Massacre For Boys

Holt Bros In Colour

2012-01-22T16:49:00.004Z

Continuing the countdown to the Massacre For Boys Action Special, I can now reveal that this issue will feature a remastered version of our Holt Bros pilot strip. Originally published in Judge Dredd Megazine 261 it's currently being coloured by Dee Cunniffe. We're sharing Dee with Rebellion (where he is working as a co-colourist with Len O'Grady on the John Smith and Colin MacNeil series Strange & Darke).

This is what the second Holt Bros page now looks like:

Not bad, eh?

Blackshirts of Exmoor In Colour

2012-01-02T12:38:00.006Z

2012 isn't all about the Olymics, y'know.

We're on the home strait in terms of getting the Massacre For Boys Action Special ready to go to press. To that end, we welcome the multi-talented Owen Watts as colourist on Walking Wounded: Blackshirts of Exmoor.

Here's the first page, pencils/inks by Steve:

(You may recall I posted the black and white version back in July '11)

We're grateful to Owen for stepping in, and doing such a fine job to boot. There'll be one or two (or three or four) further new names added to the contributor list before we're done on this issue. MFB is very fortunate that the talent pool we have to draw on is only getting deeper...

Christmas Massacre

2011-12-17T09:26:00.007Z

Now the season of Seasonal Affective Disorder is well and truly upon us, leading Massacre for Boys artists have been marking the occasion for the 2000AD forum advent calendar.

David Frankum came up with this brilliant and brilliantly festive Zenith/Invasion pinup:

Earlier in that same thread, Steve and a host of collaborators paid tribute to mince pies and turkey, Dredd-style:

I've not actually done anything, but I do wish you a Merry Christmas!

Department of Cryptozoology, Mythological Studies, Parapsychology and Fortean Phenomena

2011-12-10T09:59:00.004Z

Renegade have now officially announced Dept of Monsterology.

Looks good to me!

The Boys Are Back in Town

2011-12-03T11:25:00.003Z

Massacre For Boys are new confirmed exhibitors at next year's Bristol Comic Expo:

(Expo image courtesy of D'Israeli)

We'll be launching the Massacre For Boys Action Special at this event (many more details to follow). It will be our first ever "weekender", giving you a choice of either Saturday May 12 or Sunday May 13 to rush down and buy stuff...

... but obviously, you should do both days in case you miss something awesome.

Bad Company

2011-11-12T08:54:00.004Z

The new Zarjaz is out:

This issue features, amongst many other treats, a Bad Company strip called Fallen Empire by Steve (as writer) and Panos Kamoulakos.

Buy it now, or preferably sooner.

Strontium Summer

2011-11-06T12:40:00.004Z

Steve's entry for the latest 2000AD forum art competition.

Summer seems a long way off now :(

Top 10 Graphic Novels

2011-10-30T09:47:00.004Z

I get pretty annoyed each time a broadsheet newspaper does a "Top 10 Graphic Novels" feature, mostly because what they really mean is "Top 10 Pretentious Graphic Novels".

As a comics reader that prefers to enjoy the experience, I thought I'd have a crack at a more representative (at least more representative of me) top 10. So, here they are, in reverse order:

10) Indigo Prime: Killing Time by John Smith and Chris Weston. A perfect graphic novella. Love the thing with bandages.

9) Marshal Law: Fear and Loathing by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neil. Great indictment of superheroes.

8) Scarlet Traces: The Great Game by Ian Edginton and D'Israeli. A post War of the Worlds British Empire collapses. Possibly the greatest comic story about Britishness.

7) The Dark Night Returns by Frank Miller. Okay it's right-wing bollocks really, but very powerfully done.

6) Hellboy: The Chained Coffin and Others by Mike Mignola. A beautiful collection of short horror tales.

5) Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The seminal graphic novel. Any top 10 without this book isn't trying.

4) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vol. 2. Pretty much the conclusion of Moore's second great period of productivity (with ABC Comics), he's arguably better than ever here, and not yet heading back down the motorway to obscurity.

3) Violent Cases by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. Easy to overlook but a masterclass. Page 1 has 35 panels.

2) The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland. This is a mainstream comic raised to perfection.

1) Zenith Phase I by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell. My favourite comic.

Mission Accomplished (in 2007)

2011-10-23T13:00:00.004+01:00

It's good to remember sometimes that Massacre For Boys has already graced the pages of the Galaxy's Second Greatest Comic:

We were the featured Small Press strip in Meg 261.

I'm hoping that a re-lettered and coloured version of this story will appear in the Action Special. I still love it.

Downfall

2011-10-15T08:46:00.001+01:00

I had the germ of an idea of a possible Zarjaz submission, a short sequel to Fiends of the Eastern Front, a few weeks back. I quickly got a brief outline down into OpenOffice. However, I wasn't totally comfortable going back to WW2 again and when Steve told me he's now working as the artist on a separate Fiends strip, also for Zarjaz, I decided to give up on the idea.

This is the rough outline:

Fiends of the Eastern Front: Downfall

Berlin, 1945.

Hitler discusses his escape plans with Captain Gruber, head of his special guard. The he retires for the night with Eva Braun.

Later, Gruber loses contacts with his men guarding the Hitler's quarters.

He finds them dead, drained of blood. Hitler is locked in.

Hitler wakes up to find Eva Braun standing over him, She leans forward, baring fangs. Hitler runs her though with the spear of destiny, which he keeps in a box near his bed.

A bat flies in, Hitler takes cover.

The bat turns into Captain Costanza.

Costanza: “The war ends tonight.”

Hitler throws the spear.

Hitler: “It has only just begun!”

Costanza is hit by the spear, but pulls it out.

Costanza: ouch. Is this the spear of destiny? A worthless trinket.

Hitler produces a machine gun.

Hitler: Let's try something a bit more scientific then.

Hitler blasts Costanza. Who vanishes into a fog.

The fog coalesces behind Hitler into a figure, who then bites Hitler's neck.

Hitler: Aaaargh – eh?

Costanza:By the Gods, your blood is stagnant with evil.

Hitler: Ha, Vampire idiot. You have no idea what I am capable of.

Costanza: You may be right.

Costanza shoot him in the forehead.

Costanza: Better if we never know.

The door to the quarters clicks open. Costanza emerges and gives his gun to Gruber.

Costanza: The Fuhrer tried to kill a vampire with a machine gun. A clear case of suicide.

Dept. of Monsterology

2011-10-08T08:52:00.003+01:00

Regular readers of this blog will recall Steve was the announced colourist on a graphic novel called Monsterology with script by Gordon Rennie, art by PJ Holden and Letters by Jim Campbell.

No longer.

Now Steve is the announced colourist on a limited run comic called Dept. of Monsterology with script by Gordon Rennie, art by PJ Holden and Letters by Jim Campbell.

For more info you can like the facebook page.

The Writing On The Wall

2011-10-01T08:29:00.005+01:00

I'm increasingly convinced that comics are primarily an artists' medium.

Almost anyone can write, schools are pretty hot on that. Yet virtually no one can draw. This creates a disparity, at least on the indy/small press side of things, where writers are not much valued but artists are highly prized. In many ways this is only natural. Illustrating a comic strip takes a damn sight more time and effort than writing one, so even if there were just as many artists as writers - which there aren't - the artists would still be making by far the greater commitment in taking a job on.

My principal outlet for writing over the last few years has been Massacre For Boys, and when I've strayed outside of it I haven't had very much success. I've had ideas rejected, accepted but not published and various other mishaps. Even when something has appeared and been relatively well received, it hasn't led to anything else. I could of course put this down to being shit, but I more think it's because no one really needs comic writers. Indeed, if you look at the Futurequake and Something Wicked anthology titles, two of the jewels in the British comics crown, they've been closed to new scripts since the start of the year.

In my role as an editor I am equally guilty of this. I've pursued artists with some vigour, but never sought any help with the writing. Mea Culpa.

Progress on Massacre For Boys is pretty slow at the moment, mainly due to Steve's many other commitments (pro colouring work, lots of other indy strips to illustrate, full-time job and, selfishly I feel, a personal life). It's not that I write fast, or write much, but it's so much quicker to write than draw. I'm quite far ahead of the curve at the moment, so don't need to do any more on this front. Which is probably just as well.

This year, as may be apparent from the above, I've become pretty disillusioned with comic writing, and indeed would consider retiring completely except that would imply I'd ever done it professionally - which I haven't - and also would be nothing but a futile gesture. The reality is I haven't written anything for ages, and I suspect I won't write anything for a while , but I'm pretty sure I'll find some enthusiasm from somewhere and pick up the pen again at some point.

Maybe.

Sold Out

2011-09-25T09:40:00.009+01:00

Following on from Forbidden Planet's amazing review of Zarjaz #12 we sold our last copies of two of the Massacre For Boys back catalogue:

Massacre For Boys in Colour was our first attempt at an anthology and also our first attempt to go full colour. It was made up of some uncollected material prepared for the UK Thing anthology and the MFB website, but then heavily fortified with new stuff including a beautifully illustrated Walking Wounded "Zombies on a Plane" 6-pager and my own favourite, The Crusader: Honey Trap. I'd like to get this back into print with a second edition but that will have to wait because the follow-up, Back In Action (or possibly All Action) is taking priority.

I loved Walking Wounded #2. It was our first comic with proper lettering (thanks to Bolt-01) and it features to my mind Steve and I's best collaboration to date - The Glasshouse. This was printed at a larger format then we're using now, and sadly will probably stay out of print. Never fear though because I put the whole thing online already and there will be a re-mastered US-format version in the trade collection, if not sooner.

You can read WW#2 and indeed buy WW#1 (Nazi zombies vs British soldiers) and WW#3 (Nazi soldiers vs British monkeys) on our never yet-revamped website. Get them whilst they're hot.

Positive Podcast

2011-08-05T13:10:00.002+01:00

A very nice audio review of the latest Zarjaz and Dogbreath issues has just appeared on Everything Comes Back to 2000AD.

The reviewers go into great detail for each story and they have some interesting observations. It's lovely that they both enjoyed Zenith/Invasion! and you can hear their thoughts on our strip about three-quarters of the way in.

Blackshirts of Exmoor

2011-07-27T08:14:00.004+01:00

Meanwhile, somewhat west of the western front...

Page 1 by Steve.

Blackshirts of Exmoor tells us something about Brace. It will be lettered, coloured and included in Massacre For Boys: Back In Action.

Doesn't Really Go Anywhere

2011-07-24T08:24:00.004+01:00

There have been some interesting reactions to Zenith/Invasion! since it was released last week.

There was a *SPOILER HEAVY* positive review from the perspective of someone who knows Invasion! but hasn't much memory of Zenith. The Maximan stuff was inevitably lost on them but they still seemed to enjoy the strip, which was very pleasing.

However not everybody has been complimentary. This negative review features a phrase now burned into my memory, "doesn't really go anywhere." Although I think that's basically unfair - the strip fairly obviously does go somewhere - there's no point in arguing with someone if they didn't like it. That's their perogative. The reviewer does also praise the initial concept, which ties in with my feeling that maybe I came up with a really big, attention grabbing idea but then didn't make the script accessible enough to live up to the expectations generated.

I still love it, though!

Some people have asked if we're intending to do a follow up and the answer is, as of now: "Nope". If I were to do a sequel it would be somewhat longer and begin in the present day with Zenith and his girlfriend, Patsy Kensit, attending a Zenith tribute act gig in a pub. They would then be attacked by an unspecified superhuman foe. There would be no Volgans. I would refer back to the first story, but only slightly. *CAUTION, OBLIQUE SPOILER* The character I ressurected would definitely feature again. Possibly more than one of them.

However, I agree with the Zarjaz editorial policy of no continuing stories, and I also suspect that reader interest would diminish the further a series divurged from what had appeared in 2000AD. This is why I have to admire Constable Dredd, a really fantastic strip by Rich McAuliffe and Mark Chilcott that also appears in Zarjaz 12. The concept is a winner - Dredd as a Victorian Bobby - and the execution is dazzling. It's so self-contained that you wouldn't necessarily want a sequel, and that's probably the best way to do a Zarjaz strip. There's some great unlettered pages of Constable Dredd on Mark's blog if you want to see more. However, you should just buy Zarjaz 12, obviously.

For me a good fanzine strip (or at least, a fanzine strip I would particularly enjoy) should not be just a pastiche of the original but instead try do something the original would not do. For this reason I also very much admired my brother's collaboration with Chris Askham on the Friday strip from Zarjaz 08 because that came up with a new concept for an unloved character and made it work.

Oh and speaking of Steve, he has a new strip in the current issue of Futurequake. I've not seen it yet but I know he worked long and hard on this one so it should be worth picking up.

Zenith/Invasion!

2011-07-17T07:08:00.006+01:00

The latest issue of Zarjaz! is out now and features Zenith/Invasion! by David Frankum and I. This is what to look for in all good comic shops:

The strip is my debut in Zarjaz! which is the leading 2000AD fanzine and hails from the formidable Futurequake stable. The idea for Zenith/Invasion! really stemmed from my love of Zenith by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell, the first run of which emerged at the height of my love of 2000AD in the late 80s and which was, and remains, my favourite ever 2000AD strip.

I re-read the whole series recently and it was as good as ever. Indeed, it seemed to me that there's quite a lot more potential in the characters and situations that was left untapped over the four "phases" of the original run. My mind turned to speculating on what a Phase V would look like and Zenith/Invasion! basically represents my idea for a prologue to Phase V. Well, sort of. This being intended for publication in a fanzine rather than 2000AD itself I didn't have to introduce the setup from scratch and I could go to town with what I believe in Doctor Who circles is called "fan wank" (eg. references to obscure characters and/or peripheral events). Therefore, for example, when reading Zenith/Invasion! it's probably handy to know that in this universe the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Berlin in 1944 whilst a punch-up between British superhero Maxi-Man and Nazi supervillain Masterman was under way.

So, what of Invasion! then? Well, that strip was from the 70s, which was slightly before my time. Although I was aware of it and loved the concept, it was only relatively recently that I read the whole thing (there's a great Rebellion trade). So when I was developing my Zenith story and I realised I needed an adversary who were like the Invasion-era Volgans and I needed them to be active at more or less the turn of the millenium it didn't take me long to decide I would actually use the Volgans, circa 1999. After that I brought myself up to date with the alternative history that Pat Mills created as backstory to Savage and fortunately this segued really nicely with what we know about Zenith's version of Britain. Also, Zenith is set in a multi-verse (something else I loved) featuring reimagined versions of many classic British comic characters (most notably Robot Archie) so an alternative version of the Volgan invasion of Britain does not seem at all out of place.

Once I had all the ideas in place the script was pretty easy to write and I was delighted when Zarjaz editors Bolt-01 and Richmond Clements accepted it. They then asked David Frankum to take on art duties. I wasn't aware of David's work at the time but when I checked out his online portfolio I could see he was a great choice. I'm a massive fan of Steve Yeowell's clear, crisp style and you could see immediately that David would be able to capture this feeling, whilst at the same time retaining his own unique and supremely engaging style. Sure enough, David has done a wonderful job and I am totally delighted with the way the strip has turned out!

For David's own view of the genesis of Zenith/Invasion! please click here.

To see what the Forbidden Planet blog has to say about it, take a look at this.

Most importantly, to buy Zarjaz #12 you need to visit the Futurequake shop. Do it Now!

The Lovecraft Anthology

2011-05-28T15:39:00.004+01:00

This was my main purchase at the recent Bristol Comic Expo:

I am a massive Lovecraft fan and really enjoyed the Self Made Hero adaption of Mountains of Madness, so expectations were high. In a spirit of extreme modernity I tweeted my thoughts on each story. In a spirit of recycling those tweets into a review, here they are again...

1 Call of Cthulu. Slightly disappointing. Reads like an illustrated abridged short story not a comic strip. Guess this was hard to adapt. I feel I should add that I am a massive fan of Edginton and D'Israeli, The Great Game in particular was a masterpiece. I think, though, they tried to do Call a bit too literally, and it doesn't really work.

2 Haunter of the Dark. Pretty good. Feels like a proper comic. Lovely evocative art by Shane Oakley. Possibly a bit under coloured.

3 The Dunwich Horror. Pure genius. Didn't think Rob Davis liked Lovecraft but his script is near perfect. Ian Culbard art out of this world.

4 Colour Out of Space. Nicely done. Not one of my favourite HPL stories but I enjoyed this version of it.

5 Shadow Over Innsmouth. Decent adaption by Moore & Reppion with stand out art by Leigh Gallagher, channeling John Ridgeway I feel.

6 The Rats in the Walls. Enjoyable if slight. Not sure it quite captures the spirit of the original. Shocking ending though.

7 Dagon. Nice vignette to end on. Story harks back to the Call of Cthulu but totally different art style gives it distinctiveness.

Conclusion: Has its ups and downs like any anthology, but overall it's a great collection. Recommended.

Introducing... Walking Wounded: Eastern Front

2011-05-19T20:01:00.005+01:00

So, we're back in action on the Back In Action front.

This is the first page of Pagan Blood, the debut story for Walking Wounded: Eastern Front with script by myself and art, colours and (unseen here) letters by David Frankum:

Looks great doesn't it? Well, as Bachman-Turner Overdrive so rightly teach us, you aint seen nothing yet!

Judge Dredd Tour of Duty: The Backlash Review

2011-04-27T11:09:00.005+01:00

This weighty collection follows on the heels of Dredd's brief re-acquaintance with his clone-father, Fargo, at the conclusion of the “mega-epic” Origins. Now doubting the role of the Judges for the first time, the legendary lawman turns to politics to force through a liberalisation of Mega City One's tough anti-mutant laws. The only problem is pretty much everyone in the City disagrees with him and that leads to some fairly dire consequences.

Despite the title, this graphic novel features precisely zero pages of Tour of Duty as seen in “The Galaxy's Greatest Comic” but instead includes all the 2000AD strips that depict the events leading up to the story actually called Tour of Duty. This makes for a fascinatingly eclectic collection, with the odd weaker story to be sure but also some bona fide classics such as ...Regrets and Emphatically Evil.

John Wagner has been working on the character since the 70s and he's still doing an amazing job here, complemented by an array of talented artists led by evergreens Colin MacNeil and Kev Walker. With all due respect to other Dredd scribes, Wagner is pretty much the only writer who's ever captured the man's contradictory core of fascist decency, and here he pushes the instability of such an outlook to breaking point as the man is driven by his more noble feelings to imperil not only his own position but that of his allies such as Chief Judge Hershey. Adding the entertainingly bloodthirsty serial killer turned Mayor P J Maybe to the mix makes for an impressive cast.

The real star of The Backlash however is the city itself, which has been created over a span of decades and is now an extraordinarily complex and well drawn backdrop that ties all the stories in this volume tightly together. It's a classic Dystopia, riddled with misery and hate. Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the attitude of virtually all the “normal” citizens to their mutant cousins which is one of unbridled murderous rage. This makes Dredd's downfall inevitable, and yet it's done so well you can't help but look forward eagerly to the next volume.

Futurequake 17

2011-04-22T11:12:00.003+01:00

I find it almost impossible to walk past a comic shop and so, after a nice lunch in Covent Garden I recently found myself in Orbital Comics. It was heartening to see they stocked a healthy selection of small press offerings, including both Zarjaz! and Futurequake. Always keen to support my fellows - and always keener to have something to read on the train home - I purchased this:

It's a great cover by Richard Smith and leads straight into the first strip, Regrets, Rules and Jellied Eeels, scripted by Neil Merrett. The art is crisp and clear, Smith's background in computer games is evident and that's no bad thing at all. I really enjoyed the story too, the twist is pretty funny.

The highlight of this issue for me is Ex Libris by Eoghan Ahern and David Frankum. Regular readers of this blog will know I've worked with David on a forthcoming Zarjaz! strip and that I'm working with him again on a Massacre For Boys piece at the moment. Therefore I guess I am not entirely neutral when I say that I think David is extremely talented and that his work here is little short of genius. Some of the panel compositions are really powerful and you can see that technically he pretty much has everything. It's no surprise to me that one of the "Big Two" comics publishers have expressed an interest in his work. Ahern's sharp post-modern writing gives David the platform he needs to flourish.

The other strips in this issue all have something to recommend them. I particularly liked the last couple actually - the atmospheric Robo Sapiens by Mark Smith & Steve Howard and then the short and spikey Rugged Romper by Michael Deshane and BMB. Still, I have by no means mentioned everything in the comic that's worth reading.

The quality does vary, as you would expect from an anthology title, but the overall level has definitely improved markedly from a couple of years ago. I think this is down in part to the editorial prowess of Dave Evans and Richmond Clements, but also to the vast number of submissions they now receive. There's some fine art in this issue but I perhaps naturally like to focus on the writing, which can often be pretty bad even in quite high profile professional comics let alone the small press. However, in FQ 17 there's maybe one story that's difficult to follow and overall the standard is as good as I have seen outside the very highest echelons of the medium.

On this form, Futurequake is clearly an important breeding ground for UK comic talent and long may it continue.

Sisters of Grud 2

2011-03-26T17:08:00.004Z

Unlike the first Ezquerra tribute strip which I basically scribbled on the back of an envelope (and Steve rightly ignored my panel layouts for), I approached Sisters of Grud using my usual writing method. I had the idea for a Necropolis mini-sequel which I plotted, then wrote breakdowns for before doing the full script. It seems to work well as a pastiche of 90s Wagner but I know it's not really Dredd. He's a character only Wagner can write.

The art is lovely reflecting the respect Steve has for Carlos, but also his potential to step up to 2000AD duties himself. The letters are by Nikki Foxrobot, the first time she's worked on one of my scripts and I very much hope not the last!

Sisters of Grud 1

2011-03-20T20:03:00.005Z

Here's two pages of lovely Judge Dredd artwork by Steve:

The script was by me and we originally intended it for inclusion in the second Carlos Ezquerra tribute comic (now apparently delayed or cancelled). I'll post the lettered version next week unless anyone tells me not to in the meantime.

Oh, and whilst we're on the subject of the Galaxy's Greatest Comic, I've contributed a script to the fan offshoot Zarjaz! which is due to appear in the July issue. It's been illustrated by the highly talented David Frankum and the collaboration went so well we've already embarked on a second project together!

Check out David's website for further info and a teaser image.

Night of the Eagle Award Nominations

2011-02-04T20:12:00.005Z

You know you want to nominate Walking Wounded for Favourite British Comic - Black and White in this year's Eagles:

http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/nominations/

Well unless you want to back Zarjaz!, Something Wicked or FutureQuake obviously, which, come to think of it, I love too.

Tricky decision.

But remember kids it's very important to exercise your democratic rights, whomever you suppport.

Unless you support Hitler, obviously.

Massacre For Boys 2011

2011-01-08T12:17:00.003Z

It's been a while since I had any concrete MFB news to post and we are not really ready to break that run yet :(

Our next comic is still going to be Massacre For Boys Back in Action, an anthology title to follow up 2009's Massacre For Boys in Colour. It's been delayed due to Steve's success as a colourist but definitely will happen and will certainly feature a brand new Walking Wounded story called Blackshirts of Exmoor and a brand new Crusader tale called Spoonful of Honey. Also confirmed is another outing for Bosher's Goals, but we'll probably put that online first because the format works so well for a web strip. Steve's written a second episode of Badland Rules and I would also expect that to make it in.

I can't currently comment on whether Jimmy Baker Animal Hatmaker will feature, but it's certainly possible, and we do have at least one other strip provisionally planned to go in about which I can say almost nothing.

Peering further into the future, the next full issue of Walking Wounded is still going to be Reach For The Sky and it's highly likely to appear in 2012, even allowing for Olympic fever.

Outside the confines of MFB both Steve and I continue to be active on other comics. I'm currently working with David Frankum on a very exciting strip and Steve is bang in the middle of illustrating another script for our friends at Futurequake Press. He's also working on some very exciting projects, one or more of which will hopefully make it a year to remember...

Stick Strip 3

2010-12-12T11:43:00.002Z

By Steven Denton.

Lots more not by Steven Denton available here.

Stick Strip 2

2010-12-12T11:42:00.002Z

By Steven Denton.

Stick Strip 1

2010-12-12T11:39:00.001Z

By Steven Denton.

Two Law Enforcement Operatives Walk into a Bar...

2010-10-30T12:26:00.003+01:00

Steve is defending his 2000AD Art Competition Winner title with this:

Monsterology

2010-10-19T07:32:00.005+01:00

Picture by John Freeman, taken at BICS.

Monsterolology is a forthcoming graphic novel with Script by Gordon Rennie, Art by PJ Holden (right), Colouring by Steven Denton (left) and Letters by Jim Campbell (middle).

Escape To Victory

2010-10-10T17:20:00.002+01:00

I recently had to cut this panel from a script whilst revising it:

Very close on Soldier 1. We can see his terrified expression through the mask.

SOLDIER 1: JESUS CHRIST!

A shame as the religious allusion was deliberate, but I had to cut it to make way for something cooler. As a writer who does tend to love his first drafts, going back and tweaking is a skill I probably need to get better at.

Steven, on the other hand, seems to do pretty well on the first attempt.

The Secret Project

2010-10-03T08:35:00.007+01:00

Following the news that the legendary Carlos Ezquerra has been recovering from lung cancer, a band of 2000AD fans got together to organise a unique "Get Well Soon" comic with a print run of exactly one.

To avoid spoiling the surprise whilst getting the comic together it went under the codename of The Secret Project.

Steve and I contributed a page:

Unfortunately, this page was not included in the published version due to a cock-up somewhere along the line. However, I have it on very good authority that it has been printed out on glossy paper and now resides with the rest of the comic.

You can download a PDF version of the whole thing from here.

Hot Springs Eternal

2010-09-25T08:23:00.002+01:00

Steve's entry for the September 2000ADOnline art competition:

Zarjaz!

Paragon of Virtue

2010-09-12T19:59:00.005+01:00

Steve has been colouring the covers of Paragon for a while, here's the latest one (with the very talented Don Franco):

There's plenty of good stuff under the covers too, so check out Paragon right this minute!

Before you go and do that just time to say that Steve has been engaged to colour a professionally published graphic novel which will mean that Massacre For Boys: Back In Action won't be coming out until May. It also means that his rise to superstardom is proceeding as planned.

In Perspective

2010-08-30T16:14:00.004+01:00

Steve's currently working on a Futurequake strip called SAM, from a script by Mark Woodland.

Here are some preparatory sketches:

I trust the artists amongst you will understand.

In Living Colour

2010-08-22T21:02:00.008+01:00

The Crusader: Spoonful of Honey has now been coloured by the esteemable Richmond Clements*.

We're delighted with the results!

Look for the strip within the pages of Massacre For Boys: Back In Action, which is, in common with at least two new Alan Moore works, a 2011 release.

*And, lest you forget, the script is by me and the art by Bolt-01.

I Hate It When A Plan Doesn't Come Together

2010-08-07T08:48:00.001+01:00

The Squeam plan

Page 1

Panel 1

League of Planets HQ.

Caption: We cannot imagine it now, but there was a time before our own Great Galactic Peace.

Statue of Tudor J Gates, saluting, chest puffed out, in full dress uniform and with lots of medals.

Panel 2

Caption: The League’s Peacekeepers brought this wondrous contentment to all the known peoples, and the greatest peacekeeper of them all was Tudor J Gates.

Close on the statue’s proud face.

Panel 3

An establishing shot of a battle-scarred planet.

Caption: Posted with the “Bluehats” to the hellworld of Karnsmite, unwilling conscript Private Gates’ greatness was far from apparent.

Panel 4

Tudor is no patrol in a thorny forest with Corporal Elder.

Caption: “In a time when all medical treatments were non-invasive and Health and Safety perfection had been achieved, the sight of blood or gore was rare indeed.”

Elder: “Try not to get in the way, Gates!”

Panel 5

Elder scratches himself on a thorn, Gates’ is appalled.

Caption: “Some conscripts were unable to cope with even the faintest hint of bodily life-fluid. This made them worthless in battle and there were strict rules ensuring that no platoon had more than one such soldier.”

Panel 6

Tudor is sick into his helmet.

Caption: “They were supposed to be known as the Peacekeeping Community Support Operative (PCSO) but were most usually called…

The Squeam

Page 2

Panel 1

The Emperor of the Pyrotines vidcalls to say the peacekeepers must leave or die.

Panel 2

Major Fine-Style, the leader of the bluehats, offers to go back to the negotiating table.

The Emperor replies we will negotiate with your next of kin. They will offer us more favourable terms once they receive your ground up entrails in a shoebox.

Panel 3

Major Fine-Style is looking forward to some proper action at last. He demands sharper spikes and deeper ramparts because The Pyrotine GeneGiants are twelve-feet tall with hides like tarmac.

Panels 4 and 5

Tudor is taking around a tray of tea when the GeneGiants strike.

Panels 6 and 7

They storm the walls and one grabs hold of Elder and bares his giant teeth.

Page 3

Panel 1

Tudor jumps on the giant’s back and stabs him with al Laz-knife.

Panel 2

Crying out in pain, the Giant slashes at Tudor’s face.

Panel 3

Elder takes the opportunity to give the giant both barrels of a Laz-shotgun.

Panel 4

Elder thanks Tudor. “You’re alright, kid.”

Panel 5

Tudor smiles happily. Then looks at his hands, which are covered in his own blood.

Panel 6

Tudor collapses.

Page 4

Panel 1

Tudor wakes from his coma. He is alone.

Panel 2

Tudor sits up.

Tudor: “Hello? Hello? Anyone there?”

Panel 3

He wanders down a dark deserted corridor.

Panel 4

In the main hall he sees that the platoon have been ripped apart and left to rot, some weeks ago.

Panel 5

Close on Tudor’s horrified face.

Page 5

Panel 1

Tudor vidcalls league of Planet’s HQ. As the only survivor they make him ambassador.

The Emperor of the Pyrotines is now prepared to negotiate.

Panels 2 & 3

The Snearing Emperor arrives with body guards. Tudor kills them all.

Panel 4

When the new Emperor arrives, Tudor is bathing in the blood of his predecessor a tap has been fitted to his corpse, which hangs suspended over the bath.

New Emperor: “uh, yes, we would be happy to accepyt your terms, oh great one.”

Panel 5

Back to the League of Planets HQ.

Caption “And having established that peace can only be one by acts of horrific blood-thirsty violence, Tudor went on to bring “peace” to galaxy.””

Panel 6

We can see the statue of Tudor again, but this time we can also read the plaque beneath it. It says
“
Marshall Tudor J Gates.
“Must Kill More Babies”

Abandoned Futureshock

2010-08-01T16:01:00.001+01:00

THE SQUEAM
By Chris Denton

PAGE ONE

1) We open with a medium shot showing the upper part of a large marble statue depicting TUDOR J GATES, quite a short and thin looking man, somewhere in his mid to late twenties. He is wearing a full military dress uniform (think Prince Charles on Remembrance Day) and saluting, his chest puffed out, covered in medals. The expression on the statue’s face is one of pride mixed with confidence.

Behind the statue is the night sky, full of stars and perhaps even a comet or two.

CAPTION: LEAGUE OF PLANETS HQ.

CAPTION: WE CANNOT IMAGINE IT NOW, BUT THERE WAS A TIME BEFORE OUR OWN GREAT GALACTIC CALM.

2) Close on the face of the statue, exactly as proud and confident as before, as you would expect.

CAPTION: THE LEAGUE’S PEACEKEEPERS BROUGHT ABOUT THIS WONDROUS CONTENTMENT, AND THE GREATEST PEACEKEEPER OF ALL WAS TUDOR J GATES.

CAPTION: THIS IS HIS STORY.

3) This is a very, very wide shot. In fact, it depicts about half of a planet.

We can see the surface of Karnsmite, from space so it is curved. The planet is primarily an unhealthy grey, with many patches of poisonous smog and two or three mushroom clouds poking through.

CAPTION: INITIALLY POSTED TO THE HELLWORLD OF KARNSMITE, THE ABILITIES OF UNWILLING CONSCRIPT P.C.S.O. GATES WERE FAR FROM APPARENT.

4) Now we’re in a petrified forest. The actual flesh and blood Tudor is advancing stealthily in the company of another peacekeeper, CORPORAL ELDER. They are both wearing conventional day-to-day military uniforms and holding vaguely futuristic laser-blasters. Their heads are protected by bright-blue helmets, as is usually the case with peacekeepers. Each man has his surname displayed on his chest.

Elder is a much bigger and broader man than Gates, and older too. He’s clearly a grizzled and experienced campaigner.

The densely-packed forest itself is lifeless and threatening. There are no leaves on the trees, just bare branches and long, sharp thorns.

CAPTION: THIS WAS BECAUSE IN A TIME WHEN HEALTH AND SAFETY PERFECTION HAD BEEN ACHIEVED, THE SIGHT OF BLOOD OR GORE WAS RARE INDEED.

ELDER: TRY NOT TO GET IN THE WAY, GATES!

5) Medium shot of Elder, determinedly pushing through some thorny branches. His left hand is cut open by a particularly nasty looking thorn. Tudor is just behind him, completely pale, looking appalled.

CAPTION: CONSCRIPTS LIKE TUDOR WERE UNABLE TO COPE WITH EVEN A HINT OF BODILY LIFE-FLUID. THERE WERE STRICT RULES ENSURING THAT NO PLATOON HAD MORE THAN ONE SUCH SOLDIER

GATES: ELDER, YOUR HAND!!

6) Close on Tudor, kneeling on the ground, throwing up into his helmet.

CAPTION: THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE KNOWN AS THE PEACEKEEPING COMMUNITY SUPPORT OPERATIVE (PCSO) BUT WERE MOST USUALLY CALLED

CAPTION: THE SQUEAM

FX: BLEURRRGH!!

PAGE TWO

1) This panel depicts a large vidcall screen displaying the upper body of the EMPEROR OF THE PYROTINES. Pyrotines are a vaguely humanoid race, but with a broader frame, bigger eyes and no apparent noses. They are also purplish in their complexion. The Emperor himself looks very angry and aggressive. I suspect a clenched fist is being waved. He is wearing a very impressive Imperial costume, with lots of gold chains, a crown and a flowing cape.

CAPTION: AN UNPROMISING START, CERTAINLY, BUT EVENTS WERE ABOUT TO THRUST GREATNESS UPON TUDOR…

EMPEROR: THIS INVASION BY THE LEAGUE OF PLANETS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. YOU MUST LEAVE OR DIE.

2) This is a wider shot revealing that the Emperor is talking to MAJOR FINE-STYLE, the leader of the Peacekeeepers. Fine-Style sits in front of the vid-screen, wearing the officers’ version of the uniform (eg a blue peaked cap in place of the helmet) and trying to look placatory.

This is a small vid-conferencing room, part of the Peacekeepers base on Karnsmite.

FINE-STYLE: WE ARE ONLY HERE TO POLICE THE CEASEFIRE, AS YOUR WORSHIP KNOWS. SURELY WE CAN NEGOTIATE TERMS?

EMPEROR: PYROTINES DO NOT NEGOTIATE. PREPARE TO BE SLAUGHTERED!!

3) Outside the base, Major Fine Style stands in front of Corporal Elder, surveying the defences with a critical eye. Behind them are a row of large spikes and part of a tall metal building beyond.

CAPTION: WITH WAR DECLARED, EVERYONE READIED THEMSELVES FOR BATTLE.

FINE-STYLE: THEY HAVE GENE-GIANTS, ELDER. TWELVE FEET TALL WITH HIDES LIKE TARMAC.

ELDER: WE’LL SHARPEN THE SPIKES, SIR!

4) The same location, a little later. Tudor is carrying a large, round a large tray, upon which there are many mugs of tea. He is offering the tray to Elder.

CAPTION: WELL, NEARLY EVERYONE.

TUDOR: TEA, ELDER?

ELDER: THANKS, SQUEAM.

The Second Crusade

2010-05-31T08:51:00.004+01:00

With the convention season over for the moment, it's time to get our heads down and work on the next comic. In our case this will be Massacre For Boys: Back In Action.

In fact we're already at quite an advanced stage. Here's the pencilled, inked and lettered first page of the new Crusader story that will appear in BIA, all three tasks performed with admirable skill by the multi-talented Indy-press Overlord, Bolt-01:

Steve's just polished off a Badland Rules sequel script which has gone to a brand new artist. More details on this one to follow.

My other contributions to the issue are already written (principally new Walking Wounded and Bosher strips) so I am currently working on something else before I switch back to the Massacre universe and Walking Wounded: Reach For The Sky.

Bristol 2010 Uncovered

2010-05-23T13:18:00.005+01:00

Yesterday morning I embarked on a pleasant rail journey from Redhill to Bristol Temple Meads in order to attend the Comic Expo. I decided to go to this one as a punter rather than a puntee. Steve and his girlfriend Nikki met me there and together we three tackled the delights on offer across the two convention sites.

The Small Press part of the show was, as last year, hosted at the Mercure. I was pleased to see the visitor count seemed well up on last year. We made a beeline for the Futurequake & Zarjaz! stall where Steve was delighted to see lots of his work on display, including this by now pretty famous Rogue Trooper pinup:

Bolt-01 had brought along the inked version of his second Crusader story which Steve and I were extremely pleased with. The strip will be out next year in Massacre For Boys: Back In Action and promises to be something special. We also chatted with Richmond Clements about his upcoming work and also regarding the possibility of MFB making a debut at next year's Hi-Ex.

There was also time to swing by the Bearded Skull stand to see how our old table neighbours from last year have been getting on. Pretty well it seems judging by the two new issues of Dexter's Half Dozen, one of which I picked up to enjoy later.

Back at the Ramada for the mainstream stuff, my personal highlight was the Pat Mills panel session on Requiem: Vampire Knight:

Pat is a great speaker and I found his passionate enthusiasm for British comics in the European tradition to be highly persuasive. My own interest in working for Marvel or DC is zero, so I am totally on board for steering clear of the American market. It was especially great to see him as I'd missed his Unicon appearances, much to my own disappointment. I didn't know very much about Requiem before this event but I was sufficiently intrigued to buy the first two Panini volumes immediately afterwards, which Pat was kind enough to sign.

Curiously, despite all the SFX / Comic Heroes posters everywhere we didn't see hide nor hair of the magazines themselves... very odd and a shame as I am quite interested in the Alan Moore interview the are trailing for the new Comic Heroes. The poster for issue one did contain a thumbnail of the infamous Fridge Magnets, ensuring Steve was represented in both hotels:

Even more curiously, indy-kids Markosia proudly proclaimed themselves as "Britain's leading graphic novel publishers" which may have come as a surprise to Rebellion, three tables down.

On that bombshell it was time to give up and go home. Tremendous fun, will definitely be back next year, although as a punter or puntee I am not yet sure.

NoThing is Forever

2010-05-08T20:07:00.005+01:00

Sad news has just appeared on the UK Web & Mini Comix Thing homepage:

There will be no more Things as the hall is no longer available for hire and my brain is fried. There are some options for using other venues but I think its probably best to call it a day. If I change my mind i'll let you know.

We've attended four and they've always been good to us. If the situation does change we'll almost certainly be there again next year, otherwise at least we'll still have our memories, such as this one - Steve at our very first show appearance, Thing 2007:

Actually, I don't really remember that.

Murderdrome Preview

2010-05-02T07:28:00.005+01:00

More here.

Unicon 2010 Uncovered

2010-04-26T10:28:00.002+01:00

Saturday 24th April saw the Massacre bandwagon roll into Hatfield for Unicon:

The venue was, as you can see, pretty amazing. Not actually Nuremberg circa 1934 but in fact the de Havilland campus of the University of Hertfordshire.

Steve and I set our alarms for stupid o'clock, travelled by train then taxi and were all setup by the start of play at 10am:

We weren't based in the Atrium itself, but in a huge foyer next door. Still we were two tables up from Gary Erskine so in good company.

Excellent company, in fact. To our right there was Derek, owner of St Alban's comic shop Chaos City Comics and to our left we had George of Jambo fame. Derek stocked an array of marvellous graphic novels, and we were grateful he purchased Walking Wounded and then read it straight away:

He seemed to like it and that was the main thing! In fact, fingers crossed that Walking Wounded issues may be on the shelves at Chaos City soon...

My old university housemate Danny Graydon was one of the show organisers and it was great to see him there:

I was gutted to miss Danny's evening interview with Dave Gibbons, Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neil but transport timing basically made it impossible to attend :(

Along with the Massacre For Boys publications we usually hawk, Steve and I were also offering Futurequake, Zarjaz! and Dogbreath from our stall. This was no trouble at all as as the FQP team have been great to us and it was nice to be able to do something in return. Also, it gave our table an extra hook, causing visitors to pause a bit longer than maybe they usually would. Indeed, Zarjaz! in particular attracted the attention of one distinguished attendee:

So, in conclusion, it was a great show and I am very much hoping it does become an annual event and that we stay very much part of it!

Election 2010

2010-04-18T09:39:00.002+01:00

The Eagle Awards seem to be back.

Nominations are now being sought, but as this only covers comics published in 2009 we are a bit screwed. Our 2009 publication was Massacre For Boys In Colour, and the "In Colour" suffix puts us up against the big British boys, such as 2000AD.

In my wildest dreams I don't anticipate us beating 2000AD.

Therefore this year I am not actively seeking nominations for Massacre For Boys, but instead backing Futurequake. It really is high time Futurequake won the British black and white category so please make full use of your democratic rights and Vote Futurequake.

Meanwhile, Unicon is just 6 days away.

On the Massacre table, as well as Eagle award nominated Walking Wounded and not Eagle award nominated Massacre For Boys in Colour we'll be carrying Zarjaz! and Dogbreath too. There's a pretty good case for Eagle awarding nominating these two as well, think of them as the Lib Dems of British black & white comics.

Massacre In Stereo

2010-04-02T19:04:00.004+01:00

If Steve and I have one thing in common it's that we do like talking about our comics to anyone who will listen. This tends to happen primarily (but not exclusively) at comic shows.

This is the first time we've talked about our comics with a microphone pointed at us.

The Massacre For Boys section is 4:28 - 6:35, but listen to the whole podcast, it's ace.

One small issue: actually I speak first, not Steve. Still, I'm not sure we should really worry about that too much. Just so long as no one tries to get me to do any drawing...

The Road Goes Ever On

2010-03-31T08:54:00.004+01:00

The comics convention season is now well under way. Last weekend it was kicked off in fine style, not just at the Thing but also up in Inverness at Hi-Ex.

Massacre's third musketeer, Bolt-01, was there in his capacity as the Zarjaz!/Dogbreath and Futurequake co-supremo (via FPI Blog):

That Rogue Trooper image gets everywhere!

We'll be making our next appearance of the year at Unicon in April. It's an exciting programme of events and we're happy to be a part of it.

Moving on to May and there's The Big One. Steve and I are intending to go to Bristol as visitors this year, three shows as exhibitors in three months is a little beyond us.

Of course, you don't have to come to a convention in order to buy our comics. Indeed, I've just added Walking Wounded: Death on the Rock to the Massacre site so, if you prefer, brand new Nazi-thrashing action can come to you.

Thing 2010 Uncovered

2010-03-28T14:18:00.004+01:00

On Saturday 27th March 2010 Steve and I attended the UK Web & Mini Comix Thing in London's murder-heavy east end.

We had table 45 and set it up to look like this:

Our neighbour for the day was the hugely talented Rob Jackson:

We even sold one of his comics for him, that's how neighbourly we were!

Astonishingly the benovolence didn't end there as I was allocated an hour's "volunteer" duty manning the show entrance counter. It was an hour spent in the company of none other than Woodrow Phoenix. During this time I learnt about Woodrow's acclaimed graphic novel, Rumble Strip and also that you take a lot more money selling entrance tickets than you do selling comics.

Steve is a big fan of Woodrow's and so he was rather jealous:

See. Jealous. In fact Steve later purchased his own copy of Rumble Strip and must have simultaneously done a good job pimping our stuff to Woodrow because he later came over and bought the lot!

Another highlight was the taped interview we gave Mike Leader. Hopefully the stuff we said made some sort of sense.

As always with the Thing there was an abundance of great material on show. It's hard to beat work like The Bedsit Journal, Tozo and Hope For The Future, to name but three.

Sales wise we did okay, if not amazingly. Probably a little down on last year, but nothing too concerning. We'll certainly be back next year with Massacre For Boys: Back In Action....

The Things We've Done

2010-03-23T20:24:00.003Z

The hell of waiting for the new comic to get back from the printers is over.

It's time to make the final preparations for our fourth Thing:

Why not not come and say hello?

Fridge Magnet

2010-03-18T15:35:00.005Z

Its not often that a national magazine swipes your fan art and turns it into a widely distributed fridge magnet. However, it happened to PJ & Steve.

No, wonder cause this is a great piece:

I know Steve recognises that technically he should have been asked permission first but that he's not too upset to see his work used in this way. In fact if SFX or Comic Heroes like his stuff this much perhaps they might remember him when considering future commissions.

Lots more reaction here and then the happy ending.

Walking Wounded: Death On The Rock

2010-03-09T22:22:00.003Z

What we've done here is taken the classic formula for British war comics and then added monkeys to the mix. As you would expect, this has resulted in a publication that could be described as the greatest comic in comic history.

Well, it probably won't be described as that, but it could be.

Legends of Thrill Power

2010-03-07T09:13:00.005Z

My old friend and former housemate Danny Graydon is one of the organisers of this upcoming comics festival:

These are Danny's events, suitably mouthwatering I am sure you will agree:

ARCHITECTS OF THRILL-POWER! – THE LEGENDS OF 2000AD

Since its launch in 1977, 2000AD – “The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic” – has been at the forefront of British Comics and remains a shining light in an increasingly barren landscape. Arriving perfectly in time with the popular re-emergence of Science Fiction and bearing a punky, anti-authoritative tone, 2000AD thoroughly invigorated Boys comics, introducing a collection of classic characters. For a vast array of 2000AD’s artists and writers, the comic was vital springboard to international recognition and success. UniComics is proud to present a panel discussion with three of 2000AD’s most iconic and renowned creative stars from its formative years – founder, debut editor and writer PAT MILLS (Slaine, Charley’s War), artist DAVE GIBBONS (Rogue Trooper, Watchmen), and artist KEVIN O’NEILL (Nemesis The Warlock, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) – who discuss the early development of the title as well as their own specific and greatly-admired contributions. Saturday 24th April, 6pm. Hosted by Danny Graydon. Tickets are priced £10

WEEKLY BRITISH SPIRIT – SIXTY YEARS OF THE EAGLE & DAN DARE

On April 14th, 1950, a new Boys comic called The Eagle vigorously introduced some wonder in to the drudgery of post-war Britain, and, with its star strip Dan Dare: Pilot of The Future, showcased a profoundly alluring fantasy of a strong and vital Britain in then far-flung 1997 that boldly led the way in the exploration of outer space. One of the most successful comics in British history, at its height, The Eagle remarkably sold just under a million copies a week. In celebration of the 60thanniversary of both this landmark, much-beloved title and its highly-memorable flagship character, UniComics presents a panel discussion to explore what is considered to be one of the high watermarks of British Comics history. The panel includes PAT MILLS (Founder of 2000AD), NICK JONES (Founding editor of Titan Book’s Dan Dare library), DR.WILL BROOKER (Kingston University) and GARY ERSKINE (Artist, Virgin Comics’ Dan Dare). Sunday 25th April, 6pm. Hosted by Danny Graydon. Tickets are priced £10.

Whilst we're talking about festivals, let's not forget Hi-Ex!, the Scottish comic show masterminded by Richmond Clements. Crusader colourist is but one other string on his many stringed bow. He can still shoot arrows though. I am not sure where I am going with this. Best stop now.

KER-BOOM

2010-02-25T21:07:00.003Z

Page 13.

Worries

2010-02-06T09:20:00.003Z

Here's a panel from page 8:

You will note the rather fine lettering, courtesy of Mr Bolt-01. We are delighted that Bolt has agreed to letter our comic once again.

Monkey Sandwich

2010-01-23T07:29:00.003Z

Detail from Death on the Rock, page 4:

In other news, our bold push to get people reading Walking Wounded #2 by giving it away has been blogged about by Forbidden Planet and noted comics journalist Danny Graydon.

The Fuhrer Adventures

2010-01-16T08:33:00.004Z

Here's the first page of Walking Wounded #3, and it's that man again:

Love him or loath him, you'd be mad to love him.

Read Me

2010-01-10T18:02:00.002Z

Massacre For Boys is proud to present Walking Wounded #2, now online:

Dambusters

2009-12-31T17:30:00.003Z

Just back from a short stay at the Petwood Hotel, near Lincoln. I was there for a wedding, but the war comics writer in me was extremely pleased to note that this hotel was the wartime headquarters of 617 Squadron.

As a result, they have a cool decoration in the car park:

And that text again, more readably:

Excellent hotel, excellent wedding. Bring on 2010!

Isn't That Quite Famous?

2009-12-22T09:09:00.004Z

It has been officially announced that Steve is the colourist on Murderdrome.

This you may recall is the strip that hit the headlines last summer when Apple decided to ban it from their app store.

The script is by Al Ewing and the art by - who else? - PJ Holden.

The original version of Murderdrome was published a few years back in Solar Wind. It's available online and is basically great.

Given that so many comics are basically crap I reckon Steve's done pretty well to link up with PJ who in turn seems to be doing some really interesting work. PJs' latest is a Garth Ennis war story! I am a big fan of Mr Ewing's too, he's been doing Judge Dredds that kick ass.

Anyway, that's it from me for 2009. I'll be back in January with some updates relating to Walking Wounded #3.

Merry Xmas!

PJs

2009-12-19T08:19:00.006Z

Another of Steve's colouring projects I can now talk about is Imago, a strip written by Leah Moore & John Reppion with artwork by PJ Holden.

Here's a sample page:

Lots more to see here.

Sadly, Imago was subsequently published in black and white, so Steve's pro colouring debut had to wait until Phonogram: The Singles Club issue 6.

The Crying of Table 45

2009-12-12T08:50:00.002Z

We'll be at the Thing:

It will be our fourth successive year! Come along and see us. I can guarantee either:

1) The brand new issue of Walking Wounded

or

2) A really excellent array of creative excuses

will be available for your entertainment.

Hot Air

2009-12-05T09:08:00.002Z

One from the Walking Wounded archives today, our Commando-inspired zeppelin strip Hot Air:

More Mars

2009-11-14T09:41:00.002Z

Steve revised the second page of our Mars strip so it could function as a poster for display on our comic show stalls last year. Here's British Mars Version 2:

Spot the difference?

Mars

2009-11-08T12:57:00.005Z

It's probably time for a new comic strip. So here's the MFB contribution to the Thing 2009 Anthology, exactly as it appears in the book:

Script by Chris Denton, painted artwork by Steven Denton.

An updated and extended version is intended for Massacre For Boys: Back In Action.

FutureQuake

2009-10-24T11:51:00.002+01:00

So the latest issue of FutureQuake is out. Steve has a strip in it called Armstrong, featuring the noted astronaut during his early days in the US Air Force. Plenty of The Right Stuff on display throughout.

The script is by Chris Steifvater Thomas and Steve has contributed the art. Here's a panel:

Buy it here.

Zarjaz

2009-10-17T12:43:00.003+01:00

The new issue of Zarjaz (the 2000AD fanzine) was recently launched at BICS.

The rather lovely cover is by 2000AD's PJ Holden & our very own Steven Denton.

Steve also contributed the script for an 18-page Friday story, with art by the extremely talented Chris Askham, that appears in its entirety in this very comic. I would suggest you pop over to The Quaequam Blog and buy it now.

Still need some convincing? There's a preview here.

About The Author

2009-10-11T08:32:00.003+01:00

I recently read Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. I know it's been out ages, but American Gods put me off.

Anyhow, whilst Anansi Boys was quite good in Gaiman's sadly now typical "I don't know if I'm British or American" kind of way, I was struck by the short bio on the opening page, and particularly this sentence:

He has written books and films and children's books and television.

So, ashamed of the comics then?

That is probably one of the least accurate but entirely true sentences ever devised. It's a bit like describing Alan Moore as a novel-writer and performance artist.

Still, given the Gaiman bio doesn't even mention Good Omens (still to my mind his only successful adult novel, excluding Stardust), I think we can safely assume that it is either purposefully omission-heavy or written by someone who hasn't got the first clue about Gaiman or his work.

In MFB news, I just booked us a table for Thing 2010. It will be our fourth glorious year at the show, and somewhere nice to show off Death on the Rock.

Military Man

2009-09-19T08:44:00.007+01:00

Work has commenced on the art for Walking Wounded #3.

One of the challenges of producing a war comic is capturing the correct martial flavour. This is pretty difficult for a peacenik like me who's only experience of the army is once having to write the following letter:

9th October 2004

Dear Sir/Madam,

Re: Credit card application

Please find a completed agreement form enclosed.

You will note I have amended my title from “Col” to “Mr”. I wish to make it clear that I never knowingly described myself as a Colonel when completing the online application and that I ascribe the mistake to an error with the website.

Please would you amend your information at the earliest possible opportunity? I will not be able to accept any future correspondence to “Col Denton”.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Denton

The Colour of Money

2009-09-12T11:23:00.003+01:00

So Steve's colouring work is edging closer to the mainstream.

He's done a four-page strip illustrated by PJ Holden for Phonogram. Here's the first 25%:

Steve's also been getting the figurative crayons out for PJ's contribution to Interagents, which is a US-based web comic. Check out the art as well as PJ's take on the above here.

If you need a colourist and, you know, fancy paying, check out Steve's colouring blog.

Back to the monkey well

2009-09-06T11:36:00.003+01:00

Another simian from the Geocities archive this week:

The above is a collaboration between Steve and his university comrade James Harkins.

Massacre fact fans will be interested to know that James designed the Walking Wounded logo which graces the cover of Walking Wounded #2. We'll use it again for the new issue as it's damn fine.

Bank Holiday Monkeys

2009-08-30T12:46:00.003+01:00

I just rescued a consignment of Steve's artwork from his soon to be defunct Geocities site.

Mostly, I saved the monkeys:

and

not to mention

I have collected some more on my Flickr page.

But I have no idea what they mean!

Whitechapel

2009-08-23T08:24:00.004+01:00

Although most research these days can be done online, you still can't beat an old fashioned location visit.

Therefore yesterday Steve and I kicked off work on our forthcoming graphic novel by heading into the old East End. More specifically, we made a beeline for Whitechapel Art Gallery:

It's an extremely interesting place, nestled next to Aldgate East tube station, with fantastic architecture and some fairly interesting art too. We were gratified to find that yes, they do indeed have a portrait of the Krays.

Colud the staircase be important? Probably not, but at this early stage, anything is possible...

Whatever Happened To...?

2009-08-16T12:25:00.004+01:00

It's not often I get excited about mainstream comics these days, but a pair of releases from DC had me pre-ordering away earlier in the summer. I couldn't even wait for the Titan editions so probably overpaid horribly to import these:

The Gaiman Batman story has come out of some Grant Morrison headline-seeking nonsense about Bruce Wayne being "dead", but fortunately it's not linked to that at all. It's sort of a generic last Batman story apart from the point is clearly Batman will never need one. More accurately, Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader? is about Batman the cultural phenomenon rather than Batman's death.

It's an affecting piece of work, very metaphysical but with a genuine emotional core. It's also got lots of references to Batman's entire history, but all weaved in so that you don't need to get them for it to make sense.

The supporting stories in the graphic novel are in a similar vein, but alas fairly inconsequential. The Riddler Secret Origin is a love letter to Adam West-style adventures. The Batman Black & White strip is a one joke affair (and a rather sorry joke at that). Only Poison Ivy's Secret Origin is up to Gaiman's usual standard, and it's probably no coincidence that this also the only story in the entire volume that's actually about a character rather than an icon.

Of course, everything but the title Batman strip is old, and absolutely everything in the Superman volume is from the 80s. That's not a problem though as Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow contains the entirety of Alan Moore's landmark work on the character. It was during the period when he was reshaping comics into his own image, and as you'd expect the content is still amazingly good.

The title story provides a proper conclusion for Silver Age Superman's adventures, and actually finishes them in a way pretty reminiscient of the conclusion of Watchmen. Even non-Superman lovers like myself have to admit this is one of hell of a strip.

The supporting features are just as good. A Swamp Thing / Superman crossover that really packs a punch, followed by the sublime For The Man Who Has Everything, which sees Supes plunged into a Better Than Life style situation where Krypton wasn't destroyed, so he grew up as Kal-El and married an actress. Dave Gibbons art too. Wonderful.

I'd read all these stories before as part of a previous Moore collection, but that also included his work on lesser strips such as Green Lantern and Vigilante which diluted the impact somewhat. Here at last it's possible to see with absolute certainty that Moore's version of Superman is the greatest ever.

Such a shame really that both Gaiman and Moore are now only really part time comic writers. Gaiman has bigger fish to fry and Moore prefers the obscurity of writing pretty much exclusively (and mostly prose) for Top Shelf, where he has the 100% creative freedom his talent has always demanded.

Comics needs more writers of this quality.

Monday's Blue

2009-08-10T17:37:00.004+01:00

Following on from an earlier post, PJ Holden's cover for Zarjaz 08 is now online:

http://thequaequamblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-cover-zarjaz-08.html

The colours are once again by Steve, who has also contributed the script to the Friday strip which will be included inside.

Yes, We Have Bell-Bottoms!

2009-08-02T13:03:00.004+01:00

I'm script-writing today, and like all good writers that means doing my research.

Of course, by "research" I actually mean perusing Wikipedia and hoping it confirms my poorly-informed preconceptions.

Luckily, I was right about this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell-bottoms

And this one too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodies

So no need to change a word. Magic!

Battle Picture Weekly

2009-07-26T12:07:00.003+01:00

Found this pleasant surprise in WH Smith's last week:

Quite a ropey "Souvenir Special" really, the quality of the reproduction is not great and the material does not seem to have been complied with any particular thought.

Still, for all that it's still avery entertaining read and the contributions of comics demi-gods like John Wagner, Pat Mills, Carlos Ezquerra and Jo Colquhoun (amongst others) ensure that it won't be enjoyed purely as a nostaglia hit.

Obviously Walking Wounded is in the tradition of these Battle strips such as Major Eazy and D-Day Dawson. It wasn't our only influence - Commando & Victor both featured heavily in our childhoods too - but it is probably the most important one.

I am not sure quite how today's youth would respond to unadulerated 70s war comics - a generation currently being brought up on Doctor Who Adventures - but this review I found via Google is quite encouraging in that regard.

Have You Ever Had It Blue?

2009-07-18T11:14:00.003+01:00

Steve is a busy man. As well as being MFB's main artist, and regularly contributing artwork and scripts to FutureQuake Press, he's also been working as a colourist with 2000AD luminary P J Holden.

PJ has now blogged about this.

Here's a favourite of mine, a Rogue Trooper pinup they did together:

Oh and if that wasn't enough, Steve starts his new day job on Monday!

Quiet Times

2009-07-12T09:36:00.003+01:00

Not much to report on the MFB front this week.

Great news elsewhere, however, that Crusader Colourist and British comics luminary Richmond Clements is making his professional writing debut. Well done, Rich!

Oh and I was quite taken with Paul Harrison-Davies' latest Astrodog pinup. A little bit similar to the Massacre For Boys contribution to the Thing 2009 anthology. Surely, the British conquest of space must be about to begin...

The Caped Crusader

2009-07-04T09:57:00.005+01:00

I've recently read three Batman books. This was the first and best:

I'd read it before, as you might expect, but coming back to Year One after a decent interval it's pleasing how well it stands up. The writing is first rate - Miller's trademark ultra-noir but not overcooked as in his latterday work. The art is pretty special too.

Sadly the other two books both sucked big time. Batman: Jekyll and Hyde is a sort of Two-Face version of the Killing Joke, only really badly done. It completely fails to nail either Batman or Two-Face, which kills the whole thing stone dead. Shame as he's potentially one of the great villains - as The Dark Knight film amply demonstrates - but inserting bollocks about him being a multiple-personality disorder loon with an extremely predictable childhood secret is utterly the wrong way to go.

Batman: Ego & Other Tales isn't any better. Darwyn Cooke draws a good comic, but he writes a below average script. The Ego story where Batman and Bruce Wayne meet is not a bad concept, but sadly beyond Cooke's abilities to do anything with it. His Catwoman tale Selina's Big Score, also included for some reason, is an improvement but only marginally. At least it knows it's pulp.

Of the three books I think they all have lessons for Massacre For Boys, perhaps the bad ones more so than the Miller masterpiece. I am currently working on a new Crusader strip. I am trying to avoid either being one-dimensional junk but also aiming too high and missing by miles. Both Batman Jekyll & Hyde and Batman: Ego come across as wanting to be classics. Alan Moore and Frank Miller Batman comes across as wanting to tell a story.

A Pier to Remember

2009-06-28T11:11:00.004+01:00

Those fine chaps at Futurequake Press have made a lot of their out of print issues available online.

These now include Steve's first FQP effort from Something Wicked #2.

The strip viewer is currently a little dicey but it's still very much worth a look, as indeed are many of the other strips, including many by comic pros.

Parlour Game

2009-06-18T15:04:00.005+01:00

Here's some summer holiday fun. List your top ten graphic novels, excluding those either written or drawn by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller and Mike Mignola.

The purpose of this exercise is to take out the "big boys" and to see what's left.

My list looks like this:

Zenith by Morrison & Yeowell
Scarlet Traces by Edginton & D’Israeli
Bad Company by Milligan & Ewins
Killing Time by Smith & Weston
Slaine The King by Mills & Fabry
Marshal Law: Fear & Loathing by Mills & O’Neil
Button Man by Wagner and Ransom
War Stories by Ennis & Various
Judge Dredd Origins by Wagner & Ezquerra
Dare by Morrison & Hughes

You can see from the above that I have a very strong prejudice in favour of British comics or at least British-created comics. I used to read a lot of American stuff but I don't feel the love of it has stayed with me into adulthood as it has with the British strips.

I do keep trying - most recently it's been with Ed Brubaker's Catwoman run. As with a lot of DC stuff these days I felt it was sort of okay, but no better than that. Nice art though.

Random Thoughts

2009-06-13T08:30:00.003+01:00

Steve's lead strip for Futurequake issue 13 seems to have been well received. Bolt-01 recently blogged about the making of the strip here.

I just read a preview version of Steve's next work for Futurequake, again from a Chris Thomas script, detailing the Korean war experiences of a certain Neil Armstrong. It's arguably even better than Traumatised Astronauts and publication is definitely something to watch out for later in the year.

Bosher's Goal's fans will be pleased to know I've finished the script to a new adventure, Bosher For England. When it's ready for the world to see we'll probably post it here before collecting it on the main site.

2000AD artist Ron Smith, a favourite of mine, recently had some legal trouble which could have destroyed his substantial legacy. Fortunately he has won his court battle and judging from the reaction the British comics world is very relieved and pleased. I won't link to any details for fear of perpetuating unfounded allegations, but suffice to say they were bad enough to destroy his reputation had they been true.

And finally, I know I said I was done with mentioning the SP Expo, but then I found the Official Show Photos. We're in there somewhere!

Highwaymen versus Zombies

2009-06-06T10:24:00.003+01:00

The Bristol SP Expo was not just a great way to meet Kevin O'Neil, the main purpose of the event was clearly to bring Indy comics to the nation. Although I was mostly there to hawk my own wares, there was time to pick up a few efforts from fellow creators:

I really enjoyed Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead, a great period zombie one-shot from Time Bomb Comics. The script is very good and the art complements it nicely so marry that to a cast iron concept and the result really can't fail.

At the Expo we were placed next to Bearded Skull Comics, whose Dexter's Half Dozen is a fun war action strip with a supernatural twist. Not unlike Walking Wounded actually, but with a very different take on the subject matter. Really nice guys and we wish them every success.

Which brings me to the end of my SP Expo coverage. A bit sparse but there we go. For a proper show report, check out this excellent post from the Short Fuses blog.

Kevin & Me

2009-05-30T13:17:00.004+01:00

It was a frantic weekend at the SP Expo as real life impinged rather heavily on the event. Indeed at one point it looked like I'd have to withdraw entirely. Fortunately in the end I was able to attend, albeit skipping the other show at the Ramada as well as much of the "networking" (eg. drinking) I had planned to do.

Still one essential item on the checklist I did manage to achieve was obtaining a copy of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century: 1910 signed by Kevin O'Neil. It was fantastic of him to come along to what was essentially a Small Press day out and not surprisingly the queue was fairly massive. I took some time out from manning the Massacre For Boys stall to join it. In fact, it turned out to be quite a lot of time out as the gracious and accommodating artist was signing piles and piles of his old books for punters as well as being ever ready to provide a (staggeringly high-quality) sketch on request.

I read 1910 in the hotel room that night and I was quite impressed but also perhaps a little disappointed. So I re-read it this morning and I can see now it's a masterpiece. The art is truly incredible, O'Neil is arguably the greated comics artist now working. Every page is a pleasure to look at, never mind read. Of course, with an Alan Moore script it's worth reading too. It's a darker story than previous League outings, with less action, but it's also a bit more intricate, repaying close attention.

If 1910 has an Achilles heel, it's the over-reliance on familiarity with Brecht's Threepenny Opera. The plot of the book closely follows this early 20th century slice of Marxist propaganda, and the songs are clearly re-workings of Brecht's originals. I'm pretty well read but I don't like Brecht and I don't know the tunes. Indeed I only really worked out what was going on with Pirate Jenny and Mack The Knife thanks to Wikipedia. This does make the story hard to follow, especially in comparison with earlier volumes which had the good sense to stick to more universally known works.

There have been lots and lots of interviews with both O'Neil and Moore to promote this book, mostly fascinating, but perhaps the most telling of all was a recent CBR chat with Top Shelf publisher Chris Staros. He talks at length about the advantages of going striaght to press in graphic novel form and skipping the traditional comics format entirely. This chimes in with my thoughts on where the medium is going and I find it impossible not to conclude that League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century: 1910 is the future of comics.

Knowing Alex Knowing Steven

2009-05-16T19:12:00.003+01:00

Alex Finch interviews Massacre For Boys artist Steven Denton

As one of the founders of Massacre For Boys, can you tell us about the initial idea for setting it up?

It was an accident… Well maybe accident is not entirely fair, it developed out of a desire for people to actually read our comics. As far back as the early 90’s we had experimented with self publishing in a small way but never really managed to find a plausible method of advertising and distribution so that all stalled fairly quickly. For a little while a lot later in the 90s we discovered the mail order zines community and I became a regular contributor as an illustrator on some fantasy and horror publications, that was my first experience of the small press but we still neither had the equipment or the desire to really publish our own magazine.

I completed a politically charged comic called ‘Another World’ just after university and put it together 90’s bedroom zine style. Photocopied glued and stitched by hand and looking pretty shabby even if I do say so myself. I made exactly 6 copies and gave a few to friends, all in all not a gigantic commercial success but it did kick start our current interest in self publishing.

Chris did all the real legwork, the original Walking Wounded story ‘the resistance that went mad’ was our only complete publishable comic, dating back as far as 1994. A new cover some new pages and some fairly shabby new hand lettering and he was ready to go to print. Chris proved that we could not only print our own comic but if we got off our arses we could even sell it to people we have never met before simply by taking it to comic shows.

Massacre For Boys was born out of a shared love for the British comics of the 1970’s and 80’s. As an umbrella theme Massacre For Boys allows us to explore any thing from football strips too Marvel UK style superheroes and the desire to sell our comics at shows keeps our jokes from becoming too esoteric.

What are your feelings about how the comic has changed and developed as more characters / genres have been introduced?

I have always liked the anthology format and by its nature it is best suited to a fairly wide spread of characters and it gave us a pretty free rein over the type of story that we want to work on. Anthologies need a core theme to hold them together, the way 2000AD had sci-fi and Battle was full of war stories, the Eagle re-launch and Hotspur were more anything that could be classed as a boys own adventure under one roof. With so many influences and stories to tell it never was going to be easy to put out just one comic, all the other ideas, some connected some not, would constantly be scrabbling to get out. A lot of the characters we are working on for our comics have been with us for a very long time so for us I think it seems less like introducing new characters and more like including more of our long term ideas.

What is that attracts you to the comics industry over more traditional forms of art?

I have an early childhood memory of the Eagle re-launch way back in 1982 being read to me as I looked memorized at the artwork. I think it was love at first sight. One summer holiday I picked up both the eagle and 2000AD at our local news agents (the renewed R.G. Styles and sons, a news agent of the old school who would remember your name) and I then collected one or the other continuously for the next 25 years. The Comics industry is in a sorry state and as an artist it’s insane to pursue it as a career path. Comics are a unique medium and it’s more the visual and written story telling combined that attracts me. If it wasn’t comics it would be picture books of short films. I find the combination narrative mediums seductive. I flirted with film making and animation but it takes a committed team to produce a short film, it only takes one committed hand to create a comic.

What's the most difficult subject you've had to draw so far? And how did you go about tackling this?

For me it’s all hard. I’ve put a lot of work recently into measured perspective and technical drawing. I have never really found drawing easy and I find the technical aspects a particular challenge. Within any comic there are always going to be individual challenges like drawing complex objects or backgrounds and I normally cope with that by good research and reference. I can’t emphasis enough how much a real world starting point has helped me in the consistency of my art work.

Out of all your work so far, what are you most proud of?

Issue 2 of Walking Wounded stands out in places for me. It’s not perfect but it has a visual coherency and solidity that I think makes it rank as my finest comic work to date. I’m particularly proud of the way that The Glasshouse turned out.

Who would you say your main influences are?

I tried to make a list of main influences but gave up after putting down about 50 names and realizing I was nowhere near done. When I was younger I was heavily influenced by Carlos Esquerra, Colin MacNeil and Chris Weston amongst many many others but I think you can still see their stamp on my artwork.

As well as your work as an artist, you've also taken on scripting duties from time to time - is this something you wish to pursue in the future?

One of the things I have been extremely fortunate with in the small press is the opportunity it has given me to collaborate with a number of different writers and artists. Although I said earlier that comics could be produced by a one man band I enjoy the creative dynamic of collaboration and have contributed as an artist writer and colourists for other peoples line work. Time permitting I hope to continue and refine all of my skills. The idea is the easy part with a story, it’s the seed, whether it’s as a collaboration or as a solo author the real craft is learning how to make it grow either by yourself or with the help of others.

How do you feel about the small press industry? And if more mainstream publishers come calling, would you still wish to be involved in it?

The small press is a pretty social scene. Most the customers are creators themselves and every one seems pretty passionate about art in some form. A lot of people look at comics and books and films and think ‘I could do that’ the small press it full of people who thought that and then did it. You have to respect that. Sure if a main stream publisher started banging on the door we would be crazy not to give the big time a shot but once you have been in the small press you would have to be some kind of jerk to move on up and not support it any more.

What can you tell us about your work outside of Massacre For Boys?

Largely I contribute to a few Futurequake Press titles as both a writer and artist working on Futurequake, Something Wicked, Zarjaz and Dogbreath. I have coloured pages for P J Holden and Dave Evans and coloured 2 Paragon covers for Dave Candlish. So I’ve put my work about as a bit of a small press Mick Jagger.

If you could draw any existing comics' character, who would it be and why?

Judge Dredd, written by John Wagner. Because no other character holds the same place in my heart or my personal history.

Finally, what can we expect from you in the future?

Mad Max style global apocalypses, gangs of leather clad sci-fi petrol punks roaming the scorched desert prating on the small communities that are all that’s left of humanity, clinging desperately to life on our once green planet. But moving to comics, more Walking Wounded, more Futurequake, more colouring. More comics, basically. Oh, and a Holt Bros graphic novel.

Alex Finch is still a writer, researcher, actor, stage manager and former celebrity Text Jockey.

Traumatised Future

2009-05-02T09:25:00.002+01:00

Only 7 days to Bristol, which is insanely scary.

Steve will be represented at both the SP Expo and also the main show where he can take credit for the cover and lead strip of this:

Why not pick it up and then bring it over to the Massacre For Boys stall at the SP Expo for him to sign?

Hope to see you there!

The Public Servant

2009-04-26T13:11:00.007+01:00

I've just spent an enjoyable hour reading this:

Had the Tozo flyer on my desk since the Thing and am glad I finally took note. Highly entertaining, and another example of a comic strip that works really well on the web.

The Secret Comic

2009-04-10T15:48:00.003+01:00

One MFB publication you won't find us hawking at events such as the SP Expo is Walking Wounded #0.

Although we're very proud of this comic, it's rather rough and ready compared to our subsequent efforts. The main story was written and illustrated back in the 90s and when we finally came to putting it together our lack of lettering know-how resulted in a fairly amateurish look. Given the progress we've made since Steve and I both feel it's something that we don't want to be pushing very hard these days.

Still, that's not to say I won't sell you a copy if you want one. You can buy WW0 from the Massacre site if the fancy takes you, or alternatively I note that it's still available from Smallzone too.

The support strip, Beales on Wheels, should probably be counted as the first Walking Wounded story of the MFB era. We'll no doubt re-master both pages at some point but meanwhile this is how we put it out originally:

Saturday Morning Watchmen

2009-04-05T21:39:00.001+01:00

Spoke to Harry Partridge at the Thing. He's a genius, as this amply proves:

Thing '09 Report

2009-03-29T13:48:00.004+01:00

After some fun on the tube, Steve and I made it to the Thing by about 9:30am. The first task was to pick up our supply of Massacre For Boys In Colour from printer and fellow exhibitor The Fallen Angel Media. That done, we promptly set up our table like so:

Doors opened to visitors at 10am and we waited for our first sale.

And waited.

And waited.

The table was right by the door and visitor numbers seemed to be well up on last year, but very few people seemed interested in our wares. To be honest we started to think that maybe our display was perhaps a little too reliant on irony and that what people were seeing was a potentially neo-fascist table they were not keen to approach.

In fact each time someone did stop and take a look it was almost an event:

Our first sale came a good two hours into the show and by that time we were about ready to call it a day. Fortunately we held on because the turnaround in the afternoon was somewhat dramatic. People started seeking us out having bought our work at previous Things and enjoyed it. New visitors arrived, much more interested in checking us out than their early-bird predecessors.

Even the poster, a source of early neurosis, started to attract a lot of positive interest:

In fact we had several requests to buy it as a print. That was both fantastic and pretty much entirely unexpected, so is something we will definitely be following up on in the neat future.

Business continued to be brisk as the afternoon wore on, then our fellow contributor Matthew Hunt dropped by:

Matthew's arrival livened things up even more, aided somewhat by his generous supply of "lime cordial" and the hall was properly buzzing as the event entered it's final phase.

Although generally tied to the table, we all managed to wander around to check out the work of our fellow creators, which looked to be a bumper crop. I was very happy to pick up a beautiful looking collection of Odd Fish. Matthew sought out and obtained both issues of the London Horror Comic. To be honest though this was the tip of a very large iceberg of great stuff. No wonder many people were wandering around not knowing how best to distribute their funds.

I am looking forward to going through the Thing Anthology (beautiful as ever) and checking out the work of many many more writers and artists.

Well 5pm rolled around and there was just time to press a copy of MFBIC on Paul Gravett before heading to the local Wetherspoon's to imbibe some extremely cheap and fairly potent cocktails with our many fellow creators.

All in all, a fabulous day out.

Say Any Thing

2009-03-22T08:26:00.003Z

Just six days to go until:

Come and see us!

Pre-order Now

2009-03-14T08:27:00.003Z

Massacre For Boys In Colour is now available to pre-order from the Massacre site. I haven't actually seen a copy yet but I am trusting that the printer is going to come through for us.

The countdown to show season continues. Only 14 days to go!

Anthology Submission

2009-03-07T07:37:00.003Z

As is traditional, we've now submitted our strip for the Thing 2009 Anthology.

The theme is Mars and we came up with a couple of pages riffing on the idea of Massacre For Boys in Space. Here's the first which wordlessly sets up the situation:

For the payoff you'll just have to come along to the Thing and buy the Anthology!

Oh alright, that is a bit mean. We will be putting up an extended version as a web strip on our site shortly after the show, so I guess you could wait for that. But don't!

Running Order

2009-02-28T09:15:00.005Z

Now Massacre For Boys In Colour has gone to the printers and the panic has abated (slightly) I can at last reveal what's actually going to be in it:

Cover - Crusader & Dog by Steven Denton. Logo by Bolt -01.

Walking Wounded: Night of the Big Heat by Chris Denton, Steven Denton & Bolt-01.

The Crusader: Honey Trap by Chris Denton, Bolt-01 and Richmond Clements.

The Diogenes Club: The Game is a Foot by Matthew Hunt and The Wrong Man by Chris Denton, Steven Denton & Bolt-01.

Jimmy Baker Animal Hatmaker: Three Lions by Chris Denton & Steven Denton.

Bosher's Goals: Hands on the Trophy by Chris Denton & Steven Denton.

Badland Rules by Steven Denton.

Walking Wounded: Hot Air by Chris Denton & Steven Denton.

Back Cover: Nazi Zombie by Paul Harrison-Davies.

So in total that's 36 pages (40 with the cover sides) and pretty much everything we've done in colour, including lots and lots of brand new stuff.

Panic Stations!

2009-02-21T11:37:00.004Z

Too much to do for a proper blog post this week :(

Still, whilst I'm here I will say that I was in Brighton last weekend and ended up in Dave's Comics.

It's a great shop, packed to the rafters with well-selected and artfully arranged graphic novels. Scarcely a tie-in toy to be seen! I wasn't in town to buy comics but couldn't resist and, mindful that someone has to keep the UK economy afloat, walked out with a stack of ABC paperbacks, including Tom Strong 6.

Lovely :)

Teaser

2009-02-13T20:05:00.003Z

I'm not going to say anything about this except that it's a complete strip drawn by Steve and it will be in Massacre For Boys In Colour:

In other news, I am please to say tht we will be appearing at the Bristol Small Press Expo. Should be fun!

Deadline Deaderline Deadestline

2009-02-07T13:46:00.004Z

We're getting pretty close to the the Thing now and there's not a lot of time left to make our comic ready. Eeek!

Oh well, at least we're not far away now. Here's the coloured and lettered version of Night of the Big Heat page one:

Thanks to Bolt-01 for doing a great job on the lettering front, as ever!

In other news this week I've now created a Massacre for Boys Facebook group. As I am pretty hardline in my anti-spam stance, you'll never receive an invitation to join the group from me, but that doesn't mean we don't want you! On the contrary, please join now! If you do, I can at least promise we'll not fill your inbox with spurious updates a la some annoying groups I could mention but won't out of politeness.

Massacre For Boys In Cover

2009-01-31T09:20:00.004Z

So here's the cover of MFBIC:

Art by Steve, logo kindly contributed by Bolt-01.

The official release date is March 28th. The complete contents of the comic is yet to be finalized, but as soon as it is I'll post that here too.

The Tempest

2009-01-24T09:52:00.004Z

PR is not my strongest point, and nor are our humble efforts automatically guaranteed press coverage of any kind. So it's fantastic when one of the big players gives us the time of day, let alone the oxygen of publicity.

So hats off to Forbidden Planet International, always a friend of MFB, for publishing their review of Walking Wounded this week.

Particular thanks are due to Richard Bruton, who agreed to take a look at the comics and who added some further comments about the WW platoon's printed adventures on his own blog.

It's testament to the influence of the FPI blog that two of my friends independently noticed this article go up on the day it appeared.

To cap it all, yesterday I received a cheque from FPI in payment for the sales of Walking Wounded #1 through their website.

This is the first time a third party has ever actually paid me for comics they've sold on our behalf. There are three other third parties that probably should have given me some money by now and haven't, so it was maybe more of a surprise than it should have been and just emphasizes what a classy outfit Forbidden Planet are.

In fact, you should probably go and buy something from them right now :)

What Next for The Animal Hatmaker?

2009-01-18T09:48:00.003Z

As work on Massacre For Boys in Colour nears completion, I notice that we have a 1-page Jimmy Baker script that won't be included for want of an available artist. As our future plans mean if it misses this comic it won't appear for years, I very much fear this story will remain an orphan.

Shame as I reckon it's not bad at all:

JIMMY BAKER ANIMAL HATMAKER: Bones
A US Format colour 1-pager by Chris Denton

1) A distinguished looking, scholarly gentleman, CURATOR JONES, stares disconsolate at an open and empty till. He is sitting at a box office window, which we can see because the word “Box Office” is visible, reversed in the glass.

CAPTION: NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON, 1952.

JONES: NO VISITORS, AGAIN! I NEED TO DO SOMETHING FAST OR WE’RE GOING BANKRUPT.

2) Detail of Curator Jones’ finger skimming down to the “Animal Hatmakers” section of the Yellow Pages. Just above this is a small advert for “Lady Vanessa, Animal Hairdresser.” The only animal hatmaker in the book is Jimmy Baker, and he has a large ad, which also doubles rather cunningly for the logo. The story title and credits can probably fit around here too.

3) Medium shot of Curator Jones gesticulating wildly, with JIMMY BAKER looking on. Behind them are a very grand set of double doors.

JONES: SO YOU SEE, MR BAKER. WE SIMPLY DON’T KNOW WHAT KIND OF HATS THE DINOSAURS WORE!

LINK: OF COURSE, PEOPLE AREN’T INTERESTED IN ANIMALS WITH BARE HEADS SO IT LOOKS LIKE THE MUSEUM IS FINISHED!

4) Close on Jimmy, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Behind him we can see part of the tail of a brontosaurus skeleton.

JIMMY: NOT NECESSARILY, PROFESSOR. I HAVE ONE OR TWO IDEAS…

5) Close on a newspaper-style billboard. It proclaims “T. REX – PREHISTORIC HIGHWAYMAN” and pasted over the bottom right hand corner of this is in slightly smaller text is the phrase “SOLD OUT”.

CAPTION: A MONTH LATER…

6) Close on the skull of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. It is wearing a Dick Turpin-style Tricorn hat.

T. REX (DISTORT): STAND AND DELIV – RAAARGH!

CAPTION: JIMMY BAKER COMES UP TRUMPS AGAIN!

Any artist out there fancy doing a quick job on this?

Name that plane

2009-01-10T09:03:00.004Z

So, here's the first page of pencil and inks for Night of the Big Heat:

It will be coloured, but I thought I'd post it now as it looks to me to be a fairly perfect page of comic art. Obviously, I put this all down to the script :)

The plane is based on a real one (WW2 buffs might recognise the make and model? Let us know if you do) and I did specify it in the script. However what I did not do is look too closely into how the plane was laid out internally, I just made some assumptions based on how I expected it to be. Eg basically like a smaller Boeing 747.

Of course, as all graduate management trainees know only too well, to assume makes an ass out of u and me. So when Steve was researching it he noticed that some of my directions were slightly, not to put to fine a point on it, impossible. He's corrected them all and that's meant some changes to some of the panels, like frame 2 on this page for instance.

I bring this up because I think it's a great example of how story-telling responsibilities in comics are divided between writer and artist. Even in the British method, where each panel is specified by the writer, the artist should have the creative freedom to be fairly liberal about he interprets these. As a writer this has never worried me at all because you would expect the artist to have a better grasp of how things work visually.