Groups are grammatical fictions; only individuals
exist, and each individual is different.
- Robert Anton Wilson
- Robert Anton Wilson
When Pat Mills first mentioned the idea of a
sci-fi comic to me, I didn’t think it would work.
- John Wagner
- John Wagner
If you write about something you understand (or have researched) and
give yourself time, a solution to a problem will occur.
- Pat Mills, April 1987
- Pat Mills, April 1987
The past
is quicksand.
I don’t really measure time in notebooks, that was just a way of grabbing your attention. Sure, I use them as landmarks, but I also use whatever I’m reading at the time, life-changing events and a clock. All of these’ll be making an appearance in the following paragraphs. Except for the clock.
I’ve been putting this off. I know why, but it’s a cheat to admit that, much better to pace the flat looking tortured. I’m floating in coffee. There’s a playlist of tracks based on The Mighty One’s Organ throbbing away.0 Let’s do some time-twisting. Let's talk about thirty-plus years of comics, music and living in popular culture’s fringes like a transtextual headlouse.
We’ll start just before the end, and see where this thing disguised as a revisit of Tharg's head finishes up.
I don’t really measure time in notebooks, that was just a way of grabbing your attention. Sure, I use them as landmarks, but I also use whatever I’m reading at the time, life-changing events and a clock. All of these’ll be making an appearance in the following paragraphs. Except for the clock.
I’ve been putting this off. I know why, but it’s a cheat to admit that, much better to pace the flat looking tortured. I’m floating in coffee. There’s a playlist of tracks based on The Mighty One’s Organ throbbing away.0 Let’s do some time-twisting. Let's talk about thirty-plus years of comics, music and living in popular culture’s fringes like a transtextual headlouse.
We’ll start just before the end, and see where this thing disguised as a revisit of Tharg's head finishes up.
2016
was a thieving bastard of a year. Not
only did it steal all those people who landscaped our possible pasts, but it
also walked off with three of my school-friends. Every
death acted like a stick in the mud of the Nostalgia Estuary, turning the
usual blank grey a full-on shitty brown, all to a soundtrack lifted from late-Eighties
and early-Nineties Sunday Chart Shows.
Taxi to the airports booked. Can’t sleep, naturally. Manage two hours in the end.
I ended up immersing in The KLF and Sheep On Drugs for the month leading up to this, recapturing what my youth tasted like. Ink, mostly: warm, drying Parker; hot photocopier dust; Quink; Indian; Rotring or swimmy Banda fumes stinging like snorted vodka. All ink-based. All blending under the main layer of Printer’s that made up the readable parts of the comics and music press that're entwined throughout whatever’s approaching.
I’ve finished the John Higgs book that’s almost about The KLF and started on the Steve MacManus biography concentrating on his time as 2000 AD's editor. The second one’s not as obviously full of mad synchronicity, magic and satirical religions in super-positions, but does have some juicy drinking tales. There's a taxi waiting in an outside that looks like Fraser Irving’s designed it.
It’s cold and the driver doesn’t remember me. By the first set of lights he’s telling me about how the WISE Group are the Real Rulers Of The Country. Embarrassed, I admit I’ve never heard of them. He gives me all the background I can eat while the wheels chew up the road. The taxi interior is thick with the memory of tobacco and the swirled capes of the Rothschilds. Outside glistens orange and black, undulating by like a pack of cybertigers. WISE stands for Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England and the subjugation of everyone who doesn’t already know that. The taxi slides up against the side of the white zone like a dolphin flirting with a sailor and my driver says, “You know who’s really in charge, aye? I mean, really in charge?”
I’ve opened the door and, like the other passengers up and down the red zone, started unloading.
“Ummm… The WISE Group?”
“No! Of course not.” His voice drops to a tiger's rasp. “It’s the Illuminati. That’ll be sixteen pounds.”
I’m standing for a few seconds working out if I’m paying for the lift or the information, trying to laugh off the electric wave that’s just rushed up my back and made my arms bumpy. I can’t think of anything to say.
“Thanks.”
He’s gone into the now-Milleresque, weird morning light I shift my bag on my shoulder and head quickly into the future. After all, there’s just no stopping in a white zone.
Brief hours later, I'm playing sardines with strangers in a crammed tube with wings. It breaks through the cloud layer, rising into a childhood sky that’s nothing more than a tarpaulin made of GI skins stretched taut. And, like the past, what’s beyond the ice-fronded window would kill you if you tried to live in it. As durable and adaptable as a person appears to be, it’s all a matter of scale and hubris. The past is an inhospitable place, full of terrible teeth and hot, offal breath.
Because we’re living in the future now, I can’t buy a coffee with anything analogue. Instead I suck on travel sweets to try and stop my ears bleeding, and read up to Steve MacManus’ 1986 swansong. His 1987 kicks off proper on page 230, but that’s still two days away for me.
I tuck the book away as we descend through the cheap cloud effects that signify the transition layer between then and now. We land in Brit-Cit and get shuttled to the red zone for immediate unloading. Kev J, a gentleman’s gent, gets us onto the M23 in short order. We spend most of the journey catching up. It’s been nearly two years since I last saw him and there’ve been several plot-twists and crossover events since then. It feels like last week, but it wasn’t. Every day feels the same so it’s hard to measure progress except with notebooks and supporting characters.
We stop at chez J briefly, just long enough for the cats to approve me, then back on the road. We have a spicy lunch with the annoyingly-talented Iain Martin, writer of the Winterhill series. He’s just finished the next volume and it needs a cover. This is great news for several reasons beyond the obvious.2
Our plates and Iain are gone and Kev’s escorting me into the heart of empire. We’re lowered into the deleted scenes of An American Werewolf in London and then escalate up, into the long shadow of the British Museum where another museum crouches.
Taxi to the airports booked. Can’t sleep, naturally. Manage two hours in the end.
I ended up immersing in The KLF and Sheep On Drugs for the month leading up to this, recapturing what my youth tasted like. Ink, mostly: warm, drying Parker; hot photocopier dust; Quink; Indian; Rotring or swimmy Banda fumes stinging like snorted vodka. All ink-based. All blending under the main layer of Printer’s that made up the readable parts of the comics and music press that're entwined throughout whatever’s approaching.
I’ve finished the John Higgs book that’s almost about The KLF and started on the Steve MacManus biography concentrating on his time as 2000 AD's editor. The second one’s not as obviously full of mad synchronicity, magic and satirical religions in super-positions, but does have some juicy drinking tales. There's a taxi waiting in an outside that looks like Fraser Irving’s designed it.
It’s cold and the driver doesn’t remember me. By the first set of lights he’s telling me about how the WISE Group are the Real Rulers Of The Country. Embarrassed, I admit I’ve never heard of them. He gives me all the background I can eat while the wheels chew up the road. The taxi interior is thick with the memory of tobacco and the swirled capes of the Rothschilds. Outside glistens orange and black, undulating by like a pack of cybertigers. WISE stands for Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England and the subjugation of everyone who doesn’t already know that. The taxi slides up against the side of the white zone like a dolphin flirting with a sailor and my driver says, “You know who’s really in charge, aye? I mean, really in charge?”
I’ve opened the door and, like the other passengers up and down the red zone, started unloading.
“Ummm… The WISE Group?”
“No! Of course not.” His voice drops to a tiger's rasp. “It’s the Illuminati. That’ll be sixteen pounds.”
I’m standing for a few seconds working out if I’m paying for the lift or the information, trying to laugh off the electric wave that’s just rushed up my back and made my arms bumpy. I can’t think of anything to say.
“Thanks.”
He’s gone into the now-Milleresque, weird morning light I shift my bag on my shoulder and head quickly into the future. After all, there’s just no stopping in a white zone.
Brief hours later, I'm playing sardines with strangers in a crammed tube with wings. It breaks through the cloud layer, rising into a childhood sky that’s nothing more than a tarpaulin made of GI skins stretched taut. And, like the past, what’s beyond the ice-fronded window would kill you if you tried to live in it. As durable and adaptable as a person appears to be, it’s all a matter of scale and hubris. The past is an inhospitable place, full of terrible teeth and hot, offal breath.
Because we’re living in the future now, I can’t buy a coffee with anything analogue. Instead I suck on travel sweets to try and stop my ears bleeding, and read up to Steve MacManus’ 1986 swansong. His 1987 kicks off proper on page 230, but that’s still two days away for me.
I tuck the book away as we descend through the cheap cloud effects that signify the transition layer between then and now. We land in Brit-Cit and get shuttled to the red zone for immediate unloading. Kev J, a gentleman’s gent, gets us onto the M23 in short order. We spend most of the journey catching up. It’s been nearly two years since I last saw him and there’ve been several plot-twists and crossover events since then. It feels like last week, but it wasn’t. Every day feels the same so it’s hard to measure progress except with notebooks and supporting characters.
We stop at chez J briefly, just long enough for the cats to approve me, then back on the road. We have a spicy lunch with the annoyingly-talented Iain Martin, writer of the Winterhill series. He’s just finished the next volume and it needs a cover. This is great news for several reasons beyond the obvious.2
Our plates and Iain are gone and Kev’s escorting me into the heart of empire. We’re lowered into the deleted scenes of An American Werewolf in London and then escalate up, into the long shadow of the British Museum where another museum crouches.
The past is a glamour. To paraphrase the JAMS, 1987 was a… confusing year.3 Hold that thought, we’ll be needing it later.
The Cartoon Museum doesn’t really exist, which makes visiting it a truly unique experience. As I’ve said before, the UK tolerates comics on the condition it can keep a big stick handy for anytime the medium looks like forgetting its place. This anomaly fits in the street the same way a shadow fills the missing piece of a risky Jenga tower. It’s an honourable tribute to a medium that the British have a damn good case to having invented. Unlike most of British history, it’s a first worth being proud of. (Okay, it’s the Scots who really invented comics as we know them but let’s not get caught up debating something as toxic as nationalism, shall we?)
Kev and I drift through the downstairs historical exhibition of cartoons. It’s got some of everything that the ‘great and the good’ might regard as worth spending all that Lottery money on. Cruikshank, Bell, Scarfe, Giles, tints and originals all preserved for future generations of Private Eye readers. It’s breathtaking, but it’s not why we’re here today. We’re here for the loftier and, in many ways, much more socially important exhibition. The one that’s upstairs.
Eighty original pieces of 2000 AD artwork arranged in an approximate chronological order forest the upstairs gallery. Clinging to walls and scowling over the balcony, many much larger than you’d expect, they represent layers of cultural experience. Each brushstroke and every lettering bubble will have touched untold lives. Some more than others.
Many of the pieces come from damn impressive collections. David Roach’s is obviously world standard.
One Friday over a lifetime ago, my Dad brought home a copy of a fanzine called Hellfire. It had a Garry Leach cover and a roundtable interview with Alan (no relation to Steve) Moore and David Lloyd that introduced me to Repo Man amongst other things. Apparently it’d been put together by the children of a lady he worked with. The two brothers were opening a comic shop of sorts in a Cardiff market, selling off their collections for some reason. I went in, picked up the complete Bozz Chronicles at a bargain price and talked to the shorter-haired Roach brother about Ramon Sola for far longer than was polite. He put up with me and let me know that he’d drawn a Purity Brown strip that’d be appearing in 2000 AD sometime soon. These days that same Roach brother inks the main Doctor Who comic and is lauded for his exquisite work on Judge Anderson’s strips, amongst others. His feather-delicate style is more confident now, but retains the breathtaking touches originally exhibited in Hellfire’s back-up strip.
Two of the pieces on display freak me out because they shouldn’t be
there. The last time I saw the Judge Child Quest page was in Mackintosh
Place in Cardiff. Back then it was owned
by a chap called Martin O'Shea. I’d spend hours
staring at it, taking in the parts that didn’t reproduce mechanically, looking
through the lettering at the hidden artwork underneath, wondering why some ink
aged quicker than others. We’d drink
vodka and talk bollocks. Eventually I
messed up both an inking job Martin offered me and a chance to promote his book, The Least Among Us. The Kevin O’Neill Nemesis page on display was also Martin's – he had all his artwork in the same style of frame. Something dry and ancient moves through me
for a moment and I forget where I am.
Shortly after self-sabotaging my A-levels, I get forced to leave home. Everything I didn't manage to stuff into a black bag – books, records, comics, posters and artwork – got thrown away. I was lucky enough to be plucked up and dropped, with restrictions, into Cardiff. Not everyone gets a second-chance. I ended up working through the weeks as an early-morning cleaner in Cyncoed and as an input-monkey on Newport Road in the mid-afternoons. The labouring was offset with exam retakes, courtesy of Coleg Glan Hafren’s randomly scattered locations, and trips to Spillers Records. English Lit A-level took up Friday mornings in the college’s main campus. It was during those lessons that I made friends with Mike, one of the most genuine gentlemen I’ve ever met. Mike in turn introduced me to Martin, a long-time friend of his who was also into 2000 AD.
Years earlier, when life was straighter, taking the coach from Clevedon to London was a major event. London’s more a country than a city and those childhood journeys were very much like trips abroad. Back then London would get films months before the rest of us. It had underground trains and a comic shop that sold issues from months in the future too. Visiting the actual Forbidden Planet was unreal.
Every article about Denmark Street seems to repeat its status as ‘London’s Tin Pan Alley’. There’s something in the area that encourages rock music and ink. Good luck working in something about the foundations being laid in the remains of a leper hospital. The street’s musical history includes the respectable flogging of instruments and sheet music, but there’s also something subtler. Denmark Street is a background setting to so many different forces that’ve shaped my life walking down it now should trigger arcs of significant energy with each step. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.
Dennis Nilsen, who inspired a book that both inspired a conversation between myself and another of Mike’s friends as well a song by Swans, worked on Denmark Street. The Lower Third drank here with David Jones. Black Sabbath recorded their first two albums in a low-level studio, lyrics based solidly on the works of Dennis Wheatley (that’s Crowley covered then). Kinks, Tom Jones, Yardbirds, Paul ‘You Can Call Me Al’ Simon and Sex Pistols are shared ghosts in our historical architectures. Periodically speaking, Melody Maker and the NME lived here for years, and, though the wordcounts may've varied, I’m pleased to have been in bands that were tattooed into their pages. Centre Point looms. Whilst it’s easy to trace a connection to this piece of Mega-City sculpture to the music clubs of South Wales, we’re already in the rough.
Forbidden Planet cropped up as something other than an advert in comics too. I experienced another strange feeling of something passing through me when I realised I’d visited the shop that was giving Betsy Braddock such a headache in Captain Britain. Co-founder Mike Lake’s bright red Ferrari got trashed in a tussle between Warlock and Impossible Man in the third New Mutants annual. I had it on good authority from the Roach brother mentioned earlier that Marvel got the car’s colour wrong. It’s interesting that both stories were drawn by Alan Davis. Shame it doesn’t mean anything. Fairly recently, Little Jimmy Fnord, Alan Moore’s Scottish Tribute Act, tried to muscle in on the action by including a mention of Forbidden Planet Scotland’s overseas branch in a largely unreadable issue of The Authority, but who cares? Landau’s a Titan; no Eagles for Nicking his ideas.
We headed back to Kev and Penny’s for a skim through the collected Meltdown Man, followed by an excellent curry and an exhausted sleep. My responsibilities were in a different country.
The morning’s foggy, frosty and there’s a scrim of snow. We head toward Hammersmith via the cover of Animals.
Your whole life’s been leading to every morning, so why should one feel more significant than any other?
Shortly after self-sabotaging my A-levels, I get forced to leave home. Everything I didn't manage to stuff into a black bag – books, records, comics, posters and artwork – got thrown away. I was lucky enough to be plucked up and dropped, with restrictions, into Cardiff. Not everyone gets a second-chance. I ended up working through the weeks as an early-morning cleaner in Cyncoed and as an input-monkey on Newport Road in the mid-afternoons. The labouring was offset with exam retakes, courtesy of Coleg Glan Hafren’s randomly scattered locations, and trips to Spillers Records. English Lit A-level took up Friday mornings in the college’s main campus. It was during those lessons that I made friends with Mike, one of the most genuine gentlemen I’ve ever met. Mike in turn introduced me to Martin, a long-time friend of his who was also into 2000 AD.
Years earlier, when life was straighter, taking the coach from Clevedon to London was a major event. London’s more a country than a city and those childhood journeys were very much like trips abroad. Back then London would get films months before the rest of us. It had underground trains and a comic shop that sold issues from months in the future too. Visiting the actual Forbidden Planet was unreal.
Every article about Denmark Street seems to repeat its status as ‘London’s Tin Pan Alley’. There’s something in the area that encourages rock music and ink. Good luck working in something about the foundations being laid in the remains of a leper hospital. The street’s musical history includes the respectable flogging of instruments and sheet music, but there’s also something subtler. Denmark Street is a background setting to so many different forces that’ve shaped my life walking down it now should trigger arcs of significant energy with each step. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.
Dennis Nilsen, who inspired a book that both inspired a conversation between myself and another of Mike’s friends as well a song by Swans, worked on Denmark Street. The Lower Third drank here with David Jones. Black Sabbath recorded their first two albums in a low-level studio, lyrics based solidly on the works of Dennis Wheatley (that’s Crowley covered then). Kinks, Tom Jones, Yardbirds, Paul ‘You Can Call Me Al’ Simon and Sex Pistols are shared ghosts in our historical architectures. Periodically speaking, Melody Maker and the NME lived here for years, and, though the wordcounts may've varied, I’m pleased to have been in bands that were tattooed into their pages. Centre Point looms. Whilst it’s easy to trace a connection to this piece of Mega-City sculpture to the music clubs of South Wales, we’re already in the rough.
Forbidden Planet cropped up as something other than an advert in comics too. I experienced another strange feeling of something passing through me when I realised I’d visited the shop that was giving Betsy Braddock such a headache in Captain Britain. Co-founder Mike Lake’s bright red Ferrari got trashed in a tussle between Warlock and Impossible Man in the third New Mutants annual. I had it on good authority from the Roach brother mentioned earlier that Marvel got the car’s colour wrong. It’s interesting that both stories were drawn by Alan Davis. Shame it doesn’t mean anything. Fairly recently, Little Jimmy Fnord, Alan Moore’s Scottish Tribute Act, tried to muscle in on the action by including a mention of Forbidden Planet Scotland’s overseas branch in a largely unreadable issue of The Authority, but who cares? Landau’s a Titan; no Eagles for Nicking his ideas.
We headed back to Kev and Penny’s for a skim through the collected Meltdown Man, followed by an excellent curry and an exhausted sleep. My responsibilities were in a different country.
The morning’s foggy, frosty and there’s a scrim of snow. We head toward Hammersmith via the cover of Animals.
Your whole life’s been leading to every morning, so why should one feel more significant than any other?
 |
| Bonus strip in the Meltdown Man Collected Edition. |
The past
is a river. Downstream's infant school
and pristine issues of Doctor Who Comic
(that’s what it’s called). Well, I say
pristine, but they’ve got my Dad’s surname written in biro near the top of the
back cover. I recognise the Abslom Daak artist from Hulk Comic. He’s my favourite artist in the whole
world.
Comics and distraction; junior school years. The Dentist’s waiting room has comic annuals, one with a story about a giant black dog, a Shuck brought down by Puritan gunmen. The Doctor’s noisy space has dismembered Bolland pages: a sobbing astronaut is hauled away from a failed simulated flight. The classroom windows use steam to block out the rain; a Portrait of a Mutant fixed forever on a crayon-enhanced page in my small hands. I don’t try and read the story because I’m put off by ‘PART II’. It can’t mean ‘part eleven’ as that’s beyond the scale of comprehension for someone living in the now. I’m aware of Roman Numerals, but they don’t help either.
Suddenly: 1985! I’m in a Comprehensive education system, reading the debut issue of The Best of 2000 AD Monthly. The Blood of Satanus acts as a dry-run for Cry of the Werewolf just fine; the second story is drawn by my favourite artist in the whole world and written by someone who’s more than registered on my radar as ‘one to watch’; the debut Rogue Trooper story does what it does with aplomb – Gunnar’s been my favourite character for years already; Strontium Dog and Judge Minty tie in with fandom beautifully and the final Future Shock is from the team that’ll change the world I'll eventually live in. A full page ad for Forbidden Planet covers the back. Less a comic, more a distillation of childhood.
Next year I become a teenager and start on the slide proper.
Eagle Comics are reprinting classic 2000 AD strips in US-sized colour editions with beautiful covers. Action’s sub-editor done well for himself. Beautiful black and white ‘albums’ from Titan Books start appearing on shelves and Christmas lists.
The Jedi return and Spock goes missing.
I’m in a car that’s driving through Cheddar Gorge, reading the first issue of Eagle Comics’ Stainless Steel Rat reprint. It’s a Sunday and we’ve been out for a spin with a family friend and her dog. I’m lost in the comic when something growls and then grabs my head, tugging hard. Suddenly it’s not just Jim diGriz that’s slippery.
The car pulls to a halt.
Someone’s screaming.
I miss Hancock’s The Blood Donor because I’m having my head stitched up. During the recuperation period I discover John Peel and White Zombie’s Acid Flesh. One of the lads from the Sixth Year is impressed with my knowledge. He’s wearing the Judge Death badge from that Forbidden Planet advert.
I’m indulging in mammoth re-reads. Progs piled up, open to the pages of whichever story I’m tracking: Dredd, Skizz, Slaine, Ace Trucking Co., Robo-Hunter, Rogue Trooper, D.R. & Quinch, all read over and over and over. Sometime around now Marvel’s Secret Wars kicks off and I meet Chubb for the first time. He’s a couple of years older than me, give or take. Some guy called Fabry starts drawing Slaine and instantly becomes my new favourite artist in the whole world.
I discover music properly. I start on soundtracks and then move onto whatever moves me. I’ve got no shit-filter with music, so I like what I like. This way holds cowboy boots, ridicule from musos and an accidental (and unbroadcastable) Peel Session, but I don't know that yet. I write a letter telling Glenn Fabry how great he is and post it, care of Tharg.
Glenn Fabry writes back, giving me Pat Mills' address. Chubb introduces me to the Cure and Sonic Youth. I keep drawing, reading and writing and reading and reading and reading.
Comics and distraction; junior school years. The Dentist’s waiting room has comic annuals, one with a story about a giant black dog, a Shuck brought down by Puritan gunmen. The Doctor’s noisy space has dismembered Bolland pages: a sobbing astronaut is hauled away from a failed simulated flight. The classroom windows use steam to block out the rain; a Portrait of a Mutant fixed forever on a crayon-enhanced page in my small hands. I don’t try and read the story because I’m put off by ‘PART II’. It can’t mean ‘part eleven’ as that’s beyond the scale of comprehension for someone living in the now. I’m aware of Roman Numerals, but they don’t help either.
Suddenly: 1985! I’m in a Comprehensive education system, reading the debut issue of The Best of 2000 AD Monthly. The Blood of Satanus acts as a dry-run for Cry of the Werewolf just fine; the second story is drawn by my favourite artist in the whole world and written by someone who’s more than registered on my radar as ‘one to watch’; the debut Rogue Trooper story does what it does with aplomb – Gunnar’s been my favourite character for years already; Strontium Dog and Judge Minty tie in with fandom beautifully and the final Future Shock is from the team that’ll change the world I'll eventually live in. A full page ad for Forbidden Planet covers the back. Less a comic, more a distillation of childhood.
Next year I become a teenager and start on the slide proper.
Eagle Comics are reprinting classic 2000 AD strips in US-sized colour editions with beautiful covers. Action’s sub-editor done well for himself. Beautiful black and white ‘albums’ from Titan Books start appearing on shelves and Christmas lists.
The Jedi return and Spock goes missing.
I’m in a car that’s driving through Cheddar Gorge, reading the first issue of Eagle Comics’ Stainless Steel Rat reprint. It’s a Sunday and we’ve been out for a spin with a family friend and her dog. I’m lost in the comic when something growls and then grabs my head, tugging hard. Suddenly it’s not just Jim diGriz that’s slippery.
The car pulls to a halt.
Someone’s screaming.
I miss Hancock’s The Blood Donor because I’m having my head stitched up. During the recuperation period I discover John Peel and White Zombie’s Acid Flesh. One of the lads from the Sixth Year is impressed with my knowledge. He’s wearing the Judge Death badge from that Forbidden Planet advert.
I’m indulging in mammoth re-reads. Progs piled up, open to the pages of whichever story I’m tracking: Dredd, Skizz, Slaine, Ace Trucking Co., Robo-Hunter, Rogue Trooper, D.R. & Quinch, all read over and over and over. Sometime around now Marvel’s Secret Wars kicks off and I meet Chubb for the first time. He’s a couple of years older than me, give or take. Some guy called Fabry starts drawing Slaine and instantly becomes my new favourite artist in the whole world.
I discover music properly. I start on soundtracks and then move onto whatever moves me. I’ve got no shit-filter with music, so I like what I like. This way holds cowboy boots, ridicule from musos and an accidental (and unbroadcastable) Peel Session, but I don't know that yet. I write a letter telling Glenn Fabry how great he is and post it, care of Tharg.
Glenn Fabry writes back, giving me Pat Mills' address. Chubb introduces me to the Cure and Sonic Youth. I keep drawing, reading and writing and reading and reading and reading.
 |
| Original Fabry(s), circa 1987. |
 |
| An(other) Original Fabry. 1987. |
Pat Mills sends thoughtful replies to my letters. He takes the things I write seriously and isn’t sniffy about comics.
I’m not having a great time in school.
The snobbery of English teachers is causing difficulties. I’m probably capable of producing work they’d delight to approve of.
I’m reading The White Goddess, as recommended by Pat Mills, in a History lesson that’s been boring me. The teacher takes notice and talks to me about it, Robert Graves and then comics. For the next few months I excel in History.
I’m reading The White Goddess, as recommended by Pat Mills, in a History lesson that’s been boring me. The teacher takes notice and talks to me about it, Robert Graves and then comics. For the next few months I excel in History.
 |
| An Original Mills. 1987. |
 |
| An(other) Original Mills. 1987. |
My favourite teacher is off on a long-term illness. I’m so far ahead of the rest of the History
class at this point that the supply teacher’s got nothing for me to do. I start working on my first fanzine. Chubb lends me a comic called Redfox.
The publisher’s bringing out a series called The Adventures of Luther Arkwright soon. I like what I’ve seen of the Luther artist’s work in
2000 AD and Diceman, so I use my birthday money to take out a
subscription. Having realised that
school’s pointless, I waste as little time on it as I can and devote
myself to reading and writing instead.
Parents are called in for emergency meetings about my cynicism and comics obsession.
It's the arse-end of 1986. I buy four copies of Prog 500 from the Queen Street WH Smith in Cardiff. Chris Bell, the writer of Redfox and publisher of Luther Arkwright writes back to me, also offering advice about writing and breaking into comics in general. By now, Chubb and myself have become an almost double-act. We visit Chris in Bristol. She buys us Chinese and shows us around Wiltshire Printers. It’s crazy because the only thing being printed is Prog 549. Huge stacks of issues sprout from the concrete floor, all topped with Dave Gibbons’ Zenith cover. The printers treat us as VIPs. The noise is incredible. Back at Chris’s, just off Whiteladies Road, we see the original art for the second book of Luther Arkwright. Chris explains that, yes, that really is what tunnel vision looks like as you're passing out. Later on she drives me to meet Luther's creator after a signing he's done in Bristol's Forever People. Being an idiot, I'm too nervous to speak to him.
Chubb makes me compilation tapes of bands that don’t make the charts. My life is full of beautiful art, talented people, great music and friends who respect me.
Unfortunately that’s not how school works.
It's the arse-end of 1986. I buy four copies of Prog 500 from the Queen Street WH Smith in Cardiff. Chris Bell, the writer of Redfox and publisher of Luther Arkwright writes back to me, also offering advice about writing and breaking into comics in general. By now, Chubb and myself have become an almost double-act. We visit Chris in Bristol. She buys us Chinese and shows us around Wiltshire Printers. It’s crazy because the only thing being printed is Prog 549. Huge stacks of issues sprout from the concrete floor, all topped with Dave Gibbons’ Zenith cover. The printers treat us as VIPs. The noise is incredible. Back at Chris’s, just off Whiteladies Road, we see the original art for the second book of Luther Arkwright. Chris explains that, yes, that really is what tunnel vision looks like as you're passing out. Later on she drives me to meet Luther's creator after a signing he's done in Bristol's Forever People. Being an idiot, I'm too nervous to speak to him.
Chubb makes me compilation tapes of bands that don’t make the charts. My life is full of beautiful art, talented people, great music and friends who respect me.
Unfortunately that’s not how school works.
 |
| Original Bell(s). 1987 |
I try writing about the collected edition of Watchmen as part of my English
Literature coursework. It’s a waste of
time. I’ve made friends with a lad
called Byron who also reads comics. He’s
got the thickest ginger hair you could imagine and, like most of us, he’s
growing it. Despite Chubb’s more nuanced
musical input, I’ve moved from Queen to Anthrax to Metallica to Slayer and
recently started dabbling with Christian Death and Fields of the Nephilim. I’ve also produced a stream-of-consciousness
monstrosity called Wormbait that I’m
trying to pass off as a stripzine. If it
was intelligible then it’d be obvious I’ve just lifted all the bits I like from
other places. Years later I figure out
that’s how everyone starts, whether
they’re writing fiction, drawing or starting up a band. It’s only when you’ve hacked away your
influences that you find out who you are.
Wormbait teaches me a lot about
how not to make a comic. Sensibly, I make completely different
mistakes with the next one.
Pat Mills puts me in touch with a couple of fairly-local folk who also want to
make comics. One’s a writer, the other’s
an artist. Together we pull together a
new fanzine called Overview. I commission a cover from Glenn Fabry and pay
for it with birthday money. Being a lovely bloke, Mr Fabry provides an introduction
gratis and Mike Collins provides a pencil drawing of Doctor Fate that I'm told I'm not allowed to ink.
Overview's print-run destroys a photocopier but doesn’t cost us anything. As soon as I start getting complaints about the ‘zine not been printed proper I finally understand how success is a collaborative effort but anything less than success is my fault alone. Chris invites me to that year’s UKCAC, promising my parents that she’ll look after me. I’m not allowed to go. The others head down to flog the ‘zine. I stay at home feeling a pure bright-lime jealousy, like only a sulking teenager can. That’s all I'm willing to say right now. Ask me when you’re older.
Overview's print-run destroys a photocopier but doesn’t cost us anything. As soon as I start getting complaints about the ‘zine not been printed proper I finally understand how success is a collaborative effort but anything less than success is my fault alone. Chris invites me to that year’s UKCAC, promising my parents that she’ll look after me. I’m not allowed to go. The others head down to flog the ‘zine. I stay at home feeling a pure bright-lime jealousy, like only a sulking teenager can. That’s all I'm willing to say right now. Ask me when you’re older.
 |
| An(other) Original Fabry. 1987 |
I’ve told you the main Payphone Story but I haven’t told you how it ends.
Neil Gaiman is just starting to make his way into comics from journalism and collaborations with Kim Newman. Harlan Ellison isn’t in, so I leave a message on his answerphone and try the last number on my list. This number belongs to an artist flying high on the success of Watchmen and one of the most famous comic creators around. He doesn’t sound at all happy to be talking to me.
How did I got this number?
I bluster. I don’t have it anymore. This doesn’t convince him.
Bright, burning red and dripping with sweat, I wish him a Merry Christmas.
He returns the wish, on the condition I never speak to him again, and hangs up.
I'm shaking for over an hour.
2017. Kev gets us in. We get tagged and given bags and a floor to sit on. I realise that this is the first comic convention I’ve ever been to. The doors open and we’re led in. Tables everywhere. Looks like the Bryan Talbot double-spread Torquemada Convention from Nemesis in many ways. I don’t know where to start, there’s too much to take in. In the end I decided against bringing the first issue of The Best Of and dragged along my last surviving copy of Prog 500. Christ. That’s Ian Kennedy there and nobody’s talking to him. He shakes my hand and takes my sputtering noises about it being an honour with soft grace, as do Jesus Redondo and Steve MacManus. The atmosphere’s relaxed and there’s a sense of belonging. A definite demographic surges through the spaces in the room.
I pick up a Gunnar biochip badge along with Dredd and Death ones. I’d worn my original Watchmen one with pride through the early Nameless years until it got left under a haunted Bangor hotel by accident. Today, I’m wearing the replacement one that Kev gave me for my birthday. Taking into account that one of the first songs Nameless recorded was partly written by the editor of Hulk Comic then some sort of circle gets squared.
Neil Gaiman is just starting to make his way into comics from journalism and collaborations with Kim Newman. Harlan Ellison isn’t in, so I leave a message on his answerphone and try the last number on my list. This number belongs to an artist flying high on the success of Watchmen and one of the most famous comic creators around. He doesn’t sound at all happy to be talking to me.
How did I got this number?
I bluster. I don’t have it anymore. This doesn’t convince him.
Bright, burning red and dripping with sweat, I wish him a Merry Christmas.
He returns the wish, on the condition I never speak to him again, and hangs up.
I'm shaking for over an hour.
2017. Kev gets us in. We get tagged and given bags and a floor to sit on. I realise that this is the first comic convention I’ve ever been to. The doors open and we’re led in. Tables everywhere. Looks like the Bryan Talbot double-spread Torquemada Convention from Nemesis in many ways. I don’t know where to start, there’s too much to take in. In the end I decided against bringing the first issue of The Best Of and dragged along my last surviving copy of Prog 500. Christ. That’s Ian Kennedy there and nobody’s talking to him. He shakes my hand and takes my sputtering noises about it being an honour with soft grace, as do Jesus Redondo and Steve MacManus. The atmosphere’s relaxed and there’s a sense of belonging. A definite demographic surges through the spaces in the room.
I pick up a Gunnar biochip badge along with Dredd and Death ones. I’d worn my original Watchmen one with pride through the early Nameless years until it got left under a haunted Bangor hotel by accident. Today, I’m wearing the replacement one that Kev gave me for my birthday. Taking into account that one of the first songs Nameless recorded was partly written by the editor of Hulk Comic then some sort of circle gets squared.
Although there hasn’t actually been a decent Doctor Who comic story written since the
100th issue of Doctor Who
Magazine, a lot of the artwork since then's been great. Arthur Ranson’s guilty of beautiful McCoy-era
work. He walks by me when I’m in a queue, so I miss my chance to say
hello. Two of my favourite Who artists –
Roger Langridge and Ben Willsher – draw me their takes on Tom Baker. Later on I’m lucky enough to bump into Mick McMahon
who shakes my hand and accepts my commission of a Tom Baker illustration, as
long as I get in touch. This is
crazy. Something passes through me,
shuddering with delight as it goes.
 |
| An Original Langridge. 2017. |
 |
| An Original Willsher. Also 2017. |
Kev and I check out the Originals and John Wagner/Carlos Esquerra panels. Both are moderated by people who seem to be
pushing a weird agenda. Just because
there’s been a satirical edge to 2000 AD
since it started, I don’t think there’s a case to be argued that it acts as a gateway
drug to Private Eye, no matter how
much the current publishers might want it to. John Wagner says something about the
disrespect dealt to one of his creations by another writer. Researching this, I re-read the stories in
question and can’t disagree. I’m
intrigued to note that the same turgid period featured review droid Roxilla’s
occasional take on floor-fillin’, bangin' choons.
Both The KLF and Sheeps (sic) On Drugs get their points missed. It’s very telling.
I’m in a queue when someone who looks just like Byron walks by. It’s not Byron though, it’s a Sadowitz survivor so cool his veins bleed ice (it says here). At the end of the queue is Glenn Fabry. I shake his hand and thank him for the cover and intro. He says he’s found a photocopy of the cover recently. I wimp out of asking for proof.
David Roach is still lovely. He's terrified at how good my memory is. Kev and I head to the premiere of Search/Destroy. Kev says the day feels like one of the old UKCACs.
Pat Mills shakes my hand and accepts my thanks graciously. There’s not the time to explain the impact he’s had on me. And why should there be? Everyone else in the hall is living a variation of the same life. It’s the same story, just with different soundtracks.
Dave Gibbons can’t remember the phone call at all. He laughs heartily as I shake his hand and wish him a final Merry Christmas for the second time.
“And a Merry Christmas to you too, Al.”
I’m in a queue when someone who looks just like Byron walks by. It’s not Byron though, it’s a Sadowitz survivor so cool his veins bleed ice (it says here). At the end of the queue is Glenn Fabry. I shake his hand and thank him for the cover and intro. He says he’s found a photocopy of the cover recently. I wimp out of asking for proof.
David Roach is still lovely. He's terrified at how good my memory is. Kev and I head to the premiere of Search/Destroy. Kev says the day feels like one of the old UKCACs.
Pat Mills shakes my hand and accepts my thanks graciously. There’s not the time to explain the impact he’s had on me. And why should there be? Everyone else in the hall is living a variation of the same life. It’s the same story, just with different soundtracks.
Dave Gibbons can’t remember the phone call at all. He laughs heartily as I shake his hand and wish him a final Merry Christmas for the second time.
“And a Merry Christmas to you too, Al.”
Byron was knocked down and killed while walking home from a festival. The driver’s never been found.
The past is quicksand: it’s soft and it sucks.
The longer you walk through it, the harder it is to leave. There’s a brief moment in your youth when the
future’s still yours, but you don’t know that yet.
The past is a glamour: the moment you realise those delicate-brushed cheekbones
have scales is far, far too late. Scream
a golden scream and get on with dying well.
The past is a river and time-travel is closer to real drowning than it is to anything
Romantic. Everything you were, wanted
and wished is safely downstream now.
Yes, things were better then, but you can never go back. Keep moving forward across the damned soil;
keep trekking through this hell.
The show must, like, go on, man.
There’ssss more crime than life in Glassssgow…
- Judge Death, 11th February 2017
Although almost every other cameo actor in this story has vanished over the years, while typing this, whatever this is, I heard from
Chubb for the first time in nearly fifteen years.
This proves that not only does none of this mean anything, but that everything's connected.
This proves that not only does none of this mean anything, but that everything's connected.
 |
| An Original Belardinelli (the only piece of 2000 AD art that I own, actually). 1987. |
 |
| The Original Belardinelli (detail). |
 |
| The Original Belardinelli (another detail). Everything's connected and none of this means anything... |
DEDICATED TO
Bis
Byron
Chubb
Greg
Martin O’Shea
Mike
Steph
and
Everyone
who ever
wrote
drew
lettered
coloured
edited
read
or
got/gets
2000 AD
Bis
Byron
Chubb
Greg
Martin O’Shea
Mike
Steph
and
Everyone
who ever
wrote
drew
lettered
coloured
edited
read
or
got/gets
2000 AD
THANKS
Kev J, Penny and the Beasts
Mr Iain
The Cartoon Museum
The Forbidden Planets
Glenn Fabry
Pat Mills
John Wagner
Alan Grant
David A Roach
Dave Gibbons
Ian Kennedy
Jesus Redondo
Richard Burton
Roger Langridge
Ben Willsher
Mick McMahon
Steve MacManus
and
Rich ‘Sadowitz Survivor’ Johnston
Kev J, Penny and the Beasts
Mr Iain
The Cartoon Museum
The Forbidden Planets
Glenn Fabry
Pat Mills
John Wagner
Alan Grant
David A Roach
Dave Gibbons
Ian Kennedy
Jesus Redondo
Richard Burton
Roger Langridge
Ben Willsher
Mick McMahon
Steve MacManus
and
Rich ‘Sadowitz Survivor’ Johnston
0. Because the people have a right to know:
Darkness Descends
Dark Angel
Deathbringer
XX Nemesis
Dredd Song
Cap’n Bob and his Easy Cure
Dredd Soundtrack
Paul Leonard-Morgan
Drokk: Music Inspired By Mega-City One (the special edition with the bonus tracks)
Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury
I Am The Law
Anthrax
I Am The Law
The Human League
I’m Hanging Out With Halo Jones
Transvision Vamp
Judge Dredd
Loose Talk
Judge Dredd Soundtrack (extended version)
Alan Silvestri
Judge Yr’Self
Le Manics
Music From and ‘Inspired’ by Judge Dredd
Alan Silvestri and Chums
Mutants In Mega-City One
The Fink Brothers
Nemesis The Warlock
Rob Hubbard
Nemesis The Warlock
Rob Hubbard
2. Y’see, somewhere in the future,
this essay has been physically fixed into an actual, proper, printed book. Or, at least, it will be when I’ve chipped
away all the accreted time that’s built up between then and now like limescale
furring a kettle’s element. ‘Timescale’, maybe?
Tch. Suit yourself.
Anyway, quick message to the Eloi reading these words: flick back to the start and treat yourself to Iain’s thoughtful and beautiful introduction.
3. Furthermore known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, also known as The KLF and the K Foundation and all that.
In 1987 I didn’t have a clue, but that’s a plot thread that winds through a different piece of extended typing that sits, in the future, on a different shelf in the British Museum to where you found this.
Tch. Suit yourself.
Anyway, quick message to the Eloi reading these words: flick back to the start and treat yourself to Iain’s thoughtful and beautiful introduction.
3. Furthermore known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, also known as The KLF and the K Foundation and all that.
In 1987 I didn’t have a clue, but that’s a plot thread that winds through a different piece of extended typing that sits, in the future, on a different shelf in the British Museum to where you found this.
