The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

FPI: Today I’m talking to both the writer and artist behind one of the highly acclaimed British Indy titles we’ve added on to the FPI webstore recently, Bulldog Empire. Jason Cobley and Neill Cameron are, as we say in Scotland, ‘well kent’ (well known) names in the British small press community, with both having worked together as well as having success with their own projects, such as Neill’s Absolute Dumbass. Neill is actually in Greece right now (lucky man) but he braved the perils of a deadly slow web connection and a Greek character keyboard to pass on some of his responses, with Jason interpreting for him.

Hi, Neill and Jason. You’ve worked together on Bulldog Empire, an alternative reality of talking animals (including a bulldog who is very reminiscent of war time propaganda posters of Churchill); could you explain a bit about Bulldog Empire to new readers?

N & J: In an alternate Britain, on an alternate Earth, where many mammals – and vegetables – have evolved alongside humans, Captain Winston Bulldog of the Aerial Defence Force defends his idyllic nation against the threat of Imperialism and huge, steam-driven robots. That’s it in a nutshell.

But beneath the surface we’re using what could be seen as right-wing iconography to tell a story with a shameless socialist subtext. With jokes. You have an airship crew commanded by a beer-drinking bulldog, the working-class hero made good, supported by strong female characters including pilot Brittany Bell, young, black and full of it, and Samurai Commander Keiko Panda who thinks in Japanese haiku poems. She also kicks ass.

FPI: How did it come into being? Was it a collaborative endeavour to begin with, or did one of you have the basic idea then approached the other, with it coming together more at that point? How do you find the creative process shares out between writer and artist – do you both bring ideas and suggestions to shape the final work?

N & J: The characters and setting pre-existed. I’d created the world of Bulldog back in the early 1990s, with a number of artists contributing to the gradual development of the look of the strip in my self-published comic Bulldog Adventure Magazine. Neill was one of those, so he has a long-standing connection with it.

About three years ago, Neill came to me with an idea to take a fresh look at the concept and give it a bit of an overhaul, which was something that had been in the back of my mind anyway. We both had a list of things that we wanted to see introduced or changed, and it was a fairly organic process. The look of characters was tweaked, uniforms redesigned, the background to the world stripped back. I really wanted this to be effectively a 2005 Doctor Who-type re-launch, Bulldog: The Movie, so we needed an epic story. I guess we went through three or four drafts of the script, with little dialogue tweaks here and there.

We work mostly via e-mail, passing suggestions back and forth. I almost hate to admit that a couple of the wittiest lines are Neill’s rather than mine! In fact, the other day he suggested a new final line that we may add if we do a later edition. I try to lay it out like a movie, so a lot of the visuals are there in the script from the start, and Neill takes that as a starting point and then sometimes I have to look again at the dialogue to help it flow.

FPI: You’ve both had success individually with BAM and Absolute Dumbass among others; care to tell us a bit about those?

N & J: Well, BAM is probably the longest-running self-published comic in the UK, with 28 issues dating back to 1993. It’s mainly been an anthology in the style of traditional British comics, with Bulldog as the lead strip. Over the years, most people in the small press have dipped into it, with Frazer Irving, PJ Holden, Adrian Bamforth and Anthony Williams amongst the professional artists who have appeared in the magazine.

Dumbass came out of an occasional strip that appeared in BAM about two degenerate binmen of the future. Absolute Dumbass collects every page of their adventures that Neill could possibly find, and it’s living proof that swearing can be big and clever (hear, hear – Joe)!

FPI: Bulldog Empire drew some great reviews – Comics International were raving about it, for instance. Did the pair of you enjoy working together on it and are we likely to see any future tales set in the Bulldog universe?

N & J: Not only Comics International! Dave Sim (Cerebus) described issue 1 as having the best punchline in comics (now that is what we technically call a result – Joe)! I certainly enjoyed writing it – Winston Bulldog has lived inside my head since I was a teenager and he’s not planning to pay his own mortgage just yet. I’m often asked why I do it, when the financial reward is so small, but I have no choice – the stories are there in my head.

I can definitely say that the collaboration with Neill is the most rewarding creative experience I’ve had, and I think it’s made us both raise our game. Neill says he enjoyed it too, I think mainly because he likes the characters so much – especially the panda! But if you’d asked him two thirds of the way through the project, with a looming deadline, the answer may have been different. For the writer, a lot of coffee and late nights go into a comic like this, but for the artist it’s blood, sweat and tears!

That said, we’re very happy at the reviews that we’ve had, and the fact that it’s been picked up for reprinting in its entirety in The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga is very encouraging.

As far as more Bulldog goes: well, I can’t envisage at his stage doing any more without Neill, but he’s very busy with paying work as well as concentrating on his own next project. I do have a number of ideas for continuing Bulldog stories, so if a publisher would like to make us an offer…

FPI: What’s next for both of you in the comics line?

N & J: Neill’s next project is called Thumpculture, an interdimensional martial arts comedy soap opera epic that he’ll be launching as a webcomic this autumn; you can check out his site for more details (and you can also check out the Bulldog Empire website too, of course, where you can see previews, sketches, character bios and more – have alook then buy the comics!). The visuals that I’ve seen so far are pretty darn funky. As for me, I’ve been working with a prominent comic artist on a couple of projects. The first was a really exciting synthesis of comics and the lyrics of a certain rock band, but stalled at the final stages. We’ve just started talking about the second, which is potentially even better. I don’t want to curse it by saying too much, but it’s got robots in it. And they’re always cool.

FPI: Neil Cameron and Jason Cobley, thanks very much for talking to us – we look forward to your next work.