Ken Harrison: You were a film journalist before you wrote strips for 2000 AD (and my understanding is that you still write journalism). How much was that a help or a hindrance to you when penning comic scripts? I’m thinking that studying and thinking about films may have helped develop your visual literacy.

Alec Worley: I was a film journalist for about six years before I got into comics. I wrote for all sorts of magazines, from Sight & Sound to Zoo. When I went freelance back in 2000, I had this tragically naïve plan that niche journalism was going to pay the bills in between writing comics, novels, screenplays and wotnot. Suffice to say, many bitter lessons were learned trying to make that work! These days, I do the odd film piece for SFX, but the film writing’s fast losing ground to the comics work, to be honest.

I studied film under my own steam just before I left school. I pinched a massive book on film theory from the library – not cool! – and studied it cover to cover and back again. In a way, I got into reviewing as a way of finding out more about how films and storytelling work, which is something I’ve always been interested in. People often make the comparison between films and comics, but the similarities are mainly in editing, I think, between ‘the cut’ in film and ‘the gutter’ in comics. Moving from shot to shot and assembling meaning as you go along. But yeah, studying and writing about film definitely sharpened my instincts for visual storytelling, when to cut to a close-up, an establishing shot, how to shape the story and what have you. Having said that, I think I came to comics with a certain amount of arrogance, in that I knew I could write, I knew how stories worked and I knew the genres. But after receiving some of my very first amends from Tharg The Ever-Perceptive it soon became apparent that I had a lot to learn. And always will.

KH: How long had you been trying to sell scripts to 2000 AD before you sold your first Shock and did you have any other experience of writing comics?

AW: I decided to lay siege to 2000 AD in Christmas 2006. The plan was to spend the next few months writing nothing but Future Shocks and to write them as though they’d already been rejected. That way your head is clear to just write the thing without worrying about whether it’ll get accepted or getting bummed out when it gets turned down. Based on my previous ventures into submission hell, I assumed I’d never hear back or a rejection would turn up a year or so after I’d forgotten ever having written to them. As it turned out, Tharg got back to me within a week. I think I was lucky enough to have started submitting just as the Nerve Centre was commencing its periodic shovel through the slush pile.

Anyway, Tharg said he liked the idea but it needed revising. I’d written two more Shocks by then and was on a bit of a roll. So instead of reworking the first one, I just sent the next one the same day I got the reply from Tharg. That one got rejected a week later by a chap called David Leach, who said I should definitely send more scripts and whose feedback at the time was invaluable. By now, I’d written a stack of Shocks and when David received submission three he got back to me a few days later saying, ‘Christ, you’re keen!’ He said the script needed reworking but the idea and the twist were solid.

I dutifully tweaked it several times, but a month later, having completed the final pass, David moved on to Titan and my finely tuned Future Shock tumbled into a Thrill Vortex never to be seen again. I continued writing Future Shocks until I had a stock of about five or six, which I fed into the slush pile over the next few months. Eventually, Tharg began picking some of these up, by which time I was writing a film review column for the Megazine.

I’d previously attempted to get into some other UK comics including those by Panini, Titan and Games Workshop. That Warhammer Comic folded three days after I sent my submission! I very nearly got into Commando, whose then-editor George Low, was fantastically encouraging. I also had a few scripts picked up by some excellent small press comics, including FutureQuake, Something Wicked and The Girly Comic.

KH: Why comics? Why not prose fiction or screenplays or some other form?

AW: I’ve always loved comics, but I never thought they were a professional option until I realised some of them actually took submissions. I remember doing these sample scripts for Panini. I had Spidey and Black Cat vs. the Lizard in a museum full of animated dinosaur skeletons. Night at the Museum came out a year later, dammit! And another one with Spidey and Ghost Rider vs. Carnage on a runaway train. I was surprised at how easily the ideas came, how naturally the process flowed and how much it felt like I already knew how to do this even though I’d never done it before, which was a bit spooky.

Other than that. I’d pitched tie-in novels, screenplays, radio plays and everything else that involves you having to write 30,000 unpaid words based on the vaguest possible guidelines on the off-chance that an editor might say ‘yes’ to a project that will consume your life and end up paying you less than if you were stood at a set of traffic lights cleaning car windscreens with your tongue! No, the freelance experience hasn’t left me feeling at all bitter. Why do you ask…?

The thing is, in my experience, the try-everything-and-see-what-sticks approach rarely works. I found it really helped to focus on one thing at a time, gather momentum and have a body of work – published or not – to stand on. Comics was really the first time I’d ever done that.

KH: You’re talking about something in your answers here that I think I haven’t seen talked about much by comic creators: the importance of cultivating a relationship with an editor. How important do you think it was to show you were ‘serious’ about comics writing by regularly submitting scripts?

AW: I guess you prove you’re ‘serious’ by actually being serious, by just doing your job as effectively as possible, by being practical and thinking ahead. When I was Future Shocking, I was scoring one commission for at least one rejection, so it was important to have a pile of finished scripts to shovel onto the fire. I figured any that got bounced would still have been good enough to polish up according to Tharg’s feedback and sent to find a home in the small press. That way nothing was wasted.

I think in terms of being ‘serious’ about what you’re doing, I remember reading an interview with Ken Loach in which he said if you want to be a successful filmmaker you’ve got to be more in love with filmmaking than with the idea of being a filmmaker. And it’s the same with writing, or art, or music or whatever it is you’re into. Getting starry-eyed and full of yourself or starting to think about developing your ‘brand’ or whatever will only distract you. When I got the greenlight to write the first series of Age of the Wolf, I spent the first few weeks in a daze, thinking, ‘Bloody Hell, I’m actually gonna be writing a series for 2000 AD! How awesome is that?’ I got so carried away with the romance of what I was doing I lost sight of the best way in which to do the job and my first draft of the series breakdown suffered because of that.

Luckily, Tharg The Wise And Munificent has always been on hand to keep me on course. Since my very first commission, every single bit of feedback has been noted and referred back to. Having constant pointers from a detached and experienced editor makes it easy to deal with bad habits and blind spots. It can be embarrassing when your editor points out that you’ve made a goof, but it’s a good way to learn.

KH: Did the movie review column help in terms of getting work at 2000 AD in that you were in regular contact with Matt Smith?

AW: I’m not sure exactly how much the movie column helped. I guess you’d have to ask Matt. But my always being a good boy couldn’t have hurt, always meeting the deadline and the word count, and making sure the copy didn’t read like it was written by a stoned orang-utan with a Wikipedia fixation – and I’ve done enough sub-editing in my time to know how often that’s the case! In that sense, writing for the Meg and the Prog is the same as writing for any other outlet. As a freelancer, it’s your job to make the editor’s life as stress-free as possible. And when it comes to writing comics scripts, I’d extend that to the artist and the letterer too.

KH: How did the review column come about?

AW: I was early for a screening for another magazine and was mooching around Borders where I found a copy of the Megazine featuring a review of X-Men 3. I didn’t realize the Meg published reviews and, as a jobbing film journo, you’re always on the look-out for paying outlets that may be small enough to not have a dedicated film writer on their books. I sent a query email to the 2000 AD website and Matt got back the following day, asking if I could do a round-up of the month’s genre releases. He never asked me to stop, so I kept going for almost three years.

It was a bit of a dream gig, but orchestrating the screenings, check discs and images was a nightmare. In the end, the organisational side got too much to handle and I had to let the column go. Some of the bigger magazines for which I was writing were dying off and I suddenly found PR departments bullshitting me more often than usual, until I was almost literally fighting for a seat in the preview theatre. I’ll never forget that screening of Aliens Vs. Predator… It got to the point where I was pretty much paying to write the column.

Of course, the other thing was I wanted to concentrate on writing scripts for the Prog. Film writing was only ever meant to be a means to an end, so it was time to call it a day. I explained all this to Matt, who was brilliant and asked me to find a replacement. Luckily, I was friends with Andrew Osmond, who is a much higher profile journalist than me and has no problem getting past the velvet rope. Plus, he’s one of the most articulate, knowledgeable and insightful film journalists in genre circles right now, which helps.

KH: Why didn’t George Low being enthusiastic about your scripts turn into an actual gig at Commando? What’s the story there?

AW: The feedback I kept getting from George Low at Commando was that he’d published stories like mine a zillion times before. Unsurprising, really, given that the comic’s been around for five decades. No matter how much research I did or how offbeat I made the story, I just couldn’t get a submission accepted. George Low was really positive about my writing and said he wanted to see more from me, but in the end it felt too much like stabbing in the dark. Commando turned out to be a bit of a Moby Dick for me, to be honest, and I’m planning to give it another go soon.

KH: Which of your Shocks/Terror Tales are you proudest of and why? Conversely, which would you like to go back and re-write?

AW: I’ve hidden behind some of the best artists in the business. If I had to pick a favourite, I’d probably say the Terror Tale, Lost Property, which I did with artist Warren Pleece and letterer Ellie De Ville. This was the one about a guy who returns lost property to the ghosts on the London Underground. Actually, it was Tharg who came up with the idea of the ghosts needing specific artefacts in order to move on. And my wife came up with the ending. Warren’s a terrific storyteller and character artist. He’s also great with atmosphere. I was also really pleased with the Tharg’s 3riller I did with Death Sentence and Rex Royd artist Mike Dowling. I’ve never worked as closely with an artist on a comic as I did with Mike on that one and we were really in synch over what we were out to achieve.

Having said that, I’d happily rewrite everything! I’m one of those insecure writers who can’t read anything they’ve had published without seeing anything other than the mistakes I feel I’ve made, and I just squirm at the thought of anyone reading them. Having a new series coming out tends to fill me with dread. When a comic I’ve written comes out, I’ll set some time aside to see what I’ve got wrong and take notes. I started out with a two-page Word document listing the things to remember when writing a comic. Five years later, I’ve got 200+ pages in a ring binder stuffed with Post It notes, clippings and scribbled down quotations.

KH: Looking back specifically on your first Future Shock, A Terrible Hunt, what are your thoughts and feelings about it?

AW: This was the one that fell into a black hole after David Leach left Rebellion. I got to resubmit it once Tharg started commissioning some of my other stuff. It turned out to be my first published script, but the second commissioned by Tharg (after Adventures in the War Trade, which I did with Staz Johnson and Annie Parkhouse).

I think Terrible Hunt actually works quite well. The low squirm-factor on my part may be due to PJ Holden’s artwork. I’ve only just noticed, he put a sea monkey head on the wall of the trophy room! Sweet!

KH: I got the impression reading your movie column that you’re a big fan of horror stuff. I was a bit surprised to find during my research that you hadn’t written more Terror Tales (my memory had tricked me and told me you’d written a whole lot more). Which do you prefer, Terror Tales or Shocks, and why?

AW: I think Terror Tales are generally easier to write than Future Shocks, which can be a real challenge to anyone who’s still finding their feet. But then again, nothing beats a Future Shock that can pull off a fresh idea – or at least a fresh angle on a hackneyed idea – and a well-delivered twist. Terror Tales can get away with just a satisfying climax, which isn’t quite as demanding as a twist – which is a very specific type of satisfying climax.

I reckon good twist stories are like mousetraps and you really need to have an understanding of narrative engineering in order to set up a good one. I got mine right maybe once or twice, and even then I tended to overcomplicate stuff. I learned a lot by reading short stories by writers like Saki, John Collier and O Henry, who all keep their tales dead simple. One of the things I’ve noticed in their stuff is that the twist is usually in plain sight the whole time! I hate it when writers pull a twist out of a hat at the end with no reference to anything that’s gone before. You can’t have the main character suddenly reveal at the end that he was his own clone from the future all along without having established that cloning or time-travel are possibilities within the story!

I think twists use the same psychological tactics as magic tricks and street hussles, and part of the pleasure in reading them is in being ‘had’. But what makes the Future Shock writer’s job so difficult is the fact that the reader is actively looking to catch them out from page one! And this makes it harder to foreshadow the ending without giving it away. We’re all so bloody smug and postmodern these days, aren’t we? I’ve found that Terror Tales don’t put you under quite as much pressure. It’s enough for a Terror Tale to be scary, unsettling or shocking. But there’s a reason these things are considered an apprenticeship at 2000 AD. It’s because they’re all so bloody hard to write, but also a great way to learn how to write comics.

KH: Were you surprised when Dandridge received his own series? What would you have changed about that first one-off if you’d known he was going to return?

AW: I’d actually conceived Dandridge as a series from the very beginning. I love British ghost stories and used to read all those Usborne ‘World of the Unknown’ books when I was a kid. I got to thinking about all these ‘real’ ghosts from around the country, the Enfield Poltergeist, Borley Rectory and so on, and how they all felt like individual personalities, like these unique little treasures. So I figured what if people collected ghosts in the same way they collected antiques? In what kind of world could such a market exist? I also had this feckless dandy character floating around that I really wanted to write, and from there the whole thing just clunked together like a Transformer.

Ideas just kept coming and coming, all these scenes and characters and adventures. I thought if I ever get the chance to do a series for the Prog this is what I’ll pitch. But at the time, I hadn’t had anything published and getting a shot at a series seemed a bit pie-in-the-sky. So I got it all down in this horrendously overstuffed Future Shock, which ended up as a Past Imperfect alternative world story. Once the story had reached the twist, I still had to resolve Dandridge’s character and the easiest way to do that was to kill him off. As it turned out, this was the perfect thing to do.

I assumed that if the series ever came about, then I’d have to set it in some kind of Edwardian steampunk era. Until I saw Simon Davis had done this beautiful teaser picture for Ian Edginton’s Ampney Crucis and my heart just sank. I love Edginton’s work – really elegant, literate stories full of these really slick ideas – and I figured there was no way I could compete with that and that Dandridge was going to be just another case of, ‘Oh well, someone got there before me’. But in the end it forced me to think harder about how to make Dandridge different.

So I focused on an idea I had about exploring a sort of post-steampunk world, one in which all that scientific certainty and imperialistic optimism had given way to irrationality and the supernatural and everything had just gone to shit. The British Empire had failed and become a ghost of its former glory. This world could easily be the ‘Ghost Town’ described by The Specials, but with Dandridge as this sort of Adam Ant figure, full of charm and life. The shallowness and the romance and the politics of the eighties made it a perfect fit for Dandridge, so everything I’d set up in that Past Imperfect turned out to be just right.

KH: Why the change of artist, from Warren Pleece to Jon-Davis Hunt?

AW: I was in the middle of writing Return of the Chap, which was the five-part launch series, and I knew Warren was on board. I also knew Dandridge, who was now a ghost, had a magic jacket that would allow him to take on a physical form. And I knew the coat could transform into all these different outfits like a pop star with an unlimited wardrobe. But I needed some kind of default setting, some sort of iconic ‘costume’ for Dandridge. I had all these elements in mind, but no idea how to combine them into a coherent look and I didn’t want to dump all my notes in Warren’s lap when he was on a deadline.

So I asked Jon, since we’d just finished working on Age of the Wolf, how I could possibly make this work. About five minutes later he’d come up with this sketch, which was just perfect. The white frock coat and the red sash just said it all. I could imagine Peter Wyngarde or Johnny Depp swaggering about a haunted house dressed like that. So I included it in the script and Warren went with it. Tharg gave the following five-parter, The House That Dripped Devilry, to Jon, which came as a nice thank you for his contribution to the first series.

KH: What do you think makes a good comic artist/writer? What qualities are needed?

AW: I know very little about artwork beyond ‘Oooo, that’s lovely’ or ‘Errr, that looks a bit wonky’. But from what I’ve picked up listening to artists, I think nice splash pages are all very well, but storytelling has got to be key. You can tell when an artist has really thought through the action taking place in the script. Looking at Tiernan Trevallion’s work on Absalom in the Prog recently, he’s got all these telling details: the Sellotape around Harry’s mobile, the dead pot plant in his flat, the open flick-knife on the dashboard of his car. I don’t know how much of this stuff was in the script, but it all gives an insight into the story and its characters and the world, and brings everything to life without you even realising. I think character expression is also important, since the characters are the reader’s portal into the story. Again, look at what Trevallion did in Absalom and what D’Israeli did in Low Life. Just an extra line on a character’s face can make all the difference between the reader ‘getting it’.

As for writers, I think – again – storytelling is crucial. Going back to Absalom and Low Life, the writing on these is so simple and direct. It’s not cluttered. You know where the story is on every page. You know where the characters are going, what they’re driving towards. You’re not at any point fuzzy as to what the hell’s going on and yet it’s all happening in a completely unexpected way and the story is constantly surprising you.

But also what makes these two series stand out for me is how they deal with character. I think you’ve got to work really, REALLY hard to make a character feel alive within the space of five pages of action-heavy comics, to make them linger in your head long after you’ve put down the book. And it would be so easy to let characters like Absalom and Dirty Frank become these one-note, one-joke ciphers, but as you’re reading them, you’re really seeing who they are and why they do what they do. And then to find yourself identifying with and even liking a character who’s completely mental or a complete shitbag. That to me is really great writing. And when a writer and an artist are in synch like that the whole story just sings, the pages can’t turn fast enough and you find yourself poring over them again and again when you’re supposed to be doing the ironing or whatever.

KH: How did Age of the Wolf come about?

AW: This was another cherished idea that I hoped to pitch as a series one day. I wanted to do something that explored a different angle on werewolves. One of my favourite movies as a kid was The Company of Wolves, which I ended up getting a bit obsessed about at the time, probably because the lead actress looked just like this girl I fancied at school. Anyway, what I love about this movie is the way it explores ideas about the werewolf and moulds them into all these different stories and meanings. A bit like Clive Barker did in the Books of Blood, taking these genre tropes and mutating them into something completely different. As soon as I started researching werewolf folklore, I found out that what we consider these timeless werewolf legends are really only a very narrow cultural strain that didn’t really come about until the 1940s with Lon Chaney Jr in The Wolfman. The idea of this cursed guy who turns into a wolf every full moon is all well and good, but it’s really limited dramatically, there’s one way a story like that can end. And it doesn’t explore this wealth of wolf and werewolf folklore that runs through Britain, France and Northern Europe, stuff which is really gnarly and disturbing and more akin to Fight Club than The Wolfman.

Anyway, I pitched the series out of this paranoid fear that someone else would come along and write it before me – or even worse, write it better! I got very excited and perhaps a little too carried away with my own ideas, thinking I’d better get this in now as I may never get another shot. There were whole sequences I had to drop in order to make the thing fit. I had this big siege in the mall on Oxford Street and a lot more stuff with Pete the homeless dude. I think Jon’s spectacular artwork got me out of a lot of trouble.

KH: Did you write that first series with a sequel in mind? And has the sequel taken the direction you planned or gone off in another direction?

AW: The first story kept growing until I couldn’t fit everything into the first series. And it wasn’t long before I had this whole other story about a ‘Mad Maxine’-type character doing all this Robin Hood parkour stuff in a post-apocalyptic forest. Once the first series of Age of the Wolf was finished, I queried Tharg on the possibility of doing another. He said he’d be interested in seeing two more, which we could headline as the ‘three ages’ of the wolf. Since the story is based on all these Norse ideas of wolves and fate and stuff, I thought it might be interesting to take Rowan through the three forms of the Norse fates – the three women who spin the threads of our lives – the maiden, the mother and the monster. In the first series, Rowan’s the sacrificial maiden. In SHE IS LEGEND, she’s this protective mother of the people, and in the last one she’s going to be… something else…

But I also wanted to give the reader something different with each series, so each one could stand alone and let anyone pick it up without having to have read anything before it. So far, it’s all gone pretty much according to plan, although the characters in She Is Legend ended up taking the plot in some unexpected directions.

FPI would like to thank Alec and Ken for sharing their thoughts on the blog, thanks also to Tharg’s human avatar Matt Smith and to that man Matt ‘Madman’ Badham; the Megazine #324 is in store and available online now.

The brick sized TCJ #302 should be out this Autumn. As usual, full of more reading than you can probably get through before Christmas.

But noteably, it has an interview with Maurice Sendak, something we’d talk about anyway, but made all the more important by his death this month. Essential reading.

Gary Groth has posted a sneak preview over at TCJ blog:

Groth, from his introduction:

“The fact is, we got along incredibly well. We had several 30-40 minute conversations that ranged all over the place, but which usually centered on the state of the world and how much he loathed it. He was quite cheerfully and gregariously grumpy about it all, an attitude and a point of view that I appreciated, and even shared. It was obvious that he took no small measure of delight in inveighing against contemporary degradations, and I have to admit that I took no little delight in listening to him. He would cite specifics about the world going to hell in a hand-basket and I would inevitably, and truthfully, concur.”

The actual interview itself mostly consists of Groth and Sendak chatting one afternoon and evening in Sendak’s house, his yard, wandering around the neighbourhood. As Groth says:

“He didn’t throw me out; in fact, quite the opposite, he spoke animatedly all afternoon and into the evening, mostly while we walked around his property, sat on a bench in his sprawling backyard (more like a private park), and strolled down the street, the tape recorder going much the time, and yielding the most unconventional, conversational interview I’ve ever done.”

And a few quotes from Sendak:

“Well, I get criticized for doing too serious books. Why is there a dead child in so many of your books? Why is there a chagrined mother? Because that’s the way it is. It works both ways. You either become very superficial, and do it strictly for the money, or you become very serious and turn people off. And if it’s a book for children, my God! I would not know how to write a book for children.I’ve never written a book for children.”

“Bush was president, I thought, “Be brave. Tie a bomb to your shirt. Insist on going to the White House. And I wanna have a big hug with the vice president, definitely. And his wife, and the president, and his wife, and anybody else that can fit into the love hug.””

Yes, sounds like essential reading.

Panel Borders – John Higgins: Before (and after) Watchmen, Sunday 29th at 8pn on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

Concluding our month of shows about British comics, Alex Fitch talks to writer, artist and occasional self-publisher John Higgins about his career so far. Alex and John talk about the latter’s first experiences in comics, being published in Bryan Talbot’s Brainstorm and 2000AD, his landmark collaboration with Alan Moore on Watchmen and his new strip The Crimson Corsair, which is being serialised in prequel series Before Watchmen.

Reality Check: The work of Warren Ellis

In a Q & A recorded at last year’s SCI-FI-LONDON festival, Iyare Igiehon (BBC 6music) discusses the work of Warren Ellis with Matt Jones (BERG design), Matthew Sheret (We are words + pictures) and Kieron Gillen (X-Men). Jones talks about SVK, the new comic by Ellis and D’Israeli, commissioned by BERG, Sheret discusses how Ellis inspired him to become a writer and Gillen talks about his friendship with the writer and their Marvel collaborations.

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Young graphic novelists, Spring 2012

As part of our month of episodes on British comics, we have our twice yearly look at a pair of young graphic novelists.Dickon Harris talks to Warwick Johnson Cadwell about his first graphic novel,Gungle, to be published in the near future by Blank Slate Books and Alex Fitch talks to artist Jennie Gyllblad about her collaborations with writer Corey Brotherson, including her just finished The Arrival, the first of a three volume steam-punk graphic novel series Clockwork Watch, curated by film-maker Yomi Ayeni. Originally broadcast 22/04/12 on Resonance 104.4 FM

Sometime contributor to this very parish Matt Badham has a two-page spread in the latest Comic Heroes talking to Martin Eden about the brilliant Spandex. We’ve been very impressed with Spandex on the blog, not just because of how it portrays LGBT issues but because it is a cracking read too, and we’re delighted that a collected edition is coming out this summer so hopefully a wider audience will be able to pick it up and see just why we’ve been recommending it to you.

Skype interview Shaun Tan from Submarine Channel on Vimeo.

It’s pretty interesting stuff and, as you’d expect from Alan, pretty straight talking, honest, unpretentious stuff. Sadly the BBC iPlayer doesn’t let us embed the video on here and I’m not sure if anyone outside the UK can see the video or not, I know BBC radio can be streamed anywhere but I suspect there may be international restrictions on some of the video content, but for those who can access it, you can find it here. Thanks to Col Fawcett for the heads-up.

Panel Borders: Comic stamps, Sunday April 1st on Resonance FM, podcast on Panel Borders afterwards

Starting a month of shows all about British Comics, Alex Fitch interviews Richard Scholey, from design company The Chase, and Philip Parker, Head of Stamps strategy, Royal Mail, about the new range of comic book stamps which have just been released and feature art and covers from such classic titles as 2000AD, The Beano, The Eagle and The Dandy. Alex talks to Richard and Philip about their choice of covers, the design process and how the range of special stamps takes in high and low brow art throughout the year.

Reality Check: Modern children’s comics, online at Sci-Fi London from the 4th of April

In a panel discussion recorded at last year’s SCI-FI-LONDON festival, CBBC presenter Chris Johnson talks to Paul Collicutt (Robot City adventures), Phillipa Rice (My Cardboard Life), Alex Milway (The Mythical 9th Division) and Eddie Robson (Doctor Who adventures) about creating Science-Fiction and Fantasy comics for kids and having interested children in the format, how to keep their love of comics going.

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Gods and Monsters by Bernie Wrightson and Rebekah Isaacs

Concluding our month of shows about iconoclastic American comic book artists, Alex Fitch talks to a master of horror comics, Bernie Wrightson, and a relative newcomer, Rebekah Isaacs who has made a name for herself in deftly rendered comics in a variety of genres.
Alex talks to Bernie about his work on Warren Comics’ horror titles and Swamp Thing in the 1970s, on collaborating with Stephen King in the 1980s and more recently working with Steve Niles at IDW including their new project, Frankenstein Alive, alive. Alex and Rebekah chat about her career so far, working on superhero comics like Age of Iron and DV8 with Brian Wood and the horror titles that have made her name, The Twilight Zone and the ongoing Angel and Faith.

The pod delusion episode 128

We speak to IPCC climate scientist Michael E Mann, find out who won the Secularist of the Year award, try to build a space elevator and believe it not, have a story that’s vaguely about football. Alex Fitch discusses his addiction to handheld gadgets and Liz Lutgendorff talks to Peter Tatchell…

From the archive:

I’m ready for my close-up: How gay is the screen?

To coincide with this year’s London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, Alex Fitch interviews BFI librarian Emma Smart about whether there have been any significant developments in gay film-making and TV programme making since last year’sLLGFF. Also included in the show is an interview Alex recorded last year with sci-fi writer and critic Kim Newman about the gay following that genre shows like Doctor Who and The Avengers generate… (Originally broadcast 27/03/07)

(Marvels of Science and Steampunk by and (c) John Hodgson)

“above everything else: Make sure you love the actual work of drawing, painting and image making to order. This is often expressed by showing off how many hours you’ve worked or whatever, which to my mind is nonsense. You can produce better work in less time if you’re set up that way. I used to do life drawing this this dude who would sit and look at the model for 5 minutes, and then pick up his pencil, draw one line which was the whole figure. It was amazing to watch, and taught me a lot about work, and what it means.

To me working all night potentially says you have no grasp of time management and paint too slowly, but it seems to be the en vogue thing to show off about. Be very wary of being sucked into that. We all have to put the hours in, but just working hard and long hours isn’t enough, and is not sustainable for a full adult life if you want to have stuff like friends, relationships, kids, quality of life in general. Whilst we all love making art the danger of solely living to work is as corrosive to an artist as an office worker.

But soapboxing about time management to one side, do make sure you love it. It is the only thing that will keep you going through the inevitable hard times. I see a couple of aspiring artists in my social circles who don’t have sufficient love of the actual processes, and they want what they perceive as the fame and respect that comes with the role. That’s a nonsense, and a wrong-headed thing to chase. People at the very top of the game have the same concerns as those at the very bottom – how to stay in work, how to make ends meet, how to get all this work done. That doesn’t change with success, and it’s the love of the core process that will sustain you.

Also you must understand that being an illustrator is running a business. If you hate that idea, if you can’t find a way to sell yourself, to do accounts, to do marketing, networking and all of that stuff? Then maybe it’s not the life for you. “

Panel Borders: Tim Sale – painting Batman and other Heroes, Resonance FM at 8pm Sunday 18th March, podcast on Panel Borders afterwards

In a Q and A recorded at last year’s Thought Bubble festival, Alex Fitch interviews artist Tim Sale about his career from early work like Thieves’ World and Billi 99 to his award winning collaborations with Jeph Loeb on Batman and the Marvel ‘colours’ tetralogy featuring Spider-Man, Daredevil and The Hulk. Alex and Tim also talk about the latter’s work on the TV series Heroes and the continuation of his most recent mini-seires, Captain America: White.

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Exploring The Lair of the White Worm, online Wednesday 20th March

In a panel discussion recorded at The Horse Hospital arts club after a screening of Ken Russell’s lurid Bram Stoker adaptation, The Lair of the White Worm, Mark Pilkington discusses the film with BFI Flipside programmers Vic Pratt and Will Fowler, touching on issues of English legend, titillation and the consequences of Russell’s three picture deal with Vestron Pictures in the 1980s.

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Klaus Janson – Superhero Noir

Continuing our month of shows about iconoclastic American comic book artists, Alex Fitch talks to German-American artist Klaus Janson about his work from inking and eventually providing most of the art for Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in the early 80s to his recent acclaimed tenures on Wolverine and World War Hulk. Klaus also talks about his love of teaching new artists and his experiences at comic book conventions over the years. (Recorded at Comics Launchpad, Birmingham 2011)

Laydeez do podcasts: The female form in comics

In two talks recorded at Laydeez do comics, Dr. Ann Miller, lecturer and joint editor of European Comic Art journal talks about stereotypical representations of women in bandes dessinées, particularly Penelope Bagieu, creator of ‘chic-lit’ comic Joséphine; and Karrie Fransman talks about her new comic The House that groaned, an incisive graphic novel about body dysmorphia and desire in a Victorian tenement house.

Clear Spot: The problem of autobiography, tonight at 8pm on Resonance FM, podcast on Panel Borders afterwards

In a panel discussion recorded at the First Fiction festival (Sussex University, January 2012) author Sue Eckstein discusses the problems inherent in creating autobiographies with graphic novelists Nicola Streeten and Anuerin Wright and how creators can subvert and overcome these. Nicola’s book Billy, me and you and Aneurin’s Things to Do in a Retirement Home Trailer Park couldn’t be more different in their approaches, with the former combining cartoons, diary drawings and scrapbook montage and the latter depicting the author’s friends and family as anthropomorphic creatures in domestic settings.

Panel Borders: Klaus Janson – Superhero Noir, Sunday 11th March 1t 8pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

Continuing our month of shows about iconoclastic American comic book artists, Alex Fitch talks to German-American artist Klaus Janson about his work from inking and eventually providing most of the art for Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in the early 80s to his recent acclaimed tenures on Wolverine and World War Hulk. Klaus also talks about his love of teaching new artists and his experiences at comic book conventions over the years. (Recorded at Comics Launchpad, Birmingham 2011)

Laydeez do podcasts: The female form in comics, online Wednesday 14th March

In two talks recorded at Laydeez do comics, Dr. Ann Miller, lecturer and joint editor of European Comic Art journal talks about stereotypical representations of women in bandes dessinées, particularly Penelope Bagieu, creator of ‘chic-lit’ comic Joséphine; and Karrie Fransman talks about her new comic The House that groaned, an incisive graphic novel about body dysmorphia and desire in a Victorian tenement house.

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Laura and Mike Allred – Pop art comics

Starting a month of shows about iconoclastic American comic artists, Alex Fitch talks to husband and wife art team Mike and Laura Allred about their work together from their long running Madman comic, to X-Statics and I, Zombie. The Alldreds’ style has been often described as pop art and Alex discusses the development of this as well as its representation in adaptations of their work such as Christopher Coppola’s film G-Men from Hell.

The Pod Delusion episode 125

This week: there might not be any faster than light neutrinos, but what can we learn from a failed experiment? Might Iran embracing science be a good thing? Can Alex Fitch convince you that video games are on a par with art, film and literature? And what’s life like in the armed forces for a non-believer? Find out in this week’s show!
Correspondents include Drew Rae, David Eastman, Andrew Gould, Blakeley Nixon, Liz Lutgendorff, Tom Hodden and Alex Fitch. The Pod Delusion is a weekly news magazine radio programme and podcast about interesting things. From politics, to science to culture and philosophy, it’s commentary from a secular, rationalist, skeptical, somewhat lefty-liberal, sort of perspective. A bit like From Our Own Correspondent but with more jokes.

Electric Sheep Podcast: Making films interactive

In a pair of interviews about innovations in film-making Electric Sheep Magazine’s assistant editor Alex Fitch talks to two directors who have embraced new technology in their work. Alex talks  to Alex Cox about working with Robby Muller on Repo Man, his thoughts on interactive cinema, utilising computer generated backgrounds and other techniques for its sequel Repo Chic(k) and using CGI to augment the rerelease of his western Straight to Hell.

Alex also talks to Julian Napier, director of Madame Butterfly 3D, a new film of the Royal Opera House’s production of Puccini’s classic tale of spurned love in 19th Century Nagasaki; how filming the opera using 3D cameras makes the cinema presentation a more immersive experience and a more rewarding one for people who can’t afford or don’t fancy the highbrow environment of the ROH.