David Petersen

David Petersen (born July 4, 1977) is an American comic book creator best known for the series Mouse Guard.

Early life

David Petersen was influenced by animated television series such as The Transformers.

He declared:

When it comes to story telling, I’m a big fan of Mike Mignola and Frank Miller. Although Mouse Guard doesn’t look like either of their work. My ink work is something that comes from my printmaking background, something you don’t associate with comics, but after seeing some folks like Rick Geary and Gary Gianni doing comics in styles with line quality different than traditional comics, I knew I could incorporate it as well." I have long been a fan of classic adventure stories and at one time planned on doing a cross between an adventure story and an anthropology experiment with only animals natural to the same habitat as the main characters. It gave me a problem of coming up with story devices and plot to keep everyone from simply eating each other. It more closely resembled Disney's Robin Hood than Mouse Guard. In giving the mice a leg up, the idea of the mouse guard and how the mice hide themselves away became the most interesting focus. I quickly shifted all attention to their story. In doing so have drawn from some of my favorite creators and their work including Mike Mignola, Frank Miller, Kenneth Grahame, E. H. Shepard, and Rick Geary.

Petersen originally attended Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, and then transferred to Eastern Michigan University, where he earned his degree in Fine Arts.

Career

The first Mouse Guard mini-series established the Guard's origin. Future series were intended to feature more character development, and greater exposition of the book's setting and history.

The story and characters of 1149, which was to be later known as Mouse Guard, originally involved several different types of animals, but during college Petersen reexamined his story and transformed it from the culture of the several other species into the story of life as mice living a sheltered civilization that only walked the open wild if a specialized mouse group escorted them: the Mouse Guard. After establishing the culture of these mice, Petersen felt that the rest of the animal cultures were only distractions for what he felt the real heart of the story would be: "the mice overcoming the obstacles of being in a world too big for them".