The excellent Al Ewing is interviewed in SFX magazine and they’ve very nicely put it up online so everyone can read it. As well as discussing his career Al offers advice for would-be comics writers, noting how the short Future Shocks stories in 2000AD have proven to be a great way for new scribes to hone their talents before embarking on more ambitious projects:
“SFX: What do you enjoy about the format of Tharg’s Future Shocks and Terror Tales?
Ewing: “Lots of freedom! So long as you obey the ‘five pages, twist ending’ rule you can do just about anything. Plus, it gives the up-and-coming writer a massive burst of confidence to learn the skill of creating an entire world and destroying it in five pages – it teaches you brevity, density and most importantly, value for money. Comics are not cheap, and you owe your reader as much entertainment per dollar as humanly possible – Future Shocks are an excellent way of learning to provide massive amounts of information in a small space.”
“If anyone comes up at me and says they want to be a comic writer, I always recommend starting small, with five pages or less. That way you get it finished, there’s not much to rewrite so you can really polish it, you’ve more chances of getting it drawn and printed somewhere, editors are more likely to spare the time to read it… and it teaches you all kinds of valuable skills that will stop you boring the readers to tears with loads of unnecessary waffle later in your professional life. (Like I’m doing now, for example.)“”
(a recent page from Zombo in 2000 AD, written by Al Ewing, art by Henry Flint)
And if you are hungry for more Matt ‘Daddy Cool’ Badham interviewed Al right here on the blog just a few weeks ago – catch up with it here is you missed it.
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