(art for the 2010 Hi-Ex! comics con by Colin MacNeil, Dredd (c) Rebellion and Mega City One Justice Department)

Matt: Please tell us a little about yourself and your previous and current involvement in the Brit’ comics scene.

Rich: About five years ago, I was asked to come on board the FutureQuake team as an editor. I’ve been there ever since. (And we’ve added to the stable too. We now publish a horror book, Something Wicked, two 2000AD fanzines, Zarjaz and Dogbreath, and a Manga book called MangaQuake, although we’ve decided to shelve that one after the next issue.)

In addition to that, I’m currently writing two full-length graphic novels for Insomnia and co-organising Hi-Ex!, The Highland International Comic Convention.

I’m sure there’s other stuff too…

Matt: How did your new comic, Turning Tiger from Renegade Arts Entertainment, come about?

Rich: Well, first, I better give you a quick outline of the plot… Sarah Smith is a nine-year-old girl. JEN is a multi-billion dollar war robot. When JEN malfunctions and kidnaps Sarah, the military find themselves in desperate race against time to save the child and to stop her parents going public with the story.

As with a lot of things, it began with a couple of different ideas. I had a couple of particular images that kept popping into my mind featuring a young girl and a giant robot. One of these turns up as a panel in issue two.

The other thing I can’t talk about as it would spoiler the story in an enormous way!

So yeah, I one day realised that these two separate things were not actually separate but parts of the same story.

Suddenly Turning Tiger was born!

(Turning Tiger #1 by Richmond Clements and Alex Moore, published Renegade Arts)

Matt: What have been the benefits of working for small press titles, in terms of writing and networking opportunities, and your life generally?

Rich: In terms of writing, it’s good practise!

What the small press can do is take a script that might not be anywhere near ready, but has perhaps just the spark of a good idea in it and work with the writer for as long as it takes until the script is ready. It also gives a writer or artist the undeniable thrill of seeing something you created in print.

In my life…?

Phew! Will I start with meeting my partner through working on comics and work down from there? I’ve made some incredibly good friends through my involvement in comics. That and it gives me something to do with what little spare time I have!

Networking… I’m not sure how to answer this without coming over as terribly mercenary!

It’s great fun to meet pros and to have become friends with some. And to then have some of these guys agree to do covers for us is a real thrill.

On a personal level: sitting in a bar with an editor at a convention is a damned good way to pitch a story!

Matt: How did you develop your ideas? Do you bang away at a script or plot and write a synopsis first?

Rich: Turning Tiger arrived pretty much fully formed.

Some things, the graphic novel Corvus I’m writing for Insomnia, for example, start off as an idea (superhero story set in Roman Britain) and have to be worked into a plot.

However, Turning Tiger, once I had the original thought, was more or less all there from the off. There have been a few very minor changes made, but that’s all.

Matt: Corvus sounds interesting. Please tell us about that.

Rich: Corvus is set in Roman-occupied Britain in 30AD. The Brits are held in subjugation by the mighty Roman army, helped by their own superhero, Gladius. But the British have a hero too; a 15-year-old girl called Callie, who must become the Corvus, legendary guardian of the people…

It’s basically a rip-roaring adventure, with some awesome action set pieces in there, as well as, I hope, telling a good story. Art is by the brilliant Kevin Levell, who has produced some cracking concept sketches already.

(art by Kev Levell for Richmond Clements’ Corvus, to be published by Insomnia Publications)

Matt: You seem to have a lot of irons in the fire at the moment. Are you doing all this stuff on top of a day job?

Rich: Yes, I have a day job too! I’m lucky though, in that I’m a pretty fast writer once I get started.

Also, I drive a lot in my day job and get a lot of time to edit in my head, so by the time I get to putting it on paper a script or story can be more or less fully mapped out.

Matt: It seems in one way that British comics are going through a bit of a golden age, with a thriving small press scene, lots of stuff happening online and lots of indie companies springing up. On the other hand, there seem to be few opportunities to actually make money from comics in this country.

Please give us your perspective on the pros and cons of being a fledgling comics writer working right here, right now and also as a con’ organiser, who perhaps gets a bit of an overview of the scene that way.

Rich: The small press scene is indeed thriving.

In truth it’s always been that way, but it’s just that the ‘top end’ of the market, if you want to call it that, has all but disappeared, so now folks are starting to notice the small and mid-sized press more.

You’re right though, there are a, to put it mildly, limited number of ’slots’ in the industry where a writer or artist can expect to make a full-time wage.

Frankly, though, if you’re mental enough to get into comics as a way of making your fortune then you deserve everything you (don’t) get! I think there’s too many people who look at writers like Grant Morrison or Alan Moore and assume that everyone in the industry can make that kind of money. Which is of course stupid. Every author doesn’t make Rowling or King money. Every musician is not going to reach the earning level of U2 or Springsteen. You have to accept that the chances are you will not make your fortune writing or drawing comics unless you are very, very lucky.

On the convention organising front, we were delighted and surprised by the interest shown by the general public. Our first Hi-Ex! was all but snowed off, with only half the guests being able to make it because of the weather, yet we saw hundreds of members of the general public turn up, many of them in family groups, to join in. There is a massive market out there of ‘ordinary’ people who are interested in the medium. The industry needs to focus on bringing them in and not on keeping an ever-diminishing number of hardcore fans and continuity whores happy. Most people want to open a comic and simply want to see Batman thwart the Joker or Hulk Smash. They don’t care if Cyclops did such-and-such in a comic written 25 years ago. They just want entertainment.

Matt: What next for you, in terms of your writing?

Rich: Next up will be finishing off writing both Pinkerton and Corvus. There will be, if everything goes to plan, a collected edition of Turning Tiger available in print sometime in April, and after that I’ll start writing the sequel.

In between this I’d love to finish the children’s book I’m writing, and we’ll have new issues of all the FutureQuake books to get out, including an ABC Warriors special, which, if it all works the way we’ve planned it, will be very special indeed.

Matt: Please give the latest Hi-Ex! a pimp. Tell us about the guests and events…

Rich: Hi-Ex 2010 is on the 27th and 28th of March at Eden Court in Inverness. We’ve got an enormous number of guests with something for everyone. We’ve got a children’s corner with some fantastic artists there.

Kev F Sutherland is bringing his socks, the Beano guys are going to be doing their stuff and as always, we’ll have a brilliant charity auction (and if you’re not coming, you can still bid! Check out our website for details on the lots!).

This year we’re also running a games room, where the public can try their hands at things like the Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog and Doctor Who RPGS.

And as if that’s not enough, the one and only Cam Kennedy is coming!

(publisher Ron Grossett with artist Cam Kennedy at the first Hi-Ex convention, pic by Joe)

Matt: And in terms of Zarjaz, you guys seem to have been very good at getting pros to contribute/let you work on their characters. Tell us about working with the likes of Pat Mills and Kek-W…

Rich: Yup, getting to work with these guys is a great bonus! Pat’s been very helpful and generous- not only by allowing us to use the characters, but in offering us pointers and advice on them.

Kek-W has given us an awesome Rosie O’Rion story that I guarantee will make you want her back in the prog! We’ve also been very fortunate with everyone from Simon Coleby to Rufus Dayglo doing covers for us! You can’t imagine the thrill of seeing a specially drawn Kingdom cover by Richard Elson arriving in your inbox.

And we’ve got a couple of very cool cover artists lined up for the next few issues of Zarjaz and Dogbreath…

FPI would like to thank both Matt and Richmond for taking the time to answer our questions. The third Hi-Ex comics con takes place in Inverness in the Scottish Highlands next weekend (27th and 28th of March) and Joe should be heading up so look out for more on the con in due course.

Strip!: The DFC Library, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

From May 2008 – March 2009, Children’s book publisher David Fickling launched a bold experiment in creating a new kids comic – The DFC – for the British market, which on a weekly basis featured new stories in a variety of genres from some of Britain’s best up and coming comics creators, not to mention a lead strip written by Philip Pullman. Unfortunately the comic folded after 43 issues, but now a year on, the first three volumes of The DFC Library have been released, reprinting collections of material in European Graphic Album format.

Alex Fitch talks to Kate Brown, the award winning creator of Spider Moon (see here for Kate’s recent talk-through of some of her sketches and finished pages from the book), Dave Shelton, the creator of Good Dog, Bad Dog and Ben Haggarty, the writer of MeZolith, who with artist Adam Brockbank has created a book that one critic has already called “the most important British graphic novel of the last twenty years”.

Clear Spot: Alternative Press at Angoulême part two, tonight at 8pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards at the Alternative Press site

The second of the Alt. Press radio shows on their trip to Angoulême is an hour long and features interviews, music and stories from Angoulême International Comics Festival, the largest comics festival in the world (outside Japan!), including Stripburger from Slovenia, Chilli con Carne from Portugal and Robert Crumb!

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Yetis, ghosts and other things that go bump in the night!

Continuing children’s book month on the show, Alex Fitch talks to two creators of atypical titles for kids, which are being published by Walker Books. John Dunning is the writer of Salem Brownstone: All along the watchtowers, a Graphic Album in the European format which combines his script in the style of American horror writers H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe with Nikhil Singh’s elegant artwork, reminiscent of Victorian illustrators such as Aubrey Beardsley. Salem Brownstone was originally serialised in the small press anthology Sturgeon White Moss and Alex talks to John about the process of creating this unusual title.

Alex Milway is the author of The Mousehunter trilogy of pirate novels for young adults and in his new series of books – The Mythical 9th Division – which tell the tales of a trio of crimefighting Yetis who work for the British government, he is pioneering a new kind of storytelling in which every chapter of the books segues from sequential art into more traditional text. The two Alexs talk about the first of the Yeti books – Operation Robot Storm – which is being released in June and how comics can be used as another device to get kids into reading.

“BB: It looks like a good year for British comic book scribes in Hollywood with both The Losers and Mark Millar’s Kick-Ass  released later this year. Why do you think British comic book writers prove to be such successes and are there any other British led comics you’d like to see get the Hollywood treatment?

British comics I’d like to see get the Hollywood treatment? There’s loads, but top of my list would be Phonogram and Suburban Glamour, along with three decades’ worth of stories from the untapped intellectual property goldmine that is 2000AD, starting with my personal favourite, Strontium Dog. Old British war comics like Battle are also filled with stories ripe for adaptation.”

Oh yes, I think we’d go along with some of those choices for film versions, oh yes indeedy…

Strip!: Yetis, ghosts and other things that go bump in the night!, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast after transmission at Panel Borders

Continuing children’s book month on the show, Alex Fitch talks to two creators of atypical titles for kids, which are being published by Walker Books. John Dunning is the writer of Salem Brownstone: All along the watchtowers, a Graphic Album in the European format which combines his script in the style of American horror writers H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe with Nikhil Singh’s elegant artwork, reminiscent of Victorian illustrators such as Aubrey Beardsley. Salem Brownstone was originally serialised in the small press anthology Sturgeon White Moss and Alex talks to John about the process of creating this unusual title.

Alex Milway is the author of The Mousehunter trilogy of pirate novels for young adults and in his new series of books – The Mythical 9th Division – which tell the tales of a trio of crimefighting Yetis who work for the British government, he is pioneering a new kind of storytelling in which every chapter of the books segues from sequential art into more traditional text. The two Alexs talk about the first of the Yeti books – Operation Robot Storm – which is being released in June and how comics can be used as another device to get kids into reading.

Clear Spot: Directing low budget Science-Fiction films, on Resonance FM on the 17th at 8pm, first segment now online at SciFi London

In an hour long panel discussion recorded live at last year’s London Science-Fiction and Fantastic Film Festival, Alex Fitch discusses the many aspects of creating engaging and convincing SF scenarios on film with a quartet of eminent low budget film directors – Marc Caro (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children), Stuart Hazeldine (Exam), Cory McAbee (Stingray Sam), Gerald McMorrow (Franklyn) and Richard Jobson (A Woman in Winter). The panel was sponsored by The Directors Guild of Great Britain and Mr Caro’s translator was Virginie Selavy.

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Robots of various sizes

Starting Children’s Books month on the show, Alex Fitch talks to two artists who have inadvertently found themselves making comics for younger audiences. Joe List is a graphic designer and animator who, with his first collection of comic strips inspired by Saturday morning cartoons – Freak Leap – has compiled a whimsical series of adventures starring pirates, monsters and giant robots with spindly legs suitable for all ages. Paul Collicutt is a children’s book illustrator who has previously been engaged in fully pained artwork for traditional picture books but now, as the creator of a series of Robot City Adventures, is telling tales of a Retro Sci-Fi future where robot Private Detectives and coastguards mix with humans and sea monsters alike.

Lucky Cat podcast: The films of Park Chan-Wook

Episode 4.6 of Resonance FM’s Asian culture show presented by Zoe Baxter. This episode is a Park Chan-Wook special to coincide with the UK DVD release of the Korean auteur’s vampire film Thirst. Zoë Baxter is joined in the studio by Mira Stout (author of bestselling novel “One Thousand Chestnut Trees”, playwright, and film critic) and Alex Fitch (broadcaster and assistant editor of Electric Sheep film magazine) to discuss Thirst and Chan-Wook’s oeuvre.

“Matt: In terms of “Psychiatric Tales,” when and why did you decide to start making strips about mental illness?

Darryl: I worked for many years as a health care assistant on an acute psychiatric ward. Throughout this time I kept a diary, in which I gradually amassed a huge amount of material about the day-to-day workings of a psychiatric hospital. People kept saying to me that I ought to turn these stories into comic strips. I was, at that time, trying to knock the material into a prose book and didn’t think that adding drawings would enhance the work in any way. Surely, all the information you need is already there in the writing as it is, I thought.

But eventually, I did start drawing it all up into narrative strips. By this time, I’d seen Marjane Satrapi’s “Persopolis,” a simply drawn autobiographical strip about the writer’s childhood and young adulthood in Iran. This book was a big international success. I thought, “Well, I can do something like that.” “Persopolis” was a big inspiration to me in terms of what you can do with the comics medium. It was not so much that Satrapi was a particularly good artist, more that she had a dynamite subject that she told well and clearly.”

(a page from Psychiatric Tales by and (c) Darryl Cunningham, published this spring by Blank Slate in the UK & Bloomsbury in the US in 2011)

On a related note I should point you to Darryl’s blog as he has decided recently to start painting again, with the first work now available to view (and yes, he will be selling any paintings):

“TOM SPURGEON: At the beginning of Our Hero, you discuss various reasons for your doing the essay. One thing you mention but don’t tie into the reasons this book came about is the whole It’s Superman experience. How do you think Our Hero is different for your having had the relatively rare experience of actually writing the Superman character?

TOM DE HAVEN: I guess there’s three parts to my answer. The first is that I deliberately tried not to do too much writing about writing It’s Superman. I didn’t want to make this an advertisement for the novel. I deliberately played it down.

The second thing is, before writing the Superman novel, I had read a lot of the old comics and comic strips but hadn’t read them in any kind of order. To write the essay I was approaching the character in a very different way. Probably one of the reasons I wrote the essay at all was thinking that, “I’ve done almost all the research. I’ve read all this stuff.” But then when I started doing chronological research, I realized, “I’ve read nothing.” [laughter]

The other part of the answer is that had it not been for the novel I probably would not have been asked to do this. Art Spiegelman suggested me. Yale University Press had called Artie up and asked him, as I recall, if he would do a book on Alfred E. Neuman. Art wasn’t interested but said there’s this guy who did a novel about Superman and Superman should be one of the icons in your series.”

Strip!: Necessary Monsters, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast shortly afterwards on Panel Borders

Concluding webcomics month on the show, Alex Fitch catches up with artist Sean Azzopardi and writer Daniel Merlin Goodbrey as the first series of their epic webcomic Necessary Monsters comes to its conclusion after a total of 125 pages serialised over two years (a print edition is imminent). The series mixes a ‘black ops’ style spy thriller with the tropes of modern horror films and bizarre characters with ultra violence to maximum effect. Alex talks to Daniel and Sean about the progression of the strip, the various ways it’s been published and their collaborations with another webcomics creator – Douglas Noble – on a zombie western (The Rule of Death) and surrealistic thriller (Sightings of Wallace Sendek) respectively.

also:

Lucky Cat: The films of Park Chan-Wook, tonight at 7pm on Resonance FM

Today’s episode of Resonance FM’s Asian culture show is a Park Chan-Wook special to coincide with the UK DVD release of the Korean auteur’s vampire film Thirst. Zoë Baxter is joined in the studio by Mira Stout (author of bestselling novel “One Thousand Chestnut Trees”, playwright, and film critic) and Alex Fitch (broadcaster and assistant editor of Electric Sheep film magazine) to discuss Thirst and Chan-Wook’s oeuvre.
Korean tea and snacks will be sampled for the Dim Sum Lunchbox.

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Little Terrors and (other) Psychiatric Tales

Continuing our month long look at webcomics, Alex Fitch talks to two writer / artists whose work started off telling fantastical tales, took a detour via stories set in Hell and its environs and are now doing work with a greater autobiographical element. Darryl Cunningham is the creator of the humourous superhero strip Super Sam and John by Night, whose sequel to that strip tells tales of the inferno a.k.a. The Streets of San Diablo and more recently to critical acclaim has started rendering experiences from his day job in Psychiatric Tales; Jon Scrivens is the creator of Little Terrors, a popular strip that tells the tale of a friendly zombie who is trying to connect with his old friends, who have also turned into a variety of monsters, in the wake of an outbreak of the living dead. and Jon is just about to start on a new strip, When’s Graham, which mixes collegiate humour with a touch of time travel…

Reality Check: Directing low budget Science-Fiction films (part 1 online at SciFi London now, part 2 due soon, both parts broadcast as hour long Clear Spot special on March 17th on Resonance FM)

In a panel discussion recorded live at last year’s London Sciene-Fiction and Fantastic Film Festival, Alex Fitch discusses the many aspects of creating engaging and convincing SF scenarios on film with a quartet of eminent low budget film directors – Marc Caro (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children), Stuart Hazeldine )Exam), Cory McAbee (Stingray Sam), Gerald McMorrow (Franklyn) and Richard Jobson (A Woman in Winter). The panel was sponsored by The Directors Guild of Great Britain and Mr Caro’s translator was Virginie Selavy.

The Comics Journal website has recently posted part one of a five part interview with Kevin O’Neill, artist on many, many comics you may/should own including Nemesis, League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Marshall Law (the huge compendium of Marshall Law should be out later this year from Top Shelf).

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five.

A thoroughly entertaining way to spend this fine Sunday morning.

(cover to Hey Princess by Mats Jonsson, published Top Shelf)

One of our favourite Indy publishers, Top Shelf, is following up their From the shadow of the Northern Lights anthology of Swedish underground comics which I really enjoyed a couple of years ago (see review here). This time they have a number of titles bringing some of the thriving Swedish comics scene into the sphere of the English language reader, something we’re obviously rather pleased about -- we’re well aware of some great comics work going on in other countries and languages which, frustratingly, we know we’ll probably never get to read, so its terrific when a publisher steps up and puts in this kind of effort.

(120 Days of Simon by and (c) Simon Gärdenfors, published in April by Top Shelf)

Avoid the Future has this short video promo and interviews with three of the artists behind he Swedish invasion: Mats Jonsson (Hey Princess), Kolbeinn Karlsson (The Troll King) and Simon Gärdenfors (The 120 Days of Simon -- I’m sure many of you will get the literary pun). Top Shelf also has Frederik Stromberg’s Swedish Comics History coming in the same month and, I’m especially pleased to see, a second volume of From the Shadow of the Northern Lights; rumours that Brett Warnock and Chris Staros were given secret shares in Ikea (who are introducing a new comics themed Top Shelf to their Billy bookcases) and signed photos of Abba as thanks cannot be confirmed at this time. Seriosuly though, it is great to see this -- we keep saying there’s a big, wide world of all sorts of comics work out there and its brilliant to see work we’d probably never see otherwise getting translated like this.