Radio interviews with Al Davison, David Hine, Tom Humberstone and Tony Lee

Panel Borders: From small press to mainstream

In a panel discussion recorded at SCI-FI-LONDON, the London International festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film, guest presenter Matt Badham talks to comic creators David Hine, Al Davison, Tom Humberstone and Tony Lee about starting their careers in independent comics and how that influenced their style and choices when breaking into the 'mainstream' industry. (Edited by Alex Fitch)

• 8.30am, Monday 22nd April, repeated 3pm, Thursday 25th April, Resonance 104.4 FM / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / extended podcast after first broadcast at panelborders.wordpress.com


• Last week's episode featuring interview with Louis Roskosch about The Adventures of Leeroy and Popo, and Matt Fitch and Mark Lewis about Frogman is available online now.

Bringing V for Vendetta to the stage: an interview with Dean Thackeray

Daniel Thackeray as V. Photo: Laura Evans

V for Vendetta is writer Alan Moore and artist David Lloyd's seminal comic series from the 1980s. The story depicts a near-future police state in which a Fascist party called Norsefire hold power. It is against this backdrop that V, an anarchist revolutionary, undertakes a campaign to bring down the government.

Next week, a new stage adaptation of V for Vendetta is being performed at the Lass O'Gowrie pub in Manchester as part of Lassfest (an arts festival featuring comedy, drama and music, as well as various other cultural events). Adapted by Sean Mason (who also adapted Ballad of Halo Jones), we're delighted Matt Badham decided to find out more about this premiere of this new adaptation of this prescient tale of a struggle against oppression in the surveillance society.

In this interview, Matt talks to Daniel Thackeray, who will be portraying V in the new production.

 

Matt Badham: You've said to me that staging V for Vendetta was your idea, although it's Sean Mason who's actually written the script.

Daniel Thackeray: I decided pretty early on that I wanted to act in it, so I stepped back from the production side of things.

Sinead Parker as Evey Hammond and
Daniel Thackeray as V. Photo: Laura Evans

MB: Why do you think the comic is a good choice for a stage adaptation?

DT: We wanted a good quality follow-up to [our adaptation of] The Ballad of Halo Jones, which is also an Alan Moore property. We're on quite good terms with Alan Moore and some of the rights-holders for his various works. 

Both Halo and V have similar points to make and they were both written at roughly the same time, in the 1980s. There's criticism of consumerism, capitalism, the herd mentality of people and the way that governments can be somewhat uncaring when it comes to the needs of their citizens. It seemed logical that if people enjoyed Halo and engaged with it as a stage adaptation -- and we did get some good reviews for it and positive feedback from audiences -- they would like V for Vendetta as well. Possibly more, because I think it's arguably more relevant to our current times.

MB: What specific challenges have there been in putting V for Vendetta, a comic, on stage?

DT: V is an unusual comic in that it's actually very verbose. This is one of the reasons I thought it would be good as a stage play. It's dialogue-heavy and the art style is quite deliberately grim and gritty. That's a good stylistic choice when it comes to representing this slightly drab life that everybody is living in the comic. It's a world that can be presented quite easily on stage.

MB: I suppose the term that could be used is kitchen sink…

DT: Yes. However, one challenge was that V for Vendetta does have quite a few action sequences in it that we've had to change or remove. We've either placed those off-stage or simplified them. There's a big scene where V takes down five cops and we couldn't do it. You could do it on-stage - but you can't do it on-stage in a small space, which is what we've got to work with.

We're taking the opposite approach to the film adaptation, which I think emphasised and even extended the action sequences and turned V into an action hero. We imply that he is a capable fighter but we don't see most of the fights themselves. Instead, it's mainly his theatricality and his politics that are emphasised in our version.

V Police: Creedy (Brian Gorman), Finch (Marlon Solomon) and Stone (Michael Whittaker) Photo: Laura Evans

MB: Can you give me a specific example of your approach to the action sequences?

DT: There's a scene in the comic on a train where V appears and kills two cops and kidnaps [Norsefire propagandist] Lewis Prothero. That's totally gone. Prothero just wakes up in V's lair.

Larkhill's Dr. Surridge (Carly Tarret), Lewis Prothero (Jeremy Smith) and Bishop Lilliman (Stuart Hudson)

MB: And that works?

DT: In the comic, you have a later scene where police officers talk about what has happened and the fact that Prothero has been kidnapped. And that is actually a bit pointless because you've already seen it all. But in the play, it works well for us as a device to explain the detail of the kidnapping.

MB: Are we still going to get that sense of V as a deadly figure? As someone to be feared?

Photo: Laura Evans

DT: Yes. In the dialogue we emphasise points that are mentioned in the comic, like the fact that he kills with his bare hands. He does have a thing of using knives but there is also this detail that he will sometimes 'stab' people with his fingers, which indicates both his physical power and his terrifying determination.

MB: I suppose the police procedural elements that exist in parts of the comic are a bit of a gift in that they offer valuable opportunities for exposition.

DT: Yes. Like I said before, it is all very 'talky'. But there are some striking visuals there too, of course. Theatre needs strong imagery and V, if you get him right, provides that with his mask and the way he talks and the way he moves.

MB: Just before we finish, it's probably worth mentioning that Halo Jones is coming back to the Lass and that there will be a V for Vendetta and Ballad of Halo Jones double-bill.

DT: Yes. It will be both plays on the same day with a two-hour break so people can grab a bite to eat and mingle.

Photo: Laura Evans

MB: That seems as good a place as any to end this short chat. Thanks for your time, Dan, during what I know is a fairly frantic rehearsal period as you gear up for your first show.

DT: No worries. Thank you.

• V for Vendetta at the LassFest features V, played by Daniel Thackeray; Evey Hammond - Sinead Parker; Creedy - Brian Gorman; Finch - Marlon Solomon; Stone - Michael Whittaker; Dr. Surridge - Carly Tarret; Lewis Prothero - Jeremy Smith; and Bishop Lilliman - Stuart Hudson.

• All photos by Laura Evans

• For more on V for Vendetta and Lassfest, please go to http://lassfest.co.uk/?p=750

Wyatt's World

Megazine 311 - Cover by Brendan McCarthy

The latest Judge Dredd Megazine (on sale now) contains an interview Matt Badham conducted with ace comics writer Arthur Wyatt. As is often the case with these things, there were unused quotes, so in a with-permission cross post from Matt's own blog, we're presenting those here as a mini-interview with the permission of both Arthur and alien editor the Mighty Tharg.

(Megazine #311 also contains four pulse-pounding strips, interviews with Steve Dillon and D’Israeli, film reviews and comes bagged with a ‘floppie’ that reprints work by Pat Mills, Tony Skinner, Carl Critchlow and John Ridgway)

Matthew Badham: When did you decide that rather than being ‘just a fan’, you wanted to be a creator?

Arthur Wyatt: Well, it might have been when I was very earnestly doodling Nemesis the Warlock or the ABC Warriors on schoolbooks in imitation of Kevin O’Neil or the Biz [Simon Bisley], but I don’t really think that was going anywhere. I actually started writing comics and being involved in the small press scene around about the time I was heading off to university, during the ‘dark times’ when I’d left 2000 AD behind for a while. Serious, densely written Vertigo-style books were very much the model I was following, with the odd EC comics pastiche or SF piece in between the angsty slice of life works; slices of life being of course that much more difficult to portray if you’ve only really lived a little of it.

Then I pretty much put that all away, got a degree, got a job, moved to London, forgot about it until I picked up Prog 2001, saw the submission guidelines for Future Shocks (always a favourite) and decided to give it a go.

We found this strip called 'Down the
Tubes' on Arthur's web site
and couldn't resist re-posting...
Art by Adrian Bamforth

Matt: Was your ambition to write for 2000 AD, or to be a comics writer generally?

Arthur: Well, as I say, for a while I was really into the idea of doing some kind of portentous Vertigo thing, or writing an Aliens story, since I loved the Aliens comic. Or writing a Hellraiser story because I’d read a bunch of those and let’s face it, they were all the same bloody plot (someone is obsessed with something or other… which turns out to be a Lament configuration! “Aiie!” Pinhead shows up! Hack, Splash!) So it’s easy to conceive of doing one.

These days I’m pretty focused on 2000 AD, so even if it wasn’t for that comic I’d probably be doing something very similar for someone else. Of course, 2000 AD-like is a pretty broad category.

Matt: Are there any settings or characters in your one-offs that you’d like to revisit for longer stories?

Arthur: People fairly often mention Rapture Ready as something they’d like to see more of, but I don’t really see where it could go from there. [For a synopsis of Rapture Ready, see this review of 2000 AD Issue 1576] One of the great benefits of a short story is you can end with a hard cut-off and have everything after that left unknowable. And really some things are much better as a spooky unknown full of possibilities than nailed down.

Edmund Bagwell’s next gig for
2000 AD is on the new Indigo
Prime series written by John Smith

I’ve some vague ideas of how Cargo Culture — another story I did with [artist] Edmund Bagwell — could be the cornerstone of a setting where humanity has spread across the stars via an alien hyperspace network that’s now been cut off, and what happens in the places that have effectively become backwaters. [For a synopsis of Cargo Culture, see this review of 2000 AD #1664]. I might turn that into a pitch someday.

Matt: You wrote the final series of the 86ers, set in the Rogue Trooper universe. The 86ers was created and, until that point, written by Gordon Rennie. What was it like taking on someone else’s series in terms of having to write in their ‘voice’? Or do you think that’s a ‘non-issue’?

Arthur: It probably helps that to a certain degree it wasn’t Gordon’s, being part of the Rogue universe. I’d never try that with something like Cabbalistics Inc. [also written by Gordon] that’s so closely tied to an author. And I think there probably was a bit of a shift in voice between Gordon’s 86ers and mine.

I certainly kicked it into action mode as soon as I could, with more explosions and cosmic Kirby crackle aliens crammed into the pages than his carefully plotted intrigue. I think it was a bit of a side-effect of watching a lot of mid-season episodes of Battlestar Galactica where people moped around and wept, and emoted all over the place without really doing much. Careful readers of the first part of Samizdat Squad may notice a similar reaction against the boring bits of James Cameron’s Avatar. [Samizdat Squad is Arthur's new strip for Judge Dredd Megazine]

Matt: What’s your process when it comes to writing, in terms of planning to scripting, and does it differ for one-offs and longer series?

Arthur: My process is basically lots of little boxes scribbled down and joined up in a diagram; first of episodes, then of pages, then, when I’m writing a strip, of the panels in the pages. If I am feeling particularly high-tech the scribble might be replaced by incomprehensible notes on my iPhone: bulleted lists that say cryptic things like ‘Door opens’ and ‘Gas boom!’.

Of course, at some point in this process I need to write things up as a synopsis and pitch it. With something like a Future Shock I probably have gotten to the point of knowing what happens on each page and all the major panels — the big impressive story points — if not the details of what joins them together. I probably over-plan, but I kind of need to get all the details sorted out in my head before I can write a synopsis.

Shako the polar bear, oh yeah!
Art by Cliff Robinson

With a longer story, I'm a little looser. I probably just plan what happens in every episode and the gist of each page, and what a few big panels in each episode are going to be. Also with a bigger story you have a little more room to improvise.

Matt: Having dabbled in the Rogue Trooper universe, are there any other classic thrills you’d like to revisit?

Arthur: There’s my pitch for Shako: 2012, which I’m sure would be drawn by Henry Flint or someone, and maybe be the star attraction of a Christmas prog. You see, it’s 2012, and the icecaps have melted, releasing Shako from where he has been entombed in an icy slumber. Now he is on a rampage, the space capsule he has swallowed giving him strange powers to control wildlife (caribou, penguins, etc…) and turn them against the feeble hu-mans that might stop him.

Only one woman stands in the way against Shako’s terrible quest to destroy the human race: President Sarah Palin.

• Arthur Wyatt's archive of his comic work is at www.arthurwyatt.co.uk

Read West, Young Man (and Woman)...

by Matthew Badham - cross-posted here and on the Forbidden Planet blog with full permission. Read the original version here

West, by Andrew Cheverton and Tim Keable, is one of my favourite indie comics. It's the story of Jerusalem West, a conflicted anti-hero with a chequered and incident-filled past: smart, sophisticated storytelling that both subverts and embraces Western tropes.

I'm not the only one who likes it. The Forbidden Planet International blog reckon that "with this Morricone, Leone, Eastwood-inspired Western tale, Cheverton and Keable have delivered the goods."

Meanwhile, Comics on the Ration has called it "very well-written and well researched."

I decided to chat with Andrew and Tim about West and the following interview was the result:

An atmospheric panel from West: Stray Bullets. Art by Tim Keable.

Matt Badham: Please tell me how West first came about?

Andrew: Towards the end of 1993, I had packed in my job to look after our newborn son and started working Saturdays in the local comic shop to keep my sanity. Tim was one of the customers pointed out by the manager as "a good sort".

We began to discuss comics, movies, books and television shows, and have never really stopped. Our tastes are quite consistent with each other, and whenever we do disagree we have the best debates and arguments.

During this time, I had become quite prolific on the old Comics International group. I was later selected by moderator Phil Hall (based, I assumed, on my sarcastic and profane comic reviews on that group) to write for his online comics PDF magazine, Borderline. Initially, I did an opinion column called "The Blank Page", though I later branched out to reviews and even a few interviews (culminating in a Grendel feature/interview with Matt Wagner, who was my idol at the time).

Through Borderline I met such people as Jay Eales and Selina Lock, and was exposed to the British small press scene. Tim and I went up to a Caption event in 2003, held in the Oxford Students' Union bar. and were so enthused we began, separately, to get work published in The Girly Comic.

After having been friends for about a decade at this point, one day I asked Tim if we should probably work together on a short comic strip. His answer was, simply, "Okay. Something with cowboys or Romans."

Tim: I seem to remember Andy saying to me that Cowboys or Romans were definitely not his thing. Then, about a week later he called me up all enthused telling me he had an idea for a cowboy story! Then he had another one. And another...

It all kicks off in a story from West: Stray Bullets. Art by Paul Rainey

Matt: What experience have you guys got outside of small press comics? Tim, didn't you work on Doctor Who Magazine under John Freeman?

Tim: Yes, many years ago I did some one-off illustrations for DWM. I did these for John and for his successor, Gary Russell. Later I did some back cover CD illustrations for Big Finish's Dalek Empire which led to one more illustration accompanying an article in DWM about these. That would've been in about 2003. I also illustrated Jim Mortimore's Blood Heat. That was for Virgin's Doctor Who novels range in the 1990s.

Andrew: My experience, as far as writing goes, doesn't really extend beyond the stuff I did for Borderline and the two or three short strips I did for Factor Fiction (I think that 'Believers', the first West strip published in Violent!, was the third script I sent Jay and Selina). The debut issue of West, Justice, was the first time I ever wrote a full-length comic.

Matt: Had you both been 'creative types' since childhood? Always doodling or writing? Andrew, you draw as well as write don't you? Tim, do you write?

Andrew: Actually, I can't say that I was especially creative as a child, beyond the sort of thing all kids do. I had always drawn, copying characters from Marvel comics and, later, 2000AD, but it was never for more than my own amusement, though I would always add an illustration to the interior of friends' birthday cards. I barely scraped through O-Level art at school.

Writing short stories was something I experimented with in my teens, but that was just for fun too. I didn't do it with a view to submitting to magazines. Back then, it was all longhand and typewriters, and I had neither the patience nor the attention span.

If it hadn't been for Borderline (and having a PC word processor to organise my chaotic thoughts into actual writing) I wouldn't have been encouraged to write again, and wouldn't have become aware of the opportunities of the small press and desktop publishing.

Of course, once I did start writing again, I had more stories than I had artists to draw them. So that was a matter of sitting down, looking hard at the comic artists I liked (Ted McKeever, Mick McMahon, Matt Wagner, Nabiel Kanan) and teaching myself how to draw all over again.

Tim: I've been drawing ever since I can remember. At school other kids would get me to draw things for them. Usually Spitfires and the like -- I don't really write. It's not something that comes naturally to me.

'Guns on a Cold Morning' is about it, I'm afraid! That was a short West story that appears in Tall Tales, which was a collection of short stories we put out a couple of years ago. I was messing about in my notebook and sketched an image of these guns poking out of a saloon window. Then I thought about who might be behind those guns. Then I thought it'd be fun if they were all lying in wait for West.

I didn't really write it. I just drew it then did some dialogue afterwards. It was an exercise in page design really. I'd been looking at some of Dave Sim's crazy page layouts and I wanted to have a go at it. Then Andy had me add one line and suddenly it fit in with the big West story line. There's been a lot of serendipity about West.

Art by the talented Emma Price from the West: Stray Bullets anthology

Matt: So, how did West start to cohere into an ongoing after that first strip?

Tim: Andy just kept coming up with new ideas. I think it's best if he tells that one.

Andrew: Believers was, by publishing necessity (Violent! being an anthology title), only six pages long. I wanted it to be both a classic western, but also different. The last panel was the first thing that occurred to me: the gunfighter, his pistol emptied, facing off against a gang of men with only bluff and his reputation.

Writing the five pages leading up to that was simple enough, in retrospect. It was a classic barroom shootout. I didn't really give it any thought after it had been sent off to the editors. But every once in a while, Tim would ask me what happened next. I didn't know. We leave West there in the street, his gun empty, facing down two hardened gunfighters armed to the teeth, with only bravado to save him. That's the point of the story. Either the bad guys would draw and shoot him, or they'd both sheepishly wander off, their tails between their legs. Neither are good endings.

The only option -- as I wanted to keep working with Tim -- was to do a prequel. After a bit of brainstorming, I came up with what I thought was a simple Western ghost story. I checked with Tim that veering into fantasy territory was okay with him and started writing what became Justice. At some early point I may have naively thought I was writing another short strip that we'd send to Violent!, but it rapidly became clear that I was writing my first full-length comic.

As is usually the way with these things, the writing of one story lead to another, and a character for Jerusalem West began to form. I read up on a bit of Wild West history and the thing that struck me was that there didn't seem to be as many bad guys' and good guys' as the movies would have it. Outlaws would become lawmen and vice versa. Law-abiding men were easily driven to murder and men would travel, learning trades to survive. It seemed like one man could be, in a lifetime, many men to different people, depending on which stage of his life they'd known him.

As we'd already set the non-chronological template for West, I liked the idea of jumping around in time; it gave us the opportunity to tell many different types of story and to change West's personality a little bit to suit. In some stories, like 'Population 489' and 'The Last Bounty', he's proactive, with an agenda (even if it's not entirely clear from just that story what his agenda might be).

Some other tales, like 'Justice' and 'High Moon', simply feature West while the story essentially unfolds around him. And, as you say, 'cohere' is the right word. I have the whole story in my head (in fact, I have the final story already written), but it evolves in small ways all the time.

'High Moon', for instance, was a deliberate reaction to my noticing that the first two issues had West walk into a town, have an adventure and then leave. So I pointedly started 'High Moon' mid-adventure, told a separate story in the middle, and then had West abandon it halfway. I figured if the audience we'd built up at that point would go for it would quite happily read a comic with one and two half stories in then we were probably on to something.

Jerusalem West, in trouble as always. Art by Andrew Cheverton from West: Stray Bullets

Matt: Have you guys been surprised (gratified?) by the positive critical reception West has received?

Tim: Absolutely! Even more important to me is the vibe I get from the punters who regularly buy the book. I mean, sometimes it can be a real struggle creating something like this while doing a full-time job as well.

Enthusiasm is a strange viscous thing that grows and shrinks. Meeting the people who like what you do and keep coming back for more is very important as a driving force. That and the sheer vibe I get from reading one of Andy's scripts for the first time. It makes it all worthwhile.

As for critical acclaim -- I tend not to read our reviews. I get Andy to do it for me so I only get to hear about the good ones, lol!!

Andrew: Gratified, yes. It's always good to see that your hard work is rewarded. Surprised? If I'm honest, no. I don't mean that to sound conceited. What I mean is, I think anyone who creates something knows when they've done well, and every issue we finish is, I think, good work. If I didn't think my scripts were up to scratch, Tim wouldn't get to see them. And I have no doubt that if Tim thought his art was substandard, I'd never see that.

Every once in a while, Tim will pick out something in the script that doesn't work well -- as I will in the art -- but these are rare instances. By the time each issue is finished, it's the absolute best work we can do. I'm surprised, however, that so many people like it and like it as much as they do.

Having said that, I wasn't at all sure at the beginning who our audience would possibly be; after all, embarking on a multi-issue, non-chronological Western series and randomly switching genres with almost every issue isn't what you'd call a targeted plan. It's pretty much all of the things you're not supposed to do if you want to reach a market. But we've ended up with readers of all ages and both genders.

I like to think that's because we quickly steered away from using strong Deadwood-style profanity and portrayed strong female characters, on the few occasions women enter what is largely a male-dominated genre. As West is coming from the classic western background where his wife was killed, I think it's important to balance that with other women who aren't simply there to provide the men with vengeful motivation.

Jerusalem West under siege in a strip from West: Stray Bullets. Art by Warwick Johnson Cadwell

Matt: It suddenly occurs to me that I haven't asked you chaps for the Hollywood-style' "high concept" that underpins West, which would be useful for those unfamiliar with the series.

Andrew: West is, at its heart (and as much as we can make it), self-contained stories set in the Wild West but that layer each other the more [of them] you read. For the first six issues (what we're now calling Volume One), it wasn't obvious that the whole thing hangs together as a totality; that every issue contributes something to a larger story the reader can't yet see.

Volume Two (so far comprising the two parts of 'Distance') makes these connections far more apparent. Those two issues build up to one name written on a piece of paper, the name of a seemingly random bad guy from a previous issue.

It was very satisfying to hear from people who read that and then went back and reread everything. That's what I want: to let people make their own connections from the clues we drop and to occasionally surprise them with something they never saw coming.

Tim: Okay. How about Classic Revenge Western meets Universal Horror taking in George Romero on the way'? How's that for a Hollywood high concept pitch?

Matt: Andrew, you mentioned that you've taught yourself to draw so you could illustrate your own comics. What fresh insights, if any, has that given you into the medium of comics? Also, do you think it's helped your writing at all?

Andrew: For a start, I've stopped writing so many 12-panel pages for Tim to draw! He hates those and now I understand why. When I write a script (and I even write myself a script for the stories I plan to draw), I like to keep beats and moments running through the pace and I'm fastidious about only switching scenes mid-page if it's part of the plot. So I have a scene of West and I'm often left with the choice: is this scene worth two pages of steady action, or can I fit everything into one page? If it's three or four pages, where are the breaks, the mini-cliffhangers and moments of action or dialogue that I can end a page with to keep the reader turning the page?

As soon as I isolate those moments, I have the pace of a scene and that's something that I thought I knew as a writer, but I have a more solid sense of it now that I draw.

As soon as I start edging over six panels [on a page], I start to fret about it. I write West full script and I like to write dialogue, so the tendency to fill the page is always there. Six panels is about our comfortable limit (though I tend towards five or seven, to keep Tim from using a standard 23 panel grid!), unless we're opting for multiple small panels or splash pages for effect, such as we used in 'Distance'.

For my own comics, I love tiny panels. I hate drawing big. It's something I'll need to learn, but my preference is small panels of close-up faces: intimate character-based comics. I'm lucky enough to get people asking me to draw their scripts. It's a learning curve but I like to be challenged, otherwise I won't get any better. But once these next couple of scripts for other people are done, I'm settling down to draw a couple of projects I want to write for myself.

It's not all about Wild West shoot-outs. A romantic scene from a West: Stray Bullets story. Art by Jenika Ioffreda.

Matt: Tim, have you got anything you want to say on that subject?

Tim: Only that I think Andy's scripts are more visual now. I should qualify that: they were always visual but there was plenty of dialogue too. In fact when we came to publish the collection, Andy told me he was struck by how verbose the older stories seemed to be compared with what he does now. These days he's much more confident using an image to tell the story.

I also happen to think he has a very beautiful art style and he's much more confident about placing blacks than I am!

Matt: Please tell me about the the various West comics that are coming out in 2011, plus any other projects that are ongoing for you, either as individuals or as a team?

Tim: As far as 2011's comics go I'll leave that to Andy. I don't really have time for any other projects although I try to do one-off paintings when I can and I'm always happy to take commissions.

Andrew: The current issue of West is Stray Bullets, which is a bumper-sized special (32 pages!), crammed full of short stories drawn by guest artists. As well as having art by Tim and me, we also have Paul Rainey, Warwick Johnson Cadwell, Emma Price and Jenika Ioffreda.

It started out as a way to give Tim time to get ahead of his schedule, not only so that he isn't facing publishing deadlines all the time, but also to get him into a comfortable position to start work on our own bumper-sized West issue coming up soon that one's called 'Points West'.

In between both of these issues, though, we have 'Confederate Dead', which is the script Tim's drawing now.

For myself, I've recently drawn a script Rol Hirst wrote called 'Face For Radio', a one-pager for Simon M's The Sorry Entertainer, a newspaper comics anthology, and I'm writing and drawing a one-off comic called Pictures Made Of Light. Also, I'm writing a script for an AccentUK book, but I don't think they've announced that yet!

Andrew takes time out from West to illustrate
Rol Hirst's Face for Radio.

After that, both Tim and I are drawing some very short strips for a new Rol Hirst series, and I'm working with Chris Doherty (creator of the excellent Video Nasties) on a miniseries called The Whale House, which will be an off-kilter family drama, partially inspired by two types of movies the American awkward Thanksgiving get-together' movie and the British Old Dark House movie. I'm writing and Chris is drawing, but we're thrashing out the details and the characters at the moment.

Matt: Where do you hope to be in five years, with West and as creators?

Tim: In five years I hope West will be reaching a much bigger audience. Also I'd like to be able to spend more time on my drawing and less time in wage slavery!

Andrew: Last year was personally quite stressful and busy for me. I managed to keep on top of our commitments to West we finished both the issues we planned, and we finally had the collection published but I wasn't in any real frame of mind for much else.

We'd like to persevere with getting West: Justice into some comic shops and submitted to distributors. We actually took the book into a couple of small press-friendly London comic stores and were pretty much rebuffed out of hand. That was a knock-back, considering the reviews and feedback we've had on it as a professional-looking package. But, as with anything, I guess it's just a matter of plugging away at it. I have faith that it's a good story, well told. We'll get it finished one way or the other.

Thanks to Andrew and Tim for taking time to talk to Matt. For more on West, visit http://www.angrycandy.co.uk

Writing Commando: The Blank Page Always Kicks My Ass

Matt Badham wrote "Deserter!", a story for DC Thomson's Commando title back in 2008, which has just been published in Issue 4385 - giving you some idea how long some scripts can take to get into print.

Here, Matt outlines how he created the story and offers some tips to new and would be writers along the way - be it comics or features...

I don't feel very comfortable referring to myself as a writer, even though I've been professionally published since 2006. During that time, I've written articles for publications such as the Judge Dredd Megazine, Tripwire, Comics International and the Big Issue in the North, and scripted for 2000AD and Commando Picture Library. (NB: That last statement is slightly hyperbolic. I've written one five-page strip for the former and one issue of the latter.) If you asked me to name some writers, I'd probably mention the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle, Alan Moore, William Goldman, Warren Ellis, Connie Willis (my absolute fave) and Paul Cornell, and it seems wrong to place myself in such esteemed company.

But I do write and I'm paid to do so. I suppose, therefore, I am a writer, whether I like it or not. And I do, mostly… like it, I mean.

That doesn't mean that I don't find writing difficult. On the contrary, my average work-day is like one of those scenes in an action movie where the hero, facing insurmountable odds, has his ass handed to him on a plate. Then, suddenly, and against those afore-mentioned odds, he triumphs. Every day I get up and the blank page kicks my ass and then, eventually, I start writing and everything is fine. (It doesn't actually matter what I write, just that I start. I very much adhere to the old adage that 'writing is re-writing'.)

On the day I commenced my Commando script, I suffered a particularly bad ass-kicking. You see, I don't write comic scripts often (I don't write much fiction). Most of my attempts to do so are sitting, abandoned, on my hard drive. This is because I've got interviews and features -- which pay the bills and buy food for my kids -- to get on with (and the kids refuse to starve for my 'art'. Go figure. They're selfish.)

So, writing my Commando was largely uncharted territory and particularly hard work. But it was enjoyable and I think I learnt a few new lessons about writing. What follows is the process as I remember it.

(Actually, before we get to that, here are the four things I think I know about how to get ahead in writing. If you want to make it (whatever that means), you should, in my experience, 1) work hard 2) treat yourself and others with respect 3) be your own harshest critic and 4) give yourself a pat on the back -- but only one! -- if you achieve a significant milestone (such as getting published for the first time or finding work with a new market.))

Back to Commando…

Here's the blurb from the back of Deserter! to set the scene:

'Abraham Brown's older brother Robert went off to serve in the Army of the North in the American Civil War… and he didn't come back. Abraham followed in his footsteps grimly determined to avenge his brother's death.

But when he discovered that it hadn't been enemy action that ended Robert's life but a pack of outlaws he saw only one way to settle the score -- and that meant deserting the flag he had signed up to serve.'

Deserter! is one of the few ideas I've had that popped into my head fully formed. I knew who the main protagonist was, had an idea who would make up the supporting cast, and had a firm beginning, middle and end. And I had what I still hope is a cracking twist that sends the whole story off in a new direction, just as the action seems to be winding down.

So, I wrote up my idea according to publisher DC Thomson's specifications…

And let's stop there for a moment, because there's a valuable lesson here for any aspirant writers out there.

Tip One: if you want to be taken seriously as a professional writer, obtain and read the submission guidelines for the publication you're pitching to and follow them. Editors are busy people and your job as a freelancer -- and I think it was Rob Williams (2000 AD, Cla$$war, Wolverine) who said this -- is to make their lives as easy as possible. If there are no guidelines, then study several issues of the publication rigorously before submitting your work to them (actually, you should also do this even if there are guidelines).

The first draft of my Deserter! synopsis was written up as a 1000-word document and submitted to editor Calum Laird by email, as per the Commando guidelines. And it was rejected. But Calum made some positive noises and suggested I re-write it. You see, I'd committed what I believe is a common mistake amongst novice Commando writers. The story was fine, as were my characters, but there just wasn't enough plot.

Tip Two: if you're pitching to Commando, you need to remember that this war comic eats plot and incident. I mean… devours it. And then, with its belly bulging and its belt buckle loosened, has the temerity to ask for second helpings. This is because, as noted by others elsewhere, the title is more novelistic than most comics, with a compressed storytelling style that relies a lot on captions to convey action. In fact, Commando, in my opinion, has almost as much in common with an illustrated book as it does with other comics.

And so I set about re-writing my synopsis, incorporating Calum's suggestions along the way (he'd given me some ideas as to how to 'fill' my plot out a bit).

Tip three: the editor is King (or Queen). As I've already noted, I write articles for the Judge Dredd Megazine. I used to fret a lot about what was being written about my articles online, in terms of feedback from the readership. Then, one day, I had a sudden realisation. It's not my job to worry about what the readers want. That's the role of my editor, Matt Smith. And he's the guy that I, ultimately, should see as my 'audience'. He's the one I should worry about pleasing. And writing for the Megazine has been a much less stressful experience since I had that realisation.

The second synopsis was accepted and I went ahead and wrote the script. That was in 2008 and it's only now that Deserter! is on the news-stands.

(I had become convinced it would never be published, as is sometimes the case even with paid work.)

It's been quite refreshing reading Deserter!, as, although I remembered the bare bones of the story, I'd forgotten the specifics. The comic is definitely a 'ripping yarn' peppered with if not 'anti-war' statements, then a few 'severely-ambivalent-about-war' moments. The thing is, though, most of the (good) stories told in Commando aren't, to me, about war, even though if you removed that element they would probably need severe re-jigging to work.

Let me try and explain that a little bit better.

Although Deserter! is set against the back-drop of the American Civil War, it's actually about the desire for revenge and how it can affect a person's judgement, and potentially lead them to a ruinous end. Abraham Brown goes to war to avenge his brother's death. As time goes on, he becomes reckless, takes more and more risks, and endangers his life and the lives of his comrades…

Tip four: ultimately, the best Commando stories are, in my opinion, about people and how the extreme situations found in times of war can affect their lives. A Commando may be full of conflict -- in terms of battlefield action -- but its core should actually be the internal conflicts of its characters. And I'm not the only one who thinks so:

Here's editor Calum Laird, on the subject of what makes a good Commando, in an interview with this very site that I conducted. He's talking about the story submissions of a writer called Cyril Walker, who was seen by the editorial team as being one of the comic's top writers (Cyril is, unfortunately, deceased):

"[They'd be] awfully badly typed and there’d be misspellings with little handwritten corrections. It was messy. He made mistakes. He had all sorts of silly phrases he used. But the core of his story, every story, came down to people.

"He had observed people his entire life and because his stories were so good from that point of view, you could ignore the bad spelling and the various other bits and pieces, because that’s what a sub-editor’s job is there to do, to make sure everything is all right. Obviously, it’s much better if it comes in properly written but if you’ve got a writer whose stories are good enough, then you’re prepared to make an allowance for that.

"Whereas you get other people, their stories come in and are beautifully set out, spelt, punctuated, adequate stories, the whole thing and somehow it’s soulless. So, it’s up to writers to push the envelope a bit here and there to make their stuff different from everyone else’s."

Deserter! is on sale now. Should you happen upon a copy and read it, then I'd love to have your feedback.

Addendum: I've since had four story ideas for Commando go belly-up on me at different stages of the submission process. It remains to be seen whether Deserter! was a fluke.

• Matt Badham's blog can be found at www.matthewbadham.com

• Official Commando web site: http://www.commandocomics.com/ 
• Click here for subscription information or write to: D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd, The Subscribers Department, Commando Library, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL or Freephone (UK only) 0800 318846  
• Commando is also available for iPad and iPhone. The apps are free to download through the Apple iTunes App Store and a digital subscription is priced at £4.99 per month, compared to a £99 annual print subscription. For those not sure there are four free issues to download prior to making a purchase.  
• Commando Comics iPhone App on iTunes  
• Commando Comics iPad App on iTunes