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Christendom College alumnus finds love and a movie deal thanks to ‘Zita the Spacegirl’

Ashleigh Buyers | Catholic Herald

Cartoonist Ben Hatke draws a sketch of “Zita the Spacegirl” in his studio in Front Royal May 17. ASHLEIGH BUYERS | CATHOLIC HERALD

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As many parents know, all kids come into the world ready to draw,
but as the years pass each child reaches a point where they make a choice — to
draw or not to draw. It was never a question for comic artist and arrow
enthusiast Ben Hatke, who doodled his way through many a grade school and high
school class, filling the margins with grand adventures.

His dad was an architect at Purdue University in Indiana and his
mom took him and his two sisters to the library regularly. When the young boy
discovered newspaper comics such as Calvin and Hobbes, it was love at first
sight.

Now, many pounds of pencil lead and paper later, the Christendom
grad and father of five has made a career out of “drawing in class.” For nearly
two decades, he has illustrated comics, Seton Home Study School textbooks,
children’s books and graphic novels.

The rights to his first graphic novel,Zita the Spacegirl, was
picked up recently by Fox Animation for a movie and there is hope that one day Hatke’s
brave characters will make it to the big screen. Zita the Spacegirl chronicles
the adventures of young Zita as she braves the unknown in pursuit of her friend
who vanished after pushing a mysterious red button. The story, and subsequent
trilogy, became a hit with readers who have become big fans of Hatke’s work.
What many of the fans don’t know, however, is that Zita was not Hatke’s idea.

The secret back story of Zita the Spacegirl

“I feel like I’m always coming clean when I tell this story,”
said Hatke, as he sat next to his desk, covered with pens, paper, tiny action
figures and a Madonna and child statue. “I stole the idea from this cute girl I
met at Christendom College. She had done these series of short little comics
when she was in high school about this future girl named Zita so I was like,
‘I’m going to develop this character.’” The admirer from Indiana gave Zita a
new outfit and added a green cape. He then presented his crush with a whole
Zita comic book.

“This plan of impressing this girl totally worked because she
married me and here I am with my five daughters and Anna is still putting up
with my crazy artistic ways,” he said.

According to Hatke, Anna chose the name Zita after St. Zita, who
was the patroness of the region where Anna’s father grew up in a village in
Italy.

“(St. Zita) is a beautiful saint because she is not dramatic. She
was a serving girl to a wealthy family and she was just known for being kind to
poor people and baking really great bread and giving it away,” Hatke said. “In
a time period when many of the saints were priests or religious, she was a lay
saint. She just lived a really good life.”

Inspiration from the past and present

From the very beginning of Hatke’s career, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.
Tolkien have been favorite storytelling influences. But while his style is
similar to The Chronicles of Narnia, Hatke tends to favor the storytelling
philosophy of Tolkien, who was against making a story too message driven.

“The most important thing is that you are telling a good story
and if you are being honest in your good storytelling then what you think and
feel and believe about the world will come out in that story and become
apparent.”

One thing that’s become more apparent in Hatke’s work is the
influence of his family.

“I had a reason to look back in my stack of books, and it was
shocking just how much of my interior life and psychology life comes out,
especially in the Jack books,” he said. In his latest graphic novel Mighty Jack,
released in 2016, the main character’s house is identical to Hatke’s and the
similarities do not stop there.

“I grew up with sisters. I now have daughters and Jack also is
surrounded by these different feminine characters who are pulling him in
different directions. I didn’t even notice I was doing it until I read it in a
review and then I was like, ‘Oh man, this is me.’”

Anna and the girls play an important role as his first line of
editorial support. The girls like to check on their dad at work and sometimes
he will test a joke on them. If it goes over their heads he knows to try again.

One night when he was working on the third Zita book, Hakte felt
he finally had a good story and told it to the girls during homemade pizza
night.

 “I was telling the story
and I got three quarters of the way through and I was like this is getting
late, why don’t we eat our dinner and finish up and they were like ‘No! No!
Finish the story now!’ And I knew this was working,” Hatke said with a smile.
He relies a lot on Anna’s advice. They discuss developing projects when they
are driving around town.

“Just having someone who knows me and has a grasp of good
storytelling is really helpful,” he said.

Drawing in Class

There are times, however, that motivation jumps ship and abandons
even the best creative minds in the midst of looming deadlines. One of the ways
Hatke has learned to get through these dry periods is through small side
projects, also known as “goofing-off”or “drawing in class.” His book Little
Robot started out as a series of comic strips that he made during a time when
he definitely had more important things to do. It turned into a book and won
the 2016 Eisner Award for best publication for early readers.

“It has ended up being one of the books that is so important to
me and it came because I was just ‘goofing-off,’” he said.

With every passing year it becomes harder for Hatke to have that
feeling of drawing during class. Thankfully, social media has provided some
interesting outlets, especially Instagram. He is working on a series of
mermaids, much to the delight of his girls who look forward to seeing his
colorful nautical creations confined to their tiny square canvases.

When it comes to the future of his books such as Zita and Mighty
Jack, Hatke has come to realize that he has a serious problem with happily ever
after.

“For me if you love a set of characters, the happiest ending
would be ‘and they kept having adventures forever.’ The problem with that is
that people are like ‘well, what are the adventures?’”

Hatke assures readers that they have not seen the last of Zita,
but she will be a little older when they meet again.

With great talent comes …

The rising popularity in his books and the possible movie has
reminded Hatke about the responsibility writers have to their young audience.
He equates it to the responsibility felt by a favorite arachnid-bitten
superhero of his.

“I’m so thankful and so grateful that I’ve wandered into this
position that I really can share stories with people in this way,” he said.
“Having a voice and a young audience comes with a lot of responsibility, but
also a lot of joy and a lot of excitement. The harder and more contentious
times are, the more serious the role of the artist is in the world.”

 

Find out more

Check out Ben Hatke’s new book Mighty Jack and the Goblin King, in bookstores September 5th. See more of Hatke’s work at benhatke.com or on Instagram
@heybenhatke.

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