she says over coffee around the corner from her west-end apartment — Leth also loved TV shows like Rugrats and The Powerpuff Girls, and the whimsical online series Homestar Runner, set in an animated fantasyland that would influence Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward.
A big fan of successful Nova Scotia comics artists like Kate Beaton and Faith Erin Hicks, Leth began doing promotional art for Strange Adventures, which blossomed into her online strip and freelance assignments.
“(Kate Beaton) was this person who was putting all this stuff out there, and no real formal art school training, but was doing really well with her work,” Leth says of the Hark! A Vagrant creator. “That was inspirational for me to think that I could try that, and it just picked up and kept going once I got started.”
Examples of Leth’s Adventure Time fan art on her Tumblr page attracted the attention of publishers KaBOOM! Studios, who already had a Halifax connection in artist Mike Holmes (True Story, Mikenesses), and she was asked to do a cover for a miniseries spinoff featuring Marceline and the Scream Queens. That was soon followed by more covers and a backup story about the most disturbing denizen of the Land of Ooo, Lemongrab, a citrus-headed misanthrope who she describes as “pure nightmares, a terrifying character.”
Working with artist Zack Sterling on Seeing Red, Leth finds herself putting a lot of her own personality into Marceline, a character who can either be sweet, evil or a badass, depending on the situation. The hard part is finding the vampire’s age-old human heart.
“Oh yeah, for sure,” nods Leth, who was also thrilled by the chance to create the origin of Marceline’s guitar. “She’s an angst-y Goth; years ago I was an angst-y Goth. I’m blond right now, but I’m still dark at heart. If Adventure Time had existed when I was a teen, she would have been my favourite character.
“When I was writing outfits for her into the script, I could just take from what I’ve worn, and that was really fun to do. She’s wearing elbow patches on one of her sweaters for one big part of the story, and that’s definitely me. But the whole book is about her complicated relationship with her family, so you take things from personal experience.”
The genius of Adventure Time is that it is one of those rare creations that can be enjoyed by viewers and readers from 8 to 48, in subtle ways that change as they get older. Leth feels Marceline’s family struggles will ring most true with fans in their teens and 20s, and add extra layers of meaning to a world that on the surface is about boyhood quests, wilful princesses and silly wizards.
“I’m really excited about the kids that are going to read it and enjoy it. I know it’s mainly adults that are going to review it and write about it on various websites, but it’s more important that 12-year-olds will like it.
“I’m excited and nervous about that; those are the critics that I care about.”
Source: The Chronicle Herald
Article by: Stephen Cooke
http://thechronicleherald.ca/artslife/1190008-graphic-novelist-hooked-on-comics
http://twitter.com/kateleth
-Nibs