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Mark Ricketts can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound. He doesn’t have X-ray vision. And he wears neither a cape nor tights.
Though he does look preternaturally young for his 51 years, he’s not immortal, either.
But a glance at the graphic novels and comic books that line the wall of his Bangor studio reveals that Ricketts does, indeed, have super powers. Armed with a pen, a sketchpad and a Mac, he might not be able to save the world from the forces of evil, but he’s doing his best to keep boredom, ill humor and mediocrity at bay.
“The kind of art I do is the kind of art you learn on the street,” he explained recently at his Bangor home. “These days, colleges are teaching sequential art, but you’re supposed to learn this stuff on the street.”
That said, he has training. But he also has talent, and for more than 25 years, Ricketts has put it to work for such nationally known illustration clients as McGraw Hill and Playboy. He’s written for Marvel and Dark Horse comics. He’s well-known in graphic-novel circles – he even contributed a piece to one of Mike Mignola’s “Hellboy” books.
But his latest venture focuses on heroes of a different kind entirely – the cats that came to what is now Maine as early as 1500. They served as ratters at sea. On land, they kept mice out of grain stores along the Kenduskeag Stream. During the lumber boom, they came from all over the world. As legend has it, Marie Antoinette’s cats ended up in Wiscasset.
Now, cats of all stripes (and spots) are immortalized in Ricketts’ “Queen City Kitties: The Cats of Bangor, Maine” a calendar that features fabulous felines through the ages.
“They’re really important to history,” he said. “In my imagination, where do aristocratic cats go but the Queen City?”
The project, whose cover art is a riff on Andrew Wyeth’s iconic “Christina’s World,” combines Ricketts’ love for regional history with his love for cats. There’s a pipe-smoking puss-in-suspenders on the waterfront. A horrified Jellicle Cat runs away from Stephen King’s house. A tabby in a nurse’s uniform stands in front of BMHI.
As Ricketts described the calendar on a recent morning, his cat Cocoa walked by, tail in the air, clearly disinterested in the conversation.
“They have a mind of their own,” he said, smiling. “They do what they want, really. They domesticated themselves. They decided that’s where they wanted to be. It was easier and they just moved in.”
Ricketts, on the other hand, moved in because this is where his wife wanted to be.
He grew up in a “little sepia-toned town” in Arkansas, where his love for drawing flourished. But he also loved music – as an adult, he moved to the Chicago area with a rock ‘n’ roll band, and began doing illustrations on the side for Playboy’s music page.
In Illinois, he met his wife, Mary, who always dreamed of living in Maine. Because he can work from anywhere, Mark agreed, as long as they could find a place with an airport and a house – Bangor fit the bill. The couple moved here a little over a year ago, and Mark has since immersed himself in local lore and legend.
“In that time, I’ve really become invested in it,” he said. “There are so many incredible stories.”
While the cat tales ended up in the calendar, some of the tall tales have appeared in “Earl Hornswaggle: The Oldest Man in Bangor,” his standing feature in Bangor Metro magazine.
Editor Tori Britton can still remember the day Ricketts walked into the office – mainly because she wasn’t there. She was enjoying a rare day off, and her boss, Mark Wellman, called and told her she needed to come in to meet this guy. She protested mightily, but in retrospect, she’s glad she showed up – in sweat pants, no less.
“Mark is multitalented – he’s bizarre, he’s got a great brain, he’s able to do all this funny stuff,” Britton said, describing a story and illustration he’s doing on couples for the January-February issue of the magazine. “I’m thrilled to have this stuff in here. He’s such a wonderful addition.”
Britton admits to having a tiny crush on Earl Hornswaggle, and she loves the fact that the feature has given the magazine “a little bit of an edge.”
“I think part of the Maine tradition – at least the one I come from – is it’s a little bit bawdy,” Britton said.
And it’s catching on. People have written in to ask what part of Maine he’s from – he loves that.
He’s still doing illustration work and writing for national publications, but he’s in the process of writing and illustrating his own project, “A Flatlander’s Guide to Maine,” as well. He also has plans for a whole series of cat calendars – next year’s felines might just bear a striking resemblance to, say, Stephen King, Hannibal Hamlin and John Baldacci.
For Ricketts, highlighting the area’s more colorful traditions – and embellishing them – is his way of becoming more involved with the community.
“There’s something about Maine,” he said. “It seems like it’s a country unto itself.”
And, with pen, pad and Mac in hand, Ricketts will defend that country from evil forces – or annoying ones, at least – like bad Maine accents and jokes that ahn’t even a little bit funny, deah.
Queen City Kitties is available at BookMarc’s, Borders, The Grasshopper Shop and Sprague’s Nursery in Bangor, at the University of Maine Bookstore in Orono and online at www.queencitykitties.com.
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