Lee Sullivan Interviewed

Doctor Who and Transformers comics artist (and muscian) Lee Sullivan has just been interviewed by Ian M. Cullen over on scifipulse.net, talking candidly about how he got into the business and his work on comics such as TekWorld and his strips for Doctor Who Magazine, Battles in Time and more.

The hard-working artist reveals he got into drawing comics almost by accident. "I was already an illustrator," he recalls, after "four years at Further Education College on a vocational wildlife and technical illustration course and five years at British Aerospace as a graphic designer. When Doctor Who Weekly (as it was then) appeared, I thought - that’s the job for me! I was a big fan of Doctor Who on TV and comics since they started. I laboured mightily to produce two or three pages of samples but I didn’t have any real idea of showing them to anyone. They took me ages to do - scenes I transcribed from the first Who novel, Doctor Who and The Daleks.

"Then I met David Lloyd who was producing backup strips (Abslom Daak was one of them) at the time at a Who convention and found out the timescales and rate of pay. It seemed impossible for me that I could ever work fast enough to earn a living."

Lee offers several insights into his approach to his work and the world of comic creation, revealing that some time ago, he assembled a ‘writer/artist guide for comic-book work’ which is on his website.

"It's various luminaries thoughts [on the subject] plus some of my own," he says.

"I think one of my least favourite situations is when a writer asks for action and consequences to happen in the same frame; for example: first guy comes through door, second guy hits him and first guy crashes into table. You might get away with the last two actions combined, but you can’t really show them combined with the first. That’s another panel! Also to avoid ‘cross-talk,’ by which I mean first guy speaks, second guy replies, first guy speaks again. That really reduces the vertical space on any panel and can just as easily be carried through to the next panel."

• Read the full interview here on scifipulse

• Lee Sullivan will be one of many guests at this weekend's Doctor Who Comic Book Convention which is being held at The Lass O’Gowrie In Manchester on 18 October 2008. If you have an interest in attending this event - and if they have any tickets left you can book via Quaytickets.com