BEN WICKEY Digs Deeply into A Piece of America's Past in MORE WEIGHT: A SALEM STORY

Interviews Editor, Andrew Irvin, sits down with Ben Wickey to unpack four centuries of history in More Weight: A Salem Story, available through TopShelf Productions.

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COMIC BOOK YETI: Ben, thank you for joining us in the Yeti Cave today! It was a monumental undertaking digesting the full scope of this More Weight: A Salem Story, and it reflects the enormity of the effort you’ve put into its creation. Are you currently up in New England, or out in California?

BEN WICKEY: Thank you for inviting me! I currently live in California with my wife and two cats. We are both working, off and on, in the continuously-diminishing animation industry. My heart (and my family) reside in New England. 

CBY: I very much understand - though hemispheres away, much of my family (and my heart) are back in New England as well. Now, I don’t use the term lightly or frequently, but I would consider More Weight a masterpiece of the graphic novel format. It’s my understanding this is a product of over a decade of research and creative effort, but how did the project initially arise, and what kept you committed to it once you began the endeavour?

BW: Like a lot of kids who grew up on Cape Ann, Massachusetts, I have always been strangely drawn to Salem. For one thing, a lot of my friends have lived there for many years. Salem is a truly magical city, although – as I’ve said in the book – not necessarily in the way it has been advertised. I attended a high school in Danvers, Massachusetts, which in 1692 was known as “Salem Village.” This is where the witch panic began. I can remember one particular field trip to the “Salem Wax  Museum of Witches and Seafarers," where I stood beneath a weirdly-proportioned wax figure of Giles Corey, and was obviously intrigued in some way by his story. Giles was an eighty-one year old farmer who, after formally testifying against his own third wife, Martha, was himself accused of witchcraft in 1692. When he stood mute at his arraignment, preventing his case from going to trial, Chief Magistrate William Stoughton sentenced him to “peine forte et dure,” a punishment in which large stones were to be slowly placed upon Giles’ body until he spoke the words needed in order to be tried. He refused and, horrifically, was pressed to death. His wife Martha was executed as an accused witch two days later, leaving behind her half-indigenous teenage son, Benoni. 

When we were then reading The Crucible in literature class, we were tasked to create a document from the point of view of one of the characters. Instinctively, I chose Giles Corey. Perhaps it was his redemptive story arc that grabbed me: betrayal, regret, defiance. In researching for this assignment, I came across a play which famous 19th century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in 1868, entitled “Giles Corey of the Salem Farms.” I was surprised and intrigued, not only to have found a PLAY by Longfellow, but also to have found something from him so uncharacteristically dark and bleak. I started studying animation at CalArts in 2014, and all the while I was tinkering with the idea of adapting Longfellow’s play as a screenplay for a live-action film. But I am an artist/illustrator first and foremost, and the more I wrote, the more I wanted to draw. And so, I began writing the story as a graphic novel in 2015, and started drawing it in 2016. Along the way, I started correcting Longfellow’s 19th century historical errors, and doing my own research. Then I became totally obsessed with getting as historically accurate a depiction of the Salem witchcraft panic as I could. I consulted excellent historians, who all lent their enthusiastic support and pointed me in the right direction. 

If I had known in 2015 that I was about to embark on 500-plus page book that would take practically a decade to finish, I wonder whether or not I would have embarked on the journey. I began studying the subject with no preconceived opinions or points I aimed to prove. But the more I learned, and the more I drew, the more curious, passionate, and infuriated I became. 

The book was mostly drawn out-of-sequence, so I kept putting off drawing the more gruesome scenes for another day. I really do not enjoy drawing violence of any kind, especially torture or slow deliberate murder. But I knew that at some point I would have to draw some deeply disturbing things, and that my years of kicking that particular can down the road would have to come to an end. What actually drove me all those years was getting to know the people involved as real human beings with distinct personalities. So by the time the day came when I had to draw Giles Corey being pressed to death, I had been drawing him for about nine years! That’s a hell of a long time to get to know a character. I had drawn his marriages, his immigration to America, his youthful hijinks, his children growing up… all of it. I assume someone else doing a comic about Giles Corey would immediately start drawing his death, but I just couldn’t. I had to know the victims and let them live in my head as people for a while before depicting their executions. It just seemed like a more humane and meaningful way of going about things. 

CBY: Allowing a character to carry out their life on the page before culmination in drawing their demise seems to work upon your sense of linearity and finality more as a creator, but the weight of these moments comes through all the stronger for the reader. A testament to the depth of research undertaken in the composition of More Weight, you’ve included extensive endnotes which frame the story for those who want to understand subtext and history beyond what the illustrated pages provide (as well as a teaching guide). As this is certainly one of the best-sourced graphic novels I’ve ever encountered, what imperative did you feel to include end notes and references, and what other comics provided you with a model for how you wanted to present the enormous amount of information you’ve included in this publication?

BW: With a subject as misunderstood as the Salem witchcraft trials, I felt that a careful page-by-page breakdown of my sources with citations was the most responsible thing to do. The facts are simply more unbelievable and infuriating than the mountain of fictions we have piled on top of them, and I wanted the facts to breathe, to speak for themselves in their own voices. This was an event that will always be relevant, without any need of artistic tampering. I feel that it’s my job as a cartoonist/writer to curate the facts, and to fill in the blanks of personal motivations and what was spoken behind closed doors with respectful storytelling. I then used the end-notes to state which bits were my invention, and which could be backed up with documentation. Alan Moore’s From Hell was pretty much the only book which led me in this direction, by example. 

What happened in Salem was neither the first witch hunt in American history, nor was it the last. It was, however, the most documented. I even made the point of handling some of the primary source documents at an archival center in Rowley, MA. To hold a still-legible sheet of hand-cut parchment that was actually in the same room as these people, including my ancestor Mary Easty, was an incredibly moving experience. I wanted my endnotes to shine a light on this wealth of documentation, and also the decades-long scholarship of brilliant historians like Marilynne K. Roach, Emerson W. Baker, Richard Trask, and Margo Burns. These are the giants upon whose shoulders I am perched like an inky raven with my little pens and paper, scribbling away. Without their dedication, my book would not exist in the way that it does, and this history would truly fade away. 

CBY: A conscientious present is built on an enduring awareness of troubles faced in the past, and I agree the paranoia and violence that gripped Salem will remain evergreen as a cautionary tale for others. I think, as many in the US may have encountered in their educational curriculum growing up, the familiarity of the Salem Witch Trials was largely a product of widespread circulation of Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible (and its 1996 adaptation with Daniel Day Lewis and Winona Ryder helped cement the imagery in my mind as a kid, despite the film flopping). You’re critical of the ahistorical depiction of the proceedings, and More Weight represents the product of your deep investigation to set the record straight and interrogate the psychology behind these circumstances. What did Miller get wrong that may have led to misapprehensions about the Salem Witch Trials by the general public?

BW: In the forward to The Crucible’s script, Miller plainly states that the book is not historically accurate, nor does it pretend to be. My main problem with the play’s legacy is twofold. First, the play is simply taught in schools more often than the actual history itself. History classes usually gloss over the subject of the witchcraft trials, while literature classes are expected to teach it solely within the context of The Crucible. I think this does a disservice both to the play, and to the far more interesting historical facts that the play merely hints at. My second issue with the play is Miller’s memory. By the time the film adaptation came out in 1996, it had been about forty years since Miller had done any research for the play, and therefore could no longer remember what was true and what he had made up. Even when he came to Salem to unveil the designs for the witch trials memorial in 1991, he was speaking about the characters in his play, rather than actual historic figures. In The Crucible, the middle-aged John Proctor has an affair with his former maid, the twenty-something year old Abigail Williams. In reality, John Proctor was in his mid-to-late sixties, and there is no evidence that he even KNEW Abigail Williams, who was twelve years old in 1692! Miller also portrays Tituba, the enslaved indigenous woman who was one of the first accused, as a black, voodoo-practicing necromancer who sacrifices chickens in the woods. He also makes Thomas Danforth the main judge of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. In reality, Thomas Danforth was a major OPPONENT to the trials in Salem, and played a part in bringing them to an end! It is these mischaracterizations, plus the fact that the play is actually about the red scare of the 1940s and 50s, that makes the play persistently pesky to historians. 

CBY: Hopefully More Weight and your teaching guide find their way into school curricula around the country as a companion (or replacement) of The Crucible to help set the record straight and clarify the difference between Miller taking broad creative license and the example you present of sound, research-backed fiction. The high level of detail you’ve included in your backgrounds of your latter-era Salem color pages clearly draws from copious local reference imagery, granting an immersive sense of place (particularly for those of us who have visited Salem before). The architecture and ecology of coastal Massachusetts comes through vibrantly, but then you switch to a more stylized black and white rendition of Salem for segments from the Colonial past, and then they blend and morph throughout; how did you land on the different styles, decide upon their evolution and utilization, and what sort of tools and techniques did you utilize to achieve the variation over the course of More Weight?

BW: I suppose intuition is the only way I can explain my process. You can pace around the room wrestling with ideas all you like, but only by sitting down and DOING can you have any insight into your true feelings. Without giving much away, the scenes in which Hawthorne and Longfellow are exploring Salem in the 1860s are a tad unstuck from reality. They offer a view of Salem through the lens of 19th century gothic literature, an aspect I wanted to embrace in the book, whilst keeping it entirely separate from the black and white 17th century scenes. I had always loved how some old New England houses, especially the ones found in antique seaports, sometimes display blue bottles in their windows. Edward Gorey, my personal deity, had his own collection of blue and green bottles in the windows of his rambling captain’s house on Cape Cod. So a limited, bottle-trapped color palette was chosen for the 1860s scenes. 

Both the 19th and 21st century scenes in the book were drawn on a Wacom cintiq, an industrial tool used to draw industrial ages, while the 17th century scenes were done almost exclusively on paper with ink and graphite, in a far more cartoonish, primitive style. I suppose if there was a real philosophy behind my style/color choices, besides pure intuition, it could have something to do with how history becomes more unreal and one-dimensional the farther we progress from it. The scenes between Hawthorne and Longfellow take place after the invention of the camera, and are therefore more realistically drawn, corroborated by surviving visual evidence. But I have no idea what Giles Corey or Martha Corey or Mary Easty looked like. We only have contemporaneous portraits of some of the judges and clergymen involved for any insights as to accurate portrayals. But I designed each of the victims in a specific way, as a kind of duck decoy, which their descendants can recognize and identify with. That’s the power of comics.

CBY: I think you have captured that power and taken the opportunity to wield it with an immense amount of acknowledged responsibility on your shoulders. Can you share a bit about how you landed with Top Shelf Productions as the publisher of More Weight? What was your query and pitch process like (particularly given the rather unique density and scope of this project), and how did Top Shelf set themselves apart as the right choice for your title?

BW: Top Shelf had always been my first choice to publish More Weight. I always figured that if they could publish a dense historical epic like From Hell, then they could handle whatever weird monstrosity I was cooking up. For the first seven years of the project, I had no publisher. This book was just a labor of love, always simmering on the backburner while I made weird stop-motion films. Top Shelf Editor-in-Chief, Chris Staros, had expressed interest in the project during COVID, but it wasn’t until after Alan Moore chose me for the "50 Lives of the Great Enchanters" pages in his and Steve Moore’s The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic in 2021 that Top Shelf officially decided to publish More Weight. How lucky is that, right? Even now, I almost can’t believe my utter good fortune. 

CBY: Oh, definitely - as Alan Moore has stepped away from comics, you certainly caught his eye on his way out of the space (he's one of the few people I've wanted to interview that I haven't had a chance to speak with yet because of his disinterest in further engagement with the medium, so the attention you've garnered is that much more commendable). Back to the situation in Salem you unpack over the course of your graphic novel, there is much to learn from the folly of embodying suspicion and perceiving mounting threats from both within and without. While you cover this within More Weight in some detail, can you share a bit with our readers around what we can learn from the myriad interpretations of faith that fed into the conflicting belief structures of New England Puritans, their irrational actions, and the culminating violence in Salem that you would find most applicable to today’s political climate? What else might you have wanted to say on the matter without the space to include additional thoughts in the publication?

BW: Protestantism.

Puritans in 17th century New England believed in two things wholeheartedly: the existence of witches, and predestination. Because they believed that every inexplicable blessing or disaster that befell you was specifically because God wished it to, communities became especially paranoid in times of economic hardship and tremendous change. They existed in a coded world, in which God’s cryptic reasons for showering you with wealth or killing your children with smallpox had to be sussed out via the concept of sin. A respectable, well-to-do citizen of Salem Village like Thomas Putnam, therefore, could easily berate the poor impoverished beggarwoman Sarah Good with words to the tune of: “Why should I give you charity? We’re both praying to the same god, aren’t we? Clearly I’m doing something right, because I have money and healthy children, whereas you are obviously being punished for a sinful life… and are therefore possibly a witch.” Although Puritanism is long dead in this country, this aspect of Calvinist Protestantism still pervades our civil discord. Tune in to Fox News on any day of the week and you’ll probably see some windbag preaching about how the poor are lazy moochers who are undeserving of our assistance. The witch panic in 1692 was a social response to the rise of capitalism in America, a worldview in which folks are predestined to be winners or losers, and in which wealth equals virtue. For years, the mercantile elites of Salem Town (now the City of Salem) exerted economic pressures upon the rural farmers of Salem Village (now the Town of Danvers), and these pressures exploded in the form of accusations of witchcraft. People need to understand that witch hunts never happen randomly, but rather, an inevitable result when preexisting social tensions are exasperated within a theocracy.

And of course, real witch hunts are still going on in the world at this very minute, in Africa, India, and elsewhere. Wherever there are economic hardships in a theocratic state, accusations of sorcery are bound to arise. Such accusations have always been the easiest and most convenient methods which our species employs to dispose of our enemies. Modern Salem, which still embraces the lamentably tacky “Witch City” brand, should understand that the current nightmare of these people across the Atlantic used to be ours, and that we overcame such religious violence, for the most part, with rational thinking and skeptical inquiry. But even here, our foundational Enlightenment values are endangered. 

Since my book came out, a lot of disturbing events have taken place in this country, especially the ICE deportations and fatal shootings in Minneapolis. After drawing children being arrested and thrown into filthy, disease-ridden prisons in 1692, it is naturally heartbreaking to see it happening in the present. What I hope my book shows is that the Salem witch panic was a heinous atrocity, and one which, tragically, will always be relevant.

CBY: I think Carl Sagan raised this aspect of ontological attribution well in The Demon-Haunted World, where attribution of consequences is assigned to external, inscrutable, arcane forces; if evil is the provenance of supernatural entities, and not merely the failings of humanity to be better, then accountability can be skirt and atrocities excused. You mention Lenox, Massachusetts in the context of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s family; my mother grew up there, right on the edge of Pittsfield not far from Melville’s Arrowhead home on Holmes Road, which was off East Street, only a few miles and a right turn away from Edith Wharton’s home, The Mount, on Plunkett Street. The legacy of American literary history looms large in Massachusetts, and you have both paid homage, and added to it, with More Weight. Can you speak a bit about what you’ve learned about your own family heritage (including the ancestral link to Mary Easty) throughout your research process?

BW: About halfway through the drawing process, my cousin Holly in Michigan contacted me out of the blue. She had been doing some genealogical digging and discovered that I was the 10th great grandson of Mary Easty, one of the last accused witches hanged in Salem on September 22, 1692. I am descended from her via my great grandmother, Bessie Wickey. This changed the tone and mission of my initial conceit somewhat, and made me a lot angrier (I hope justifiably) at how Salem has misremembered its tragic history over the past 333 years. 

And Pittsfield is a lovely place! I stayed in a hotel there a few months ago. I plan for my second book to show a lot of West Massachusetts, so I will no doubt be stopping through Pittsfield again soon!

CBY: I am glad to hear it, and look forward to seeing the approach you take toward depicting a place I spent the best parts of summer during my childhood. I also recommend giving The Pedestrian a close read, as in conversation with its creators, Joey and Sean, Joey revealed it is inspired in no small part by his youth in Pittsfield. It was also useful learning from your interview with Alan Moore World a bit about how he became involved in More Weight, particularly given his aforementioned departure from working on comics, in general. The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic served as a collaborative endeavour before you completed More Weight, so in fostering this collaborative relationship with one of the luminaries of the medium, what advice might you have for other creatives seeking engagement with their role models and forerunners in the comics industry?

BW: Well, I first contacted Alan Moore not because I was doing a comic book, but because Giles Corey had hailed from the Boroughs of Northampton, the absolute center of Alan’s world and, according to Alan, the center of the universe. Alan mentions Giles in Providence and in Jerusalem, so I knew this wouldn’t be a surprise. But Alan seemed intrigued with my conceit of showing once and for all how Giles’ gruesome death was one of the first documented protests in American history, and voiced an interest in reading the book once it was completed. I suppose that’s it right there: talk to the person you admire (even if they inhabit a god-like stature in your head) as a fellow human being who you share some interests with. If they have a good head on their shoulders, they will appreciate the respect and dignity you show them, and want to work with you. Fortunately, my heroes rarely consist of conceited twits, so I’ve been very lucky with this approach. If anyone has any advice on how I can someday work with Tom Waits, please let me know. He’s actually harder to contact than Alan Moore, believe it or not!

CBY: Tom Waits seems willing to collaborate on work beyond his music, so it's not beyond comprehension (I'll let you know if I get any good tips on getting through his representation, if ever the occasion arises). After over a decade of effort, during which you worked on a variety of other projects, what do you anticipate picking up next? Do you have any projects of similar scale on your to-do list, or are you planning to pivot your attention to shorter form work? What sort of creative and productive trajectory would you like to embark upon going forward?

BW: At this very moment, I am in the process of researching and writing my second book. This will be a shorter work of historical fiction, which allows me a lot more liberties than I had with More Weight. I sort of feel like a pent-up horse let loose into a seemingly infinite field. Because of this freedom, I’ll have to construct some parameters and restrictions for myself, just to keep it a small and manageable project. All I can say is that it is a surreal horror tale on the subject of Early-American folk art portraiture. It has also become somewhat of an accidental biography of Martin Van Buren. Or has it? 

It’s a bit like Kurt Vonnegut’s preface to Slaughterhouse Five, in which he writes “The next book I write is going to be FUN!” I think any creative writer who spends a great deal of time and emotional anguish retelling gruesome chapters of history, whether it be the Salem witchcraft trials or the firebombing of Dresden, should allow themselves to get weird and fun with the next book. That’s not to say that my new book will be anywhere near as funny as Breakfast of Champions, but we can all dream, can’t we? 

I’m currently collaborating with the wonderful filmmaker Mitch Jenkins on a horror movie screenplay. Mitch has directed a number of film projects written by Alan Moore, including the 2021 feature film, The Show. Mitch and I are both hugging ourselves with ghoulish glee at how the screenplay has been shaping up. I am also working with my dad, Jim Wickey, on his wildly inventive and stylized mixed-media film Plummet to Adventure, which will start production soon. I have also completed five animated sequences for a feature-length docu-drama entitled The Vampires of New Orleans, written and directed by Andrew Rakich of Atun-Shei Films, and set to be released this October. History fans may know about the Atun-Shei Films Youtube channel, for which I occasionally draw thumbnail illustrations. And for over ten years I’ve been providing animation for Christopher Seufert’s long-awaited documentary, Gorey, about the last years in the life of Edward Gorey. 

Moving forward, I just want to keep illustrating books, drawing comics, and making strange stop-motion animated films for myself. If the depressing loomings of A.I. have taught me anything, it’s that creative artists should be encouraged to make their art as weird, messy, personally meaningful, and authentic as they possibly can. So that’s what I’m going to try to do, so I don’t lose my mind. 

CBY: I became increasingly intrigued as you listed off your forthcoming work, as it all seems right up my alley. As is customary at the close of interviews here, we like to offer our guests an opportunity to share work they’ve enjoyed entirely unrelated to their current endeavours. What other comics, films, music, art, literature, and other creative work has been inspiring you or catching your attention lately?

BW: I’ve finally started reading Moby-Dick cover to cover, and I can’t express how much joy it has been giving me. It’s like a lightning bolt to the soul. Usually I enjoy having big brick-sized books by my bed, just something I can slowly chip away at nightly. That’s how I read Jerusalem and Gore Vidal’s Burr. (Sidenote: if you’re looking for a book with a hilariously demonic depiction of Thomas Jefferson, Burr is the book for you. Every scene with Jefferson is almost supernaturally unsettling.) My friend Gregory Hischak, the intrepid curator of the Edward Gorey House in Yarmouthport, Cape Cod, has written a brilliant new book entitled E is for Edward, to commemorate Edward Gorey’s 100th birthday last year, and it’s so great to see a new book about the elusive author/illustrator written by someone who actually comes close to understanding him. The second printing of More Weight now has a new blurb on the back cover from Kate Beaton, another big hero of mine, who contacted me out of the blue a few months ago to say how much she loved the book. You can imagine how stunned and overjoyed I was! So I’ve been diving back to the large Beaton-book-collection that I share with my wife, to enjoy her brilliant work all over again. Oh! And every October for the past few years, my dear friend and occasional collaborator, actor/composer/writer/illustrator Jonathan David Dixon has been directing an opera he co-wrote called The Other Side of the Veil, based on old horror comics from the 1950s! Last year’s performance in Alburquerque, New Mexico was a tremendous success, so fans of both horror comics and opera in the southwestern states (and I know you’re out there!) should take note in case they perform it again this October.

CBY: We appreciate the range of recommendations, and look forward to exploring more of the work in your orbit. Ben, it’s been an honor to have you stop by to discuss this graphic novel and the deep research involved in bringing it to the world. Thank you for your contributions. If you have other portfolio, publication, or social media links to share with our readers, now is the time and the place!

BW: My instagram is @ben_wickey, which can be consulted for any news pertaining to my books, films, and upcoming signing events. New website under construction (I just haven’t had the time!)

Thanks again so much for welcoming me into the Yeti Cave! Do I leave through… here? Oh! I nearly tripped on a stalagmite!

CBY: Yeah, sorry about that. It’s just through there, down the corridor. Follow the bats.

BW: Ah yes, I see now. I like how you’ve put hollowed out tennis balls over the stalactites. Good safety precaution! 

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