Downfall

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.