Comic Creator Interview: David Hine on adapting "The Man Who Laughs"

David Hine

David Hine has had an illustrious career in comics, both as artist and writer, working on a diverse range of comics since his debut in the 1980s on titles such as Crisis.

He's currently finishing the first arc of Storm Dogs, from Image, co-created with artist Doug Braithwaite and writing Cowboys and Insects for his old buddy Shaky Kane, for digital anthology Aces Weekly. Work-for-hire projects include The Darkness for Top Cow and an arc of Crossed for Avatar.

downthetubes caught up with David on the release of the stunning graphic novel adaption of Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughed, drawn by Mark Stafford and published by SelfMadeHero...

downthethetubes: You've worked in comics since the 1980s, firstly for Crisis but also Marvel UK, more recently for Marvel and DC Comics, as well as worked on a number of "indie" projects like Strange Embrace and The Bulletproof Coffin. Do you miss the days of British publishers originating more comics?

David Hine: There certainly were a lot more opportunities for freelancers back in the eighties and there was never any shortage of work, though I rarely felt that I was really creating the comics I wanted to do. What we didn’t have much of back then was the opportunity to create full-length graphic novels and in that respect things are healthier now.

downthetubes: One of your latest projects is The Man Who Laughs, an adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel for Eisner Award-nominated publisher SelfMadeHero. How did that project come about?

David: I had written a story for the DC comic Batman and Robin, set in Paris and featuring a French version of the Joker. I knew the story about the creation of the Joker being inspired by a movie poster of the 1929 film of The Man Who Laughs starring Conrad Veidt, and in my story a mad artist disfigures his own child as an homage to Victor Hugo. It occurred to me that I knew very little about the original novel, so I tracked down the English version on the Project Gutenberg site and read it at the gym on my Kindle.

Gywnplaine hears the screams of the drowning Comprachios.
From The Man Who Laughed by Mark Stafford

I don’t know if it was the rush of blood to the head, but I found myself inspired by the story. There were so many scenes that I knew would make fantastic sequences in a comic book. I found myself visualizing pages in my head – the scene where the Comprachicos sink beneath the waves while praying for their souls, Gwynplaine struggling barefoot through the snow, the descent into the depths of Southwark Jail, the confrontation with the massed ranks of the aristocracy in the House of Lords.

I’ve never felt compelled to adapt an existing work before, but this story seemed to be crying out to be made into a comic.

Southwark Jail, as visualized for The Man Who Laughed by Mark Stafford

downthetubes: How do you approach adapting a novel like this? The structure of the original is very different to yours and Mark's adaptation...

David: There were a number of problems with the original novel. It isn’t one of Victor Hugo’s most popular and that’s because it is bogged down in an obsessive catalogue of the titles and possessions of the most powerful aristocratic families and the workings of English law. Hugo clearly had done a lot of research and he was determined to cram it all in there. The narrative structure is also non-linear in a way that actually works against the dramatic effect. I know that’s a bit presumptuous of me, but I couldn’t help feeling he could have done with a good editor.

Gwynplaine and company arrive in London.
Art from The Man Who Laughed by Mark Stafford

The great thing about adapting a book to another medium, especially when the author is long dead and there are no copyright issues, is that you really can cut and rearrange as much as you want. It’s a massive tome, over 200,000 words, so clearly a lot of material had to be cut to reduce it to a manageable 160 pages of comics.

Art from The Man Who Laughed by Mark Stafford

I read the book cover to cover three times. The first time was a straight reading. The second time, I had a hard copy of the book and went through marking the passages that had to be there, and eliminating the parts that were clearly extraneous to the story. There were a couple of nice scenes that could have stayed in, but in the end they reduced the impact of other scenes or upset the pacing of the story. Gwynplaine’s half brother, the illegitimate Lord David Dirry-Moir has an ambiguous role at the end, which is fascinating, but to include it would have ruined the pace of the final scenes, so I was a bit ruthless with him, I’m afraid.

I then re-arranged the order of events. Hugo skipped back and forth in time in ways that sometimes worked against the plot development. Too many spoilers in the early chapters!

Finally, once I knew the scenes that were going to go in there, I re-read those scenes up to a half-dozen times to absorb their atmosphere. After I’d completed an outline of the graphic novel, I re-read the book again from cover-to-cover to make sure I hadn’t missed anything vital.

downthetubes: What's the most difficult aspect of such adaptations? Do you think that it's easier for you to script such work, given your skill as an artist as well as a writer?

David: The most difficult decision was the language. The book was published in 1869 and set in the early 18th Century. Victor Hugo’s language was that of the 19th Century, so it was already a modernization and there was a temptation to update it further. In the end I chose to keep Hugo’s voice and that’s where all the re-reading came in useful. I often used Hugo’s actual words when appropriate but I felt confident enough that even where I was inventing scenes or dialogue, I had absorbed enough of the feel of his writing to keep it consistent and hopefully it reads seamlessly.

Art from The Man Who Laughed by Mark Stafford

downthetubes: There are some superb and startling images in The Man Who Laughs that condense almost entire chapters in the original - Gwynplaine's horrifying encounter with the hanged man, for example is told in just two panels. Do you decide that kind of thing as a writer or was it a matter of joint discussion?

David: The form of the novel is perfect for getting into the heads of the characters and that internal voice is where there is often a problem with adaptation. In Hugo’s case, he was a very visual writer. Discussing scenes with Mark, we soon realised we were both imagining things in a similar way. The internalised emotions are a little more difficult but when you’re working with Mark the problems are solved very easily.

Some of the most powerful scenes are wordless. I have experience as an artist so I always break down a script into thumbnails, roughing out the pages and panels to make sure they are working. I didn’t give Mark those thumbnails because that would be imposing too much of my vision, but I knew that structurally it would all work. Then I gave Mark as much information as I could on what was going through the characters’ heads and when appropriate, cutting and pasting some of the key passages from Hugo as well. The script ran to over 45,000 words in the end, so there was a lot for Mark to wade through.

That scene with the hanged man, for instance, included the original description giving every detail of the canvas the corpse was wrapped in, the snails that had trailed across it, much of which we decided to leave out. We probably talked more about that full-page spread than most other pages. It’s a powerful image that mirror’s Gwynplaine’s own suffering. In the end that single image sums up several hundred words of script.

Mark has a genius for depicting very complex and often conflicting emotional information with his drawing and I don’t think there are many artists who could match what he has done with this book. I gave him the near-impossible task of drawing a character with a face that is fixed in a permanent horrifying rictus, and then asking him to convey every emotional nuance imaginable.

At the start I think Mark was reluctant to draw the facial disfigurement as extreme as I wanted. There’s a recent French film that draws back from showing the sheer horror of that physical abuse and it undermines the whole story. Hugo leaves no doubt how awful the mutilation was. Gwynplaine had to be utterly repulsive in order to make the nobility of the character shine so clearly. That was a hell of a challenge for Mark, and he rose to it with his usual aplomb. By forcing the reader to look at the horror of his face, you find that after a while you are seeing past it. The acting is all in the body language and the upper face, particularly the eyes. You see through the fright mask to the sympathetic character that lies beneath.

downthetubes: You've worked for both small and large comic publishers on both commercial and, I assume, more personal projects. Does your work on series like X-Men, for example, afford you the opportunity to work on (perhaps) smaller stories like The Darkness?

The cover of The Darkness #112
by Stjepan Sejic

David: When I began writing for a living in 2004 I was exceptionally lucky to start with X-Men and other well-know characters. I’ve written Daredevil, Spider-Man, the Inhumans, Batman, Green Lantern, all kinds of iconic characters. I even had a run on Will Eisner’s The Spirit for DC, which was actually the most gratifying work-for-hire I had done. I could imagine writing Batman, but I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be allowed to write my all-time favourite character.

Now I have made it clear that I no longer want to work on the bigger corporate characters of Marvel and DC. There are too many issues. However, working on those books has made it a lot easier to find publishers for my more personal work and even on work-for-hire I’m given a lot of free rein by the guys at Top Cow and Avatar.

I guess I’ve gone about this ass backwards. Most people seem to do the smaller books with the aim of reaching the heady heights of working for the Big Two and that turned out to be the reverse of my career path. It’s still tough to make a living from the creator-owned work, but it’s so much more creatively satisfying. What the DC and Marvel work did was to get my name out there a bit and also helped me to develop my craft.

Working to insane deadlines really is also a great way to focus the mind, and even the frustrating editorial “directing” does push you to find a way to tell a decent story against the odds. I’ll always be grateful to the guys like Joe Quesada and Mike Marts who gave me those openings at Marvel and DC. I know I often slag off the Big Two but I have a lot of respect for many of the individuals who work at both companies. And kudos to the creators like Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Si Spurrier, Frazer Irving, Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely and many more, who somehow manage to rise above.

downthetubes: What's your next project and when does it launch?

David: Storm Dogs is the big one at the moment. The fifth issue has gone to press and the last part of the first arc is being drawn right now by co-creator Doug Braithwaite. This is my first serious attempt at science fiction since my Mambo series for 2000AD back in the 1990’s.

Then there is a second arc of Night Of The Living Dead for Avatar and I’ve just written the first part of my second arc of Crossed for the same publisher.

I’m also working up to the death of Jackie Estacado and The Darkness. Talking of iconic characters, I’m getting to kill off this one! It’s a strangely positive project to be working on and I think the mini-series ‘Darkness Falls’ that follows the end of the monthly series could be one of the defining episodes in the history of The Darkness.

Bulletproof Coffin
© David Hine & Shaky Kane

downthtetubes: You're also working on a number of digital projects and you and Shaky Kane have constructed a very different version of Bulletproof Coffin in its digital form. Are you excited by the opportunities and challenges of this new comic storytelling medium?

David: That’s an interesting development. When we did the cut-up issue of The Bulletproof Coffin it was the realisation of a concept I had running around my head for the best part of 20 years. I had wanted to write a story as a set of cards, with a single image on each card, which would be sold in a pack and would be shuffled and read at random. I’m fascinated by the way we perceive ‘story’, attempting to impose a narrative structure on even the most random of elements. Initially the idea was to present a story in pieces and find the ‘correct’ structure. So that was the theory, but I never got around do doing it.

Issue 4 of The Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred was the closest I got. That was a collection of 84 images, some of them related, but mostly created as a stream of consciousness with a deliberately random approach. That culminated with sitting in a pub with print-outs of those 84 images and having everyone round the table re-arrange them at random. The order we ended with was the order in which they were printed.

The next stage would have been to create a digital version, which would create pages in random sequence, but I just assumed that would need some amazingly complex piece of software to achieve, so we never did it. We did encourage people to ‘cut and paste’ their own digital versions of the comic and a number of people posted PDFs of their re-arrangements. Then we heard from this guy called Inigo Saenz who contacted me to ask if he could post his version.

When I saw it I freaked. The pages were genuinely random and you could go on clicking for new pages indefinitely. This really was the Endless Coffin, just as I imagined it. Inigo asked me if I could think of any improvement and I very flippantly suggested weird music and animated psychedelic gifs, which he duly added. It’s quite a trip and you can see it here: http://84.fanthoman.com

I love the way our readers have become involved in the creative process. In a sense the reader or viewer is always a part of that process. No one ever reads the same book as someone else, or sees the same movie or hears the same music, but with the Coffin, the involvement has become more proactive. I love it and in many ways The Bulletproof Coffin has become the most important piece of work I’ve been involved with. I hope Shaky feels the same.

And by the way, we promise not to sue anyone who recreates that fourth issue of The Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred in any way, shape or form. It’s all yours to mess with in any way you want, provided you make the result available for free.

Cowboys and Insects © David Hine & Shaky Kane

We are now working on Cowboys and Insects, which is a whole other kind of science-fiction that draws on 1950’s B-movies for inspiration. It will make its appearance in June on David Lloyd’s digital site Aces Weekly. It’s a natural outlet for Shaky’s work. Now you can see his art the way it was meant to be. Shaky tells me he’s been taking the opportunity to turn the brightness on the colour up to eleven.

downthetubes: Above anything else, what one piece of advice would you offer aspiring comic creators?

David: I spend too much time telling people to work on their craft. That is important of course, but there is too much highly crafted, efficiently sterile work out there. Be original. Look at everything, soak up everything, from every medium, every genre, let it percolate in your head and then turn off the personal censor and let it all out.

• Thanks to David for his time. You can keep up to date with latest news on David's work on his blog and find links to his work in print at Waitingfortrade.com or on davidhine.tumblr or @hinedavid (Twitter)

•  Mark Stafford's Hocus Baloney (blog)

Aces Weekly Volume 4 now online

Aces Weekly, published by David Lloyd, stuffed with creator-owned strips is now running its first week of the fourth collection of their great, exclusively digital, online comic art series which is appropriately called  - Aces Weekly Volume Four!

"It's our biggest volume yet," says David, "and with an extraordinary mix that I hope readers are all enjoying."

This Volume - which runs forseven weeks of seven issues  - contains the excellent Phoenix by Jimmy Hoxton and Guy Adams; Firehawks by the legendary Herb Trimpe; Dark Utopia by Mark Montague; and Just Force by Stephen Baskerville, amongst other beautifully-crafted pieces of the dramatic and the comedic.    

"Phoenix is the second of our contributions thus far in Aces Weekly to explore some of the possibilities of digital storytelling outside of venturing into the dismal areas of ' motion comics'", David enthuses. "What Jimmy and Guy have done with Phoenix in this volume is what Mark Wheatley and Jeff Vaughan have done in our previous volumes with Return of the Human (which is returning soon...) - i.e. use the advantage of unlimited, non-printed-page-restricted space to show the growth of a concept rather than playing with rudimentary technical trickery to elaborate and decorate!  

"We are very proud and very pleased to present the inventiveness and creativity of these excellent creators, and wish our readers great fun in seeing it all develop in front of your eyes as time passes over our period of running these excellent works.

"Aces Weekly continues to reach out into the world," David reveals. "I just came back from a trip to a comics show in Italy last weekend where the response to what we're doing in this new world of publishing on the net was warm and welcoming despite the fact that it came from an audience that was accustomed to a market of healthy and regular newstand print sales.

"Each country I visit on the quest to spread the message of what we're doing with Aces Weekly has its own history and customs, but not one of them is less than a welcoming.  Some are more open to the new than others, but none are rejecting.  And every one of them recognizes that what we are representing with Aces Weekly is the future.  I am glad to be a part of it (despite all the hard work attached to it...)"

• Subscribe to Aces Weekly here: www.acesweekly.co.uk

Photo Review: Dundee Comics Expo 2013

Saturday 30 March saw the inaugural Dundee Comics Expo at the University of Dundee. The university had been running the event that is now known as the Dundee Comics Day since 2008, a day of creator talks normally tied into an artwork exhibition plus one or two sales tables for attendees to buy books relating to the guests. It crosses the divide between a comics convention and an academic conference and is often highly social with guests chatting to the attendees in the university foyer between talks.

The Dundee Comics Expo came out of an idea the university lecturers had to run a Dundee comic mart but, with the desire to have an education element of workshops or talks, coupled with their contacts within the industry, that comic mart idea soon grew into a small convention. The university Tower Building where the Dundee Comics Day takes place provided the lecture theatre for the guest talks and the Baxter Suite (above) for workshops and sales tables, indeed they even managed to squeeze extra sales tables into the suite, more than were shown on the event’s map, without it feeling crowded.

The university’s College Hall (above and below), a bright and airy hall that was very reminiscent of the Harland and Wolff drawing offices that the RMS Titanic was designed in, and just at the rear of the Tower Building, provided the rest of the sales table space. Indeed given that so many comics conventions have their sales tables in places with no windows, the College Hall with its high ceiling and large windows was a very people friendly space.

The guests included Costa Award winners Bryan and Mary Talbot, along with artists David Lloyd, Hannah Berry, and Nigel Dobbyn, all of whom gave talks and were happy to sign books. Local creators there included Gary Erskine, Alex Ronald, Team Girl Comic, Jim Alexander and Jim Stewart all selling their wares plus DC Thomson put on a Commando display including some of the merchandise that is normally only available directly from the DC Thomson shop. Needless to say, since it was a University of Dundee event, the students of the MLitt in Comic Studies and the DJCAD Comics and Animation courses were there promoting their UniVerse titles including the new Anthology Three which was launched on the day.

The Baxter Suite area also provided a small exhibition of original artwork although I wonder how many attendees actually realised that there was original artwork on display from adventure artists like Steve Yeowell and Colin MacNeil or humour artists like Ken Reid and Dudley D Watkins as they walked into the main suite area. Above is original artwork for Faceache from a 1972 issue of Buster by the master of the humour comic strip, Ken Reid, while below is the original artwork for Oor Wullie from the 19 November 1944 edition of The Sunday Post by Dudley D Watkins, one of the finest all round comics artists the UK has ever produced.

The day ended across the road from the university in the Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) venue where the excellent Judge Minty was screened with two Judge Dredd art-droids in attendance, and was then followed by DeeCAP, a performance event for comic creators. The DCA bar also provided the main evening meeting place for those who did not rush off to see the new Doctor Who companion.

The Dundee Comics Expo had a constant stream of people throughout the day but never seemed that busy perhaps due to it being split over three areas. As the first event of its kind taking place on a cold Easter Saturday in Dundee outside of term-time it was perhaps understandable that it was not as busy as it could have been but with big name guests and completely free of charge, it deserved a bigger turn-out than it seemed to get. However that benefited those attendees that were there as no long queues for any given guest or sellers tables meant that there was time to chat to all and sundry and that it made it a laid back and friendly event.

Art-droid Alex Ronald and his new self-published title Outpost: Black Sun, a prequel to the second Outpost film, with sepia art by Alex and written by Rae Brunton and Steve Barker. There are more details of the title at Alex’s blog.

Team Girl Comic show off their latest issue, TGC 7, which is available from their website which also has the beginning of their new weekly web-comic.

Nigel Dobbyn sketches his latest creation, the children’s story book character Dave The Diver. There are more details of this and Nigel’s other work on his website.

David Lloyd promoted his on-line comic Aces Weekly with a special deal of a free sketch when people bought a subscription to volume 1 – it proved rather popular.

Jim Alexander shows off his latest title Planet Jimbot title, Amazing And Fantastic Tales, which he launched on the day. There are more details of this and his other titles on his blog.

In disguise on the Commando table, deputy editor Scott Montgomery and editor Calum Laird with some of the Commando merchandise available from the DC Thomson on-line shop.

There are more images from the Dundee Comics Expo 2013 courtesy of Joe Gordon on the Forbidden Planet International blog.

Aces Weekly heads for the London SuperCon

Progenitor by Phil Hester & John McCrea, which featured in Aces Weekly Volume 1

Aces Weekly - www.acesweekly.co.uk - the exclusively digital weekly comic art magazine that's packed with talent from around the globe - is just one of many British comic enterprises on location the London Super Comic Convention at the Excel Centre this coming weekend.

 

Creators Herb Trimpe, David Lloyd, Ben Dickson, David Hitchcock, Kev Hopgood, Dave Hine, John McCrea, Paul MacCaffrey and many more ace creators will be on Stand D105, ready to sign, sketch and say hi! 

 

Sample Volume One with a collectible sketchcard from any artist on hand if you're yet to subscribe.

 

Featured guest at the SuperCon include Neal Adams, J Scott Campbell, Lee Bermejo, Brian Bolland, Doug Braithwaite, Neil Edwards, Carlos Ezquerra, Gary Erskine and many more (full 'featured' list here.

 

British publishers include PS Artbooks, Orang Utan Comics, UK Comics, 2000AD, Soaring Penguin, Accent UK, Eaglemoss, Panini, Time Bomb Comics and more. (List of exhibitors here)

Aces Weekly announces line up for next digital volume

Aces Weekly, which showcases some of the brightest new and established talent from across the globe in an exclusively digital weekly comic art magazine, begins its seven-issue, seven-week runon Monday 4th February.

Volume Three of the revolutionary digital comic art weekly created and published by David Lloyd, features a further seven-week installment of Mark Wheatley and JC Vaughan’s, fantastic Return of The Human; Roger Langridge’s Fez; Antonio Bifulco and Giuseppe Rungetti’s Warrior Exorcist; Steve Marchant's Six Minutes Past Midnight; and a hymn of hope and a very special tribute to New Yorkers from the great creator of the Third World War series Seth Tobocman – One City.

Also in the mix are Marc Hempel, Martin Griffiths, Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque and much more: even weekly issues and up to 210 pages of great serials, shortstories and extras for just over a dollar a week from www.acesweekly.co.uk

• If you'd like to know any more about any of this great stuff coming up from the title, and why they all love doing it, David Lloyd will be at Paris Manga (www.parismanga.fr) on February 9-10th with some of the Aces Weekly crew - Yishan Li, Kev Hopgood and Rory Walker - at booth 100.

They'll also be at the London Super Comic Convention, at the Excel Centre on 23rd - 24th February. (www.londonsupercomicconvention.com)

Artwork featured copyright 2013 respective creators

Hudnall, Mayverik deliver 'Blue Cat' for Aces Weekly

This stunning promo piece by Val Mayerik is for a new strip, Blue Cat by James Hudnall, appearing in the next issue of the digital comic Aces Weekly (acesweekly.co.uk) this month (December).

In the story, Cindy Sparks is a 16 year old girl who gets into serious trouble and is soon haunted by the ghost of a mysterious cat. The cat leads her on a journey to solve a mystery through places within walking distance of her home that she never imagined were there. Places scary, mind blowing and certainly not safe.

James Hudnall burst onto the comics scene in 1986 with Espers, which Aces Weekly publisher and creator David Lloyd illustrated. He went on to produce many acclaimed comics for Marvel, DC, Image, Malibu, Viz such as The Psycho, Sinking, Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography, Streets, The Age of Heroes (now being re-published in colour STRIP Magazine, re-mastered by John Ridgway), and Devastator. Last year, his graphic novel Aftermath made its English language debut from Humanoids.

James is excited about digital comics having produced one in 2000 with Spanish artist Rafa Fonteriz which is the early version of Aftermath. It can be seen on his site thehud.com. In addition to Blue Cat, which he is producing for Aces Weekly, he's finishing his self published crime series 2 To the Chest for 2013.

Creating Aces Weekly: Behind the Scenes with editor Bambos Georgiou

Interest in Aces Weekly, a new weekly digital comic conceived by David Lloyd, has accelerated now the title is up and running, with the project attracting plenty of press attention at last weekend's New York Comic Con.

downthetubes caught up with Aces Weekly editor (and comic book inker) Bambos Georgiou and creator David Lloyd to get the latest on the project.

David Lloyd

As the co-creator of V for Vendetta and creator of the graphic novel Kickback, David Lloyd should need no introduction to regular downthetubes readers. He originally trained as a commercial artist in an advertising art studio before becoming a strip cartoonist in 1977 and his numerous credits include Night Raven and Doctor Who strips for Marvel UK, Hellblazer, Slaine, War Stories, Global Frequency, Aliens, Marlowe: The Graphic Novel and much, much more. Aces Weekly is his latest project, breaking new ground in the digital comics field.

Bambos Georgiou

A comic professional for over 20 years, who has read comics since age of 5, Bambos Georgiou worked as an editor for Marvel UK and has a string of creator-owned projects to his name.

"This project is fairly unique, as it's been set up by a couple of creators to benefit their fellow creators," explains Bambos of Aces Weekly's origin.
"The whole thing was David's idea and he asked me what I thought back in October 2011. I looked at his basic premise, put in my two cents worth and we took it from there, gradually laying the ground work.

"Fairly early on, we established that it should be weekly and available on home computers as well as on an iPad."

Progenitor © 2012 Phil Hester and John McCrea

It's an ambitious project that has attracted some top line creators across the globe, including Phil Hester, John McCrea, Kyle Baker and many more. "I don't think creators will get too many opportunities like this," Bambos enthuses. "They get to keep their copyright and the majority of the revenue is paid to the creators.

"The pages are all landscape," he says of the title's format, "as Aces Weekly is tailored for the screen ratio of all digital delivery devices. We want to reach everyone - at home or anywhere else they happen to be.

"Aces Weekly is readable on both home computers and tablets," he adds. "Our web designer has made it compatible with every device. You just need an internet or wifi connection.

"We have gone for straight comics without any technological tricks such as panel to panel progressions," he expands on the project's presentation mechanic.
"David and I both wanted to just make comic strips available exclusively digitally," he adds. It's very much about the strips as opposed to any technological gimmicks.

"I believe in the comic strip medium, I don't think it needs 'improving', he expands. "If you link content with technology, like computer games, the technology moves on and your content becomes old fashioned. You can still read V For Vendetta and it's a very good (make that great) comic, but people don't play Pacman any more because it's old fashioned, the technology's moved on.

"For me, digital media is just another way of getting comic strips in front of readers. It's up to our web designers to make it work – I'm just interested in the comics!"

Talking generally about the move to digital comics, "We looked at what had been done and realised that most comic companies were merely making their print books available in digital formats as well.

"We wanted to produce something that was only available in a digital format, exclusively. To sell that to the established comic market we knew we needed names that comic fans recognised and trusted. We know they'll be taking a leap of faith, but it's a bit easier when you've got well known, popular creators providing the content."

How did were the initial creators chosen for the first issues of Aces Weekly?

"David gathered together the talent, which comes from all over the world," Bambos reveals. "He's been going to comic conventions for years and has met lots of comic creators, many of them wanted to be involved with his project.

"Once people like Kyle Baker, John McCrea, Phil Hester, Mark Wheatley, Billy Tucci, Yishan Li and Alain Mauricet were involved, I knew it had a good chance of success. That was the first wave to say they were willing to sign up, so it really was a very positive response from the start.

Legion Zero, an upcoming story for Aces Weekly. © 2012 Kev Hopgood and Ferg Handley

"We've got creators from all over the world contributing, UK, US, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, China and the Philippines. It's a pretty incredible line up."

As to the title's planned frequency, "we're publishing Aces Weekly in volumes, seven weekly issues to each volume and a volume costs £6.99/$9.99/EU 7.99. There are two-week breaks before each new volume begins - this is to give those creators producing stories across volumes maximum time to deliver, whilst not keeping readers waiting too long for the following volume.

"Each issue has up to 30 pages of brand new comics including extras such as pencils and sketches which builds up to 210 pages per volume - a very good deal.

"In most volumes six stories are serialised through the seven issues, but in Volume 1, and other volumes coming up, we'll also be featuring self-contained three-pagers, that are previews of upcoming stories or comedies, or one-off dramas."

Paradise Mechanism © 2012 David Hitchock

The initial serialised strips are Valley Of Shadows by David Lloyd & Dave Jackson, Shoot For The Moon by Alexandre Tefenkgi & Mauricet, Return Of The Human by JC Vaughn & Mark Wheatley, Progenitor by Phil Hester and John McCrea and Paradise Mechanism by David Hitchcock.

"The self contained three pagers feature some well known characters making a welcome comeback; Combat Colin by Lew Stringer, Thrud by Carl Critchlow, Psycho Gran by David Leach and Gimbley by Phil Elliott. There are also strips by Spanish creator Esteban Hernandez and UK creator Rory Walker.

"I've teamed up with Mychailo Kazybrid to produce a three pager called Dr Queer. Mychailo and I work on the Wallace & Gromit strip which appears in the Sun newspaper."

And will any of the strips be returning in future volumes or will we see a change of line-up?

"Smash Mannix, Progenitor and Return Of The Human are all set to return," Bambos reveals."Any of the strips could make a comeback: it depends on the creators and the reader reaction, but those two strips are already booked in for future volumes. The self contained three pagers will also be appearing semi-regularly, which I think helps to break things up a bit."

Of course, despite the digital presentation of the comics, there are many who still like their comics on paper - so are there any plans for collected editions of the strips that feature in Aces Weekly?

"The title was designed to be exclusively digital, so we have absolutely no plans for print versions," says Bambos. "These creators are involved in the future of comics because the future of comics, and most media, is digital."

That digital new world remains something of an unknown and Bambos and David - and the creators - know the long term eventual success of Aces Weekly is not just down to great comic storytelling but letting people know the comic is available and encouraging subscriptions. But they also know it will be some time before they know if all the hard work they've put into the project so far has paid off for all concerned.

Art © David Lloyd

"In the direct sales market publishers and creators know how many copies they've sold three months before the comic's been printed," he acknowledges. "With digital comics it's a long term proposition, we'll still be on sale in three months or three years.

"It's down to us to get the message out there to the general market, you know the 99.99 per cent of the population that don't read comics in the UK and US. Now that's a prize worth going for and it's not going to be attained by turning a comic strip into a graphic novel and putting it into a direct sales comic shop."

Despite these unknowns, there is one positive for the creators concerned, Bambos reveals.

"The money our creators get from a single sale of Aces Weekly is greater than the royalty from most graphic novels – and that's just on 21 pages of material! "It's a sweet deal," he opines. "David and I are creators – so, as I've said many times, the whole project is geared towards the creators."

Initial reaction has been very positive, the title's creator, David Lloyd, tells us. "I had an excellent time promoting Aces Weekly at the New York Comic Convention over the weekend," he reveals. "There was no quiet moment from the beginning to the end - a dozen interviews with everyone from Canadian tv to the Wall Street Journal and including the trusty Bleeding Cool. Visitors to my table every minute were reacting with enthusiasm to my enthusing about Aces Weekly."

"Readers can subscribe now and get all the issues that have been published up to that point in our first volume," Bambos reminds us. "We're trying to make it as simple and attractive to buy the comic as possible."

• Head over to www.acesweekly.co.uk now and check it out for yourself. Issues 1 - 3 are now available!

Interview compiled with help from 'The Emperor'. Thanks to Bambos and David for their time providing this interview.

Aces Weekly digital comic gets underway

Progenitor by Phil Hester and John McCrea

Aces Weekly (www.acesweekly.co.uk), an exclusively digital comic art magazine featuring some of the world's finest sequential art creators launched at the weekend and offers a fine mix of strips and creators, combining adventure, science fiction and humour. 

The brainchild of V For Vendetta co-creator David Lloyd, edited by veteran comics creator and form Marvel UK editor Bambos Georgiou, has gathered together top talents from the US, UK, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, China, New Zealand and the Philippines in this unique publishing project. 

Seven weekly issues form a volume of Aces Weekly for a total cost of just £6.99/$9.99/€7.99 and are accessible once you subscribe on the site. The comic is not available for download from any other on-line site, and is available exclusively digitally.

A volume of Aces Weekly will contain at least 126 pages of top quality comic strip material as well as copious extras such as character sketches, line drawings and unlettered artwork. After the first seven issue volume of ACES WEEKLY has been published on-line there will be a two week break before the next volume begins.
Volume one contains:

• VALLEY OF SHADOWS by David Lloyd & Dave Jackson
• RETURN OF THE HUMAN by JC Vaughn & Mark Wheatley
• PROGENITOR by Phil Hester & John McCrea
• PARADISE MECHANISM by David Hitchcock
• SHOOT FOR THE MOON by Alexandre Tefenkgi & Alain Mauricet
• Plus three pagers by Lew Stringer, Carl Critchlow, Mychailo Kazybrid, David Leach, Phil Elliott, Esteban Hernandez & Rory Walker

As long as you have an internet connection you can access your Aces Weekly volumes from your home computer, laptop or tablet device. Just type in your password and you’ll be able to read whichever volumes you’ve subscribed to.

Forthcoming artists include Kyle Baker, Bill Sienkiewicz, Steve Bissette, Herb Trimpe, Marc Hempel, Yishan Li, Dylan Teague, Henry Flint, James Hudnall, Val Mayerik, Hunt Emerson, Roger Langridge, Dave Hine, Paul Peart Smith and many more.

•  Sign up for Aces Weekly

• Discuss Aces Weekly on the DownTheTubes forum 

Panel Borders on Aces Weekly and 2000AD

Panel Borders: Aces Weekly

Continuing our month of shows about anthologies, Alex Fitch talks to the creator and co-editor - David Lloyd - of a new weekly digital comics anthology, Aces Weekly.
Alex also talks to three of the other contributors - David Leach, John McCrea and Kev Hopgood - about their new strips which will feature in the title and how the creators hope this will open up a new market for British comics in a brand new format.
The first issue of Aces Weekly goes online at www.acesweekly.co.uk on 30th September 2012

8pm, Sunday 23rd September 2012, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / extended podcast after broadcast at panelborders.wordpress.com

Last week's show about The Phoenix comic, featuring a panel discussion with Daniel Hartwell, Neill Cameron, Adam Murphy, Robin Etherington and Patrice Aggs is available now as a 'feature length' podcast.

Clear Spot: 35 years of 2000AD 

In an hour long programme to compliment this month's series of Panel Borders on comic book anthologies, Alex Fitch looks at "The Galaxy's Greatest Comic", 2000AD in its 35th anniversary year, alongside the release of a new Dredd movie, featuring the comic's longest running character.

Alex discusses the recently released 1800th issue of the comic with editor Matt Smith; the process of writing Future Shocks with small press creator David Baillie; the drawing of memorable strips such as Harlem Heroes and Nemesis the Warlock with artists Kev Hopgood and Henry Flint; and the art of putting words in the mouth of indestructible lawman Judge Dredd with letterer Annie Parkhouse.

8pm, Wednesday 26th September 2012, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / extended podcast after broadcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

Remember, Remember the 30th September

PROGENITOR By Phil Hester & John McCrea © 2012 John McCrea & Phil Hester

David Lloyd (V for Vendetta, Kickback) empowered the world with his iconoclastic Guy Fawkes mask in V for Vendetta. Today, comic conspirator Lloyd is changing the world with his publishing launch of an ambitious new online magazine called Aces Weekly.

Acesweekly.co.uk is a sequential art magazine, available exclusively through on-line subscription which will be released as seven weekly issues which form a volume. Each issue will have at least three landscape pages from six contributors (18 pages per issue), plus many pages of extras such as artists sketches etc.

Readers subscribe to volumes which cost £6.99/$9.99 per seven issue volume. Aces Weekly will be available exclusively on-line and feature all new material. Stored online, readers now have access to their magazine wherever they have web access.

PARADISE MECHANISM By David Hitchcock © 2012 David Hitchcock

What makes Aces Weekly special? The creators have more control then ever before.

"The aim was to create something very much like a traditional weekly English comic but without limiting the subject matter," says Lloyd explaining the origin of the magazine. "We asked a range of creators who we knew to be excellent - the reason for the ' aces ' of our name - to do whatever they liked within certain bounds of taste, and they just came up with a great mix of stories.

© 2012 Yishan Li

 

"Creators in this business rarely get asked to do whatever they like, so that's part of the pull of the project for them. And they're enthused by the newness of the project and its potential for growth.”

“Most comic companies use creators to make money for the company, this company has been set up to make money for the creators," says Bambos Georgiou, the managing editor. "This time readers will know their money is going direct to the creators." All strips are creator owned.

Lloyd, who along with writer Dave Jackson has created Valley Of Shadows for Acesweekly.co.uk, has gathered together some of the top names in the comic industry to appear, such as Kyle Baker (Smash Mannix versus The Mob, the story of Detective "Hottie" McDaniel's quest to find out who's wiping out mobsters in unusual ways), Steve Bissette, Colleen Doran, Bill Sienkiewicz, Billy Tucci and Herb Trimpe, including, alongside him in the first volume; Phil Hester & John McCrea (Progenitor), JC Vaughn & Mark Wheatley (Return Of The Human) Alain Mauricet & Alexandre Tefenkgi (Shoot For The Moon) and David Hitchcock (Paradise Mechanism) who all contribute twenty-one page stories serialized over the first seven issue run.

Also included in the first volume are stand alone three page strips by Lew Stringer (Combat Colin), Carl Critchlow (Thrud The Barbarian), David Leach (Psycho Gran), Esteban Hernández (Harmony), Phil Elliott (Gimbley) Rory Walker (Chloroform) and Mychailo Kazybrid & Bambos (Dr Queer).

Contributors lined up also include Marc Hempel (The Love Brothers).

The website goes live on 30th September 2012.

• Official Aces Weekly Web Site: Acesweekly.co.uk

• Official Facebook Page


 

David Lloyd's Aces Weekly, digital comic - details announced

(Updated 4th August): Bambos Georgiou, the editor of David Lloyd's new digital comic, has been in touch with more news about the project featuring an amazing line up of creator-owned strips.

"The on-line magazine is called Aces Weekly," he reveals.

"Creators contributing are David Lloyd, Kyle Baker, Mark Wheatley, JC Vaughn, John McCrea, Phil Hester, David Hitchcock, Steve Bissette, Dan Christensen, Yishan Li, Algesiras, Alain Mauricet, Alexandre Tefenkgi, Billy Tucci, Mindy McPeak, Kathryn Layno, Kev Hopgood, Ferg Handley, Lew Stringer, David Leach, Carl Critchlow, Colleen Doran, Shaky Kane, Dave Hine, Hunt Emerson, Dylan Teague, Marc Hempel, Paul Maybury, Phil Elliott, Esteban Hernandez, Mychailo Kazybrid, Ben Dickson, Gavin Mitchell, Henry Flint and (believe it or not) many more...

"Most comic companies use creators to make money for the company, this company has been set up to make money for the creators," he adds. "The whole project has been funded by David Lloyd, who has commissioned the web site. This time readers will know their money is going direct to the creators."

Aces Weekly will be released as seven weekly issues which form a volume. Each issue will have at least three landscape pages from six contributors (18 pages per issue), plus extras such as artists sketches etc.

Then there'll be a break in publication before the next seven issue volume begins.

Readers subscribe to volumes which cost £6.99/$10 per seven issue volume.

Aces Weekly will be available exclusively on-line and feature all new material and can be viewed on home computers, laptops and tablets.

Creators come from the UK, US and European comic industries and have been gathered together by David Lloyd who is the publisher. Bambos Georgiou is the managing editor. All strips are creator owned.

- To be updated readers should send their e-mails to info@acesweekly.co.uk