Ben Wickey and Fab Four Enchanters!

Art by Ben Wickey

Last December I posted an interview with the amazing BEN WICKEY, the artist behind the "Old Moores' Lives of the Great Enchanters" stories contained in Alan Moore & Steve Moore's The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic. You can read it HERE.

Well, we are back again with Ben! This time I selected four Enchanters and he told me the secrets of their biographic pages starting from... the original art he created! Enjoy!

(Grazie mille, Ben!)

 

For more info about Ben Wickey visit: Instagram - IMDB

If you are interested in Wickey's art, included the Enchanters, visit his Etsy shop! 

Highly recommended!

ALEISTER CROWLEY 

(Enchanter n. 37, page 243)

Ben Wickey: The Crowley page was perhaps the most daunting, from a drafting and coloring standpoint. The preliminary inked-up version seen here looks simple enough. This page has more tiers than any other and so fitting the images with the many text boxes took a while to plan. Alan's thumbnail sketch was straightforward, except for the fact that he didn't specify where to fit all that text! It was left up to me, and I hope I did a decent job.
In the final tier, you can see Crowley on his deathbed, and blue lightning is disturbing the window curtains. This is based on a story I had heard in an interview with Crowley's final partner, Deirdre McClellan, who described seeing the curtains blowing across the room and hearing a giant peel of thunder just after Crowley's death, "which is, I think, the gods greeting him."

 

*****

AUSTIN OSMAN SPARE 

(Enchanter n. 40, page 246)

Ben Wickey: This page is perhaps my favorite of the Great Enchanters, only in that it is totally unique among the rest. Without a single drop of ink, I drew the entire thing with a very sharp pencil. I was trying to get a sense of Spare's style. Once scanned, I digitally added an overlay layer of old parchment over the drawing and then etched on top of that, pulling the highlights out. I rather liked the result. Notice William Blakes' face among the clouded jumble of "past lives" Spare was endeavoring to access with his art.

 *****

H.P. LOVECRAFT

(Enchanter n. 42, page 248)

Ben Wickey: This preliminary art for the Lovecraft page of the Great Enchanters shows the "bare bones" of what I wanted to achieve later digitally. Because the paper I was working on was so small (as I could not then afford a bigger scanner) I wanted to get the essential ink and graphite textures down first, and then add more Lovecraftian detail when I could digitally zoom in. As a New Englander, who grew up in the same settings as many of Lovecraft's stories, there are many details I wanted to get right, however small. Through Lovecraft's window in the first panel, I digitally drew the left-hand side of the home of Sarah Helen Whitman, the poet who at one time had been temporarily engaged to Edgar Allan Poe shortly before his death. I also hid the Cathedral of St. John, adjacent to Whitman's house, the churchyard of which served as a place of courtship between Poe and Whitman.
In panel 2, I wanted the Cthulhu looming over the authors to more resemble Lovecraft's original sketch of the Cthulhu idol: a rather portly, frumpy fellow with three eyes on either side of his bulbous head.
Other elements on this page like Lovecraft's grave were things that I wanted to achieve in a somewhat photorealistic way, since they are objects and places that can still be visited. In panel 4, I digitally added houses behind Lovecraft that I associated with his work: on the left I drew the Bowen House in Marblehead, MA, which was mentioned in Lovecraft's story, The Festival, and on the right I drew the house of my friend, Bill, in Salem, MA. Bill is a big Lovecraft fan, so I wanted to surprise him.

 ***** 

WILLIAM BURROUGHS

(Enchanter n. 47, page 267)

Ben Wickey: This one seemed very natural to me. As I said in our previous interview, I have been drawing William Burroughs since I was a teenager. The portrait in the final panel was especially a delight, as I got to draw him as I had always had. In high school I did a big pen-and-ink drawing of Burroughs as the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, which still seems rather appropriate considering he's speaking cryptically while smoking a hookah. Getting to draw Burroughs for a magical grimoire was therefore a profound experience, and felt like I was completing a circle.
The people behind Burroughs in panel 2, watching the infamous "William Tell act" that caused the death of his wife Joan, are based on the actual photographs taken by the Mexican press. I found a lot of pictures of the witnesses just after the event happened, and drew them into the scene to create what (I hope) is a historically-authentic depiction. I also found the name and likeness of the Shaman who exorcised the "ugly spirit" from Burroughs. It was also fun to draw Alan Ginsberg four different times in this book, at various stages of his life.

If you like, you can read it in Italian on Quasi magazine, HERE!

Ben Wickey: An Extraordinay Enchanter

Steve Moore & Alan Moore. From the Bumper Book of Magic.

I am extremely proud and honored to present here an exclusive interview with the amazingly multi-talented BEN WICKEY, the extraordinary artist of the "Old Moores' Lives of the Great Enchanters" stories contained in The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic. 

For more info about Ben Wickey visit: Instagram - Etsy - IMDB

 

Grazie mille, Ben, for your Art and for your kindness and availability! I can't wait to read your More Weight graphic novel!

 

All art included in this post is by Ben Wickey, unless otherwise indicated.

smoky man: Your name in the Bumper Book could be a "surprise" of sort for the readers. Of course, you did a fantastic work on those enchanters! So, could you present yourself? I mean, I know that you are from New England, an animator with a strong fascination for Edward Gorey and for weird tales. And that you are working on a graphic novel about the Salem witch trials...

Ben Wickey: I can understand how my name, previously included in small publications only, would appear a surprise to any comics fans picking up their copy of this long-awaited book. I could even say that no one was more surprised than myself! By way of introduction, I am an illustrator, animator, and writer from Cape Ann, a peninsula in Massachusetts. My stop-motion animated films include Ray Bradbury's The Homecoming (2017) and The House of the Seven Gables (2018). I was also an animator/animation assistant for the 2021 film Marcel The Shell with Shoes On. For the past ten years I have been the animator for Christopher Seufert's long-awaited documentary GOREY, focusing on the life of Edward Gorey. My illustrations can be found in books such as The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, written by Stanshall's widow and my close friend, Ki Longfellow, Supper with the Stars, a Vincent Price cookbook, and now Alan Moore and Steve Moore's The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic. My own 400+ page comic book, More Weight, which attempts to be a historically accurate depiction of the Salem witch trials and their troubling aftermath, is slated to be released by Top Shelf Productions in late 2025. 

Frame from Ray Bradbury's The Homecoming film.

How did you get involved with the Bumper Book? When did you start working on it?

In December 2019, I was 24 years old and in a state of discouragement with regard to More Weight. It was my first attempt at a long-form comic book, and I had hit a wall. And so, I wrote Alan Moore a letter, and sent it to him without thinking that I would get any response back. It should be noted that I did not send Alan this letter because I was working on a comic book, but because the book's main character, Giles Corey, was born in the Boroughs of Northampton, England. Corey was actually baptised in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which still stands today. Anyone who knows anything about Alan knows how important that small area is to him, and how it is the center of his magnificent novel Jerusalem. I even remember a small mention of Giles Corey in that novel, as well as in Providence later on. Giles Corey, who was pressed to death in Salem in 1692 after refusing to speak at his witchcraft hearing, seemed to me as the prototypical Northampton anarchist that Alan would be proud of. It can even be said that Corey's gruesome death, (during which he apparently shouted "more weight!"), was one of the first documented protests in American history. These were the things which I discussed in my small letter. A month later, an email appeared from Alan's marvelous assistant, containing Alan's reply: a longer letter than what I had initially sent him! It was also one of the most kind, generous, and encouraging letters I've ever received. In addition to some fantastic advice, he expressed a wish to read More Weight when it was ready. At this time, I had considered chopping the book into serialized zines.

The Moores' scripts!

Excerpts from the Moores' scripts.

In February 2020, I moved to Los Angeles with my now-wife. We had just begun animation on Marcel The Shell with Shoes On when the pandemic hit. Stuck in quarantine, along with the rest of the world, I decided to compile the first half of More Weight into a small, self-published book. There were only about 10 copies made, and I sent one to Alan Moore, along with a copy of The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall. Apparently, Alan liked both books very much, but I didn't know just how much until March, 2021, when his assistant emailed me to ask whether or not I had the time or interest to illustrate the 50 Great Enchanters for the Bumper Book of Magic.

At first, I could not allow myself to believe that I had been given all 50 Enchanters, even though the email was far from cryptic in that respect. Somehow I thought, "oh, Alan's given me one of the fifty! Probably John Dee, considering how much of my work in More Weight contains bearded 17th century men and those post-medieval diamond-paned windows. How cool to have done ONE page of comics for Alan Moore!" Then I read the email again and realized (with great excitement) that I had in fact been chosen to do all fifty. I had been eagerly anticipating that book's release like everyone else, and had assumed that every artist had already been picked for it. Since I had first written to Alan while he was very publicly retiring from the comics medium, it never once occurred to me that he would actually give me a job!

Alan has maintained that the final League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Volume IV: The Tempest) was his last bow in the comics world. Of course, I have to respect that. Although this is not Alan Moore's final comic book, (indeed, not inherently a comic book at all), I can at least say that my comic book pages are among the last to be published in an Alan Moore book. In Beatles terms, I guess it's sort of an Abbey Road/Let It Be situation. In either case, it's been one of the top thrills and honors of my admittedly small career.

Making-of Lives of The Great Enchanters episode 2.

Did Alan provide you with full script for each one-page story or did you follow a different approach? I noticed that there are no speech balloons or sounds and that the whole narrative is dictated by captions...

Yes, I received a full script once my first two "demo" Enchanters were approved. These were "The Dancing Sorcerer" and "The Persian Magi." Once these were approved, Knockabout's Tony Bennett ( a lovely guy) sent me the subsequent 48 scripts as PDFs. Printing them out nearly broke my printer! For 50 pages of comics, there were about 250 pages of script, co-written by Alan and Steve. I can still remember giddily running home from the office supply store with a giant, purple three-ring binder to contain this massive script. Each panel was meticulously described, with additional reference photos for faces, clothing, and locations. Pretty much everything the Moores had in mind wound up in the script, which was immensely valuable and helpful for me. I rather prefer a lot of direction than not enough, especially with now only one Moore to answer to. Throughout the entire process, Steve Moore was very present in the script, and I hope my final illustrations were true to what he had envisioned. From about the 28th Enchanter to the 50th, the scripts included rough thumbnail drawings which Alan had done, which were also greatly illuminating. The only real challenge I had was figuring out where all the text boxes were going to fit! 

Making-of Lives of The Great Enchanters episode 12.

Lives of Great Enchanters covers, well, thousands of years of human history and tons of historical and mythological figures. I think you had to do tons of research... Which enchanter mentioned in the Bumper Book is your favourite, in general? Which one was more difficult to handle? Which one was more fun to draw? In general, how did it work?

Since the script for my Great Enchanters pages had been written by Alan and Steve prior to 2014, I realized that perhaps there was now information online which had been unavailable to them at the time.  An example of this would be the MacGregor Mathers page, which shows Aleister Crowley, (in a Scottish Black Watch uniform and Osiris mask), approaching W.B. Yeats at the entrance to the Golden Dawn's London headquarters. The Moores' script had asked for only a black-half mask for Crowley, but my additional research had revealed that he was wearing an Osiris mask. I tried to inject into every panel of  the "Great Enchanters"  pages the same love of research and historical accuracy which I had strived for in More Weight. To me, that was one of the most fun aspects to doing these pages, and one I never tired of. 

 

Since about half of the "Great Enchanters" require caricatures of people which we have some record of, whether from portraits, photographs, or film footage, I knew that it was necessary to apply that same caricatured look to people of the ancient and medieval periods too. I therefore designed specific faces for the early Enchanters, to provide a continuity once the faces become more well-known. For someone like Roger Bacon, who was born in 1214, my only references for what he looked like are either vague engravings or posthumous sculptures. So I'd cherry-pick noses, mouths and eyes from each depiction, and design composite likenesses to then caricature. My main hope was to make these historic figures seem real and specific. 

Making-of Lives of The Great Enchanters episode 26 focused on William Blake.

Also, the "Great Enchanters" pages strayed into areas in which I already had some interest. I had been drawing William S. Burroughs' face, for instance, since I was about 14, so I felt especially prepared for that particular page. I was already a big fan of Iain Sinclair's writing, so the Bumper Book gave me a great excuse to contact him. According to Alan and Steve's script, Sinclair was born a "blue baby" in Cardiff, Wales, during a 1943 air raid, and his first breath was apparently made possible by his father accidentally dropping pulp fiction crime novels on his head. Iain Sinclair not only corroborated the story, but gave me key details which the script lacked. The book which had fallen on his head was W.B.M. Ferguson's Crackerjack, and his birthplace looked over the Scott Memorial Lighthouse at Roath Park Lake, which still exists. These were personal details which I just HAD to get right, especially since Sinclair is the only living Great Enchanter in the book. Sinclair and I have collaborated on book projects since, I'm proud to say. 

 

I am interested in some technical aspects. Did you create the pages on paper, with an analog approach or digitally? Was it a mix? In case of analog, did you use acrylics, watercolors, or? How much time did you spent, averagely, on each page? Did you do the lettering too? I love it...

I would design the layout for each page on the computer first, so that I would know where and how the text would fit in each panel. All of the art for my "Great Enchanters" pages began as pen-and-ink illustrations with graphite shading and, occasionally, gray washes. I'd use a variety of pens on rough watercolor paper so as to give it that inky, "toothy" texture. Then I would scan each page and upload the art into a prepared Photoshop file. The coloring and hand-lettering were all done digitally by hand on a Wacom Cintiq. By lettering digitally, I could zoom into the page and write each word bigger than they appear on the page, so that my hand wouldn't cramp up or get sloppy from hand-writing all those small letters! The coloring was digital only because I'm nitpicky and enjoy making minor adjustments to brightness and shadows and highlights.

Script excerpt & layout for Lives of The Great Enchanters episode 37 focused on Aleister Crowley.

Only in the William Blake page did I use physical watercolors. I am a massive devotee of Blake's, and I tried to replicate the look of his coloring style for his page. All my Blake art books were out on the table as I dived into that world. I even inked everything in sepia just to make it extra Blakean. It was quite an adventure!

Also, in the Solomon page, I sculpted and painted a clay maquette of the demon Asmodeus. Since he shows up in Jerusalem as a demonic guide through the 4th dimension, it made sense to have a 3D depiction of him in a 2D drawing. I keep the sculpture locked away in a drawer of my drawing table, in case he tries to escape.

Making-of Lives of The Great Enchanters episode 40 focused on Austin Osman Spare.

What's about the feedback from Alan? Did you send him the wip pages or what? Did you discuss things before doing the pages or during the process? Did Alan ask for any correction or modification?

Aside from the encouragement relayed to me via his assistant every time I'd send out a new batch of pages, the best response from Alan came in the form of a Christmas card in 2021 when I was about halfway through the Enchanters. The card simply said: "PS: THE GREAT ENCHANTERS ARE ENCHANTING!" We've sent each other Christmas cards every year since, I'm happy to say. Alan really is one of the sweetest and jolliest collaborators —and friends— I could ever hope to have. 

Panel from a special page that Wickey created as a gift for Moore's 70th birthday.

Moore on Aleister Crowley

Young Crowley. Art by Eddie Campbell. From From Hell chapter n.9.

Excerpt from "An authentic fake - A pubside chat with Alan Moore and Peter Whitehead" by R.F. Paul published in Esoterra n.6 in 1996.

Do you consider yourself a Thelemite?

Alan Moore: Not entirely. I have got a lot of sympathy with Crowley's vision. I think he was the 20th century's magickal equivalent of Einstein. But I think that the Thelemite ideal was probably true for Crowley at that time. It doesn't feel true for me at this time. I will still take a lot of his ideas, a lot of his thinking and work it into my own scheme of things. But it wouldn't be fair for me to say that I was a Thelemite because I have problems with some aspects of it.

What aspects?

AM: For example, the most famous of Thelemic utterances, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." Now, I've got no problem with that nor with the definition of Magick as "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will." Except that it seems to place too much emphasis on the will. In my experience of Magick, it is often spontaneous, it has got nothing to do with the will of the person who is allegedly practicing it. Things sometimes just happen. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes things happen that are completely different than those things you willed to happen or expected to happen, but its often a more satisfying magickal experience because of that. To me placing the will of the magician above the universe, although I'd expect Crowley to do that, is not the way that I feel about things. I feel its more my duty to bring my will into line with the universe rather than the other way around. Looking at the two factors involved in that equation - me and the universe - you know, I'm still in a position, perhaps unlike Crowley, where I think the universe is probably the senior partner in that relationship. I'm not dissing Crowley, I'm not knocking him. . .
Peter Whitehead: A sleeping partner?
AM: Well, no, it plays a very active role in the relationship actually. . .
PW: You put up the capital.
AM: (laughs) A certain amount of Crowley's stuff seems predicated on Crowley's personality. There is his thinking, which is often wonderful, illuminating and brilliant. There is also Crowley's ego, which was probably formulated by this strange Plymouth Brethren upbringing and the pressures which that must have put on him to assert himself. And I see Crowley's personality and aspects of it, which I probably wouldn't like if he were sitting opposite of me now. And there's a lot that I would like about the guy. But certain aspects I wouldn't like and I sometimes see those aspects coloring the doctrines of the Thelemites. For example, take the Book of the Law. I mean, its a beautiful piece of prose. I have no problem accepting that it was channeled from somewhere. However, I have to note some strong similarities between the world-view of the Angel Aiwaz and the world-view of Aleister Crowley himself. Now, I would say that to me, these entities are very often distinct, separate entities from us, and they also are us at the same time. Now, from that point of view, while Crowley is certainly the most important magician of the 20th Century there is stuff in his personality which he never managed to resolve. Looking at his life objectively, I'd have to say that, without trying to be judgemental. His last words were, "I am perplexed." It was not as smooth a ride as sometimes he tried to portray it as. And inasmuch as those elements of Crowley's personality do pervade his thinking, that's where I'd have to draw the line and part company with Thelema. Does that sound halfway reasonable to you?

Yes. Sure. Even though the "I am perplexed" quote is bullshit.

AM: Is that apocryphal?

Yeah. Apocryphal bunk.

AM: I wonder what he did say. "I am perfect", perhaps?