My Nerdy Life in 100 Geeky Objects - #5: Marvel Star Wars Special Edition (1977)

Way back in 2024 I was feeling all nostalgic and started a series of blog posts called "My Nerdy Life in 100 Geeky Objects", looking at stuff I remember fondly from my past and the impact they had on my life and who I'd become. Well, it's coming up to my birthday, and every year I get nostalgic again and wonder about writing about my less than exciting life. 

I was staring at the blog, having just renewed my ownership of the domain name, and thinking that I hadn't done anything with the site for over six weeks. I needed to write something, to get something on the site and to vent my creative frustrations, and couldn't think of anything I wanted to write, or could write...

And then I remembered this little series of posts that I started, and didn't get very far with. The first posts covered the James Bond 007 Lotus Esprit made by Corgi in 1977, my subscription to Super Spider-Man and the Titans comic in 1976, the 2000AD Summer Special of 1977 and my first exposure to Star Wars, and the very first Palitoy Star Warsfigures my dad got for me. 

You can see a theme developing here... number 5 in my list of 100 Geeky Objects stays in 1977. 

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#5: Marvel Star Wars Special Edition

I made a video about these a while back (11 years ago... hoooboy), when the first issue of the new Star Wars comic was released. I enthusiastically looked at the new comic, and then had a flick through how I was introduced to Star Wars comics.

I don't know what prompted it, but I remember dad coming home one day with this HUGE, oversized comic under his arm for me. It was twice the size of the average comic, not just in page count, but also in dimensions. 

Look at it. It's flipping gorgeous. The name Star Wars had been firmly lodged in my dad's mind after that 2000AD Summer Special, and, bless him for knowing my early forming nerdy interests so well, picked it up on a whim. I have fond memories of laying on the floor, the comic spread in front of me, while I poured over every panel. Unknown to me, there were scenes in there that wouldn't make it into the final film – the now legendary sequences with Biggs and the Tosche Station. I absolutely loved it, but it was only half of the story! 

It felt like months until the second half of the movie got its own collection (and it was, the first half was July 1977, the second October 1977), but thankfully my dad was just as happy to get the remaining half for me. It would be months before I finally saw the movie. It was only showing in one cinema in the nearest city (Hull) where they'd reopened the long closed Dorchester to show Star Wars continually for months and months. We got tickets before Christmas 1977, but the waiting list was so long to get in, those tickets were for screenings a few months later. Though seeing Star Wars for the first time would be one of those life-defining moments, and one I've written about before.

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I'd like to write more nostalgic stuff like this, and I've often thought about writing a weird fictionalised account of my nerdy life, like Ready Player One meets that movie 5-25-77, but it just stays in the list of things I want to do but just can't motivate myself. Maybe one day.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to write more for the blog and the Patreon. Both remain free to access, do subscribe to the Patreon if you can to ensure this heads into your inbox when I finally write something. 

Until next time, stay multi-classy!

What's in a Name?

Something is bugging me.

Set the wayback machine to 1998, and a younger me (with hair) really wanted to write and draw comics. With the support of my wife-to-be, and some financial backing from the Prince's Youth Business Trust, I wrote and illustrated four issues of a comic called Missing under the name of "Autocratik Press". 

The old Autocratik Logo

The old logo had the slogan "Autocratik for the Masses", inspired by the REM album, Automatic for the People. I chose the name Autocratik for a couple of reasons – I was given the advice that, especially when it came to getting the comic listed in Diamond Comic Distributor's Previews catalog, to ensure that your company name was high up in the alphabet so it got noticed. You couldn't get any better than starting with A, other than it being at the start of the A's (which it wasn't). I went through the dictionary, looking at words that began with A and there was something about the word that stuck with me. In the dictionary it said that it referred to someone who did things their own way. Kinda rang true, I wanted to do comics, write and illustrate them, I did the layout, the design, almost everything with help from Debs and her graphic design skills, and constant advice. Together we were going to forge a new beginning in comics...

Three of the four issues of Missing, published in 1998-99

Of course, it didn't last. Sales were low. Too low for Diamond to keep distributing it, so after four issues Missing came to an early end. Shame... I had another 91 issues all planned out. Autocratik Press returned a year later for a single comic by the legendary Matt Brooker, called D'Adventures of Israeli: Consequences, continuing the story from Timulo from Deadline. It was amazing – hit nuns with rocket launchers, weirdness, giant haddock. So very cool. 

After that, Autocratik was no more.

When I got into game writing, I went freelance, declared myself self-employed, but I didn't really use the name Autocratik again until 2011. 

Something happened. It was messy, and I won't go into details, but let's just say there was a clash, I was angry. I was annoyed. And above all, I was determined to do things my way. To create, to make the crazy stuff that I wanted to make, and I was damn-well going to do it myself.

I started the blog, used Autocratik as my handle on social media, started specific pages for it on Facebook, it's the name of my Youtube channel, I had business cards done, bought the domain name, and it's been on all of those #RPGaDAY graphics for the last dozen years. 

However, over the last few years, I've heard the term autocratic and autocracy become more and more prevalent, as those with money and power throw their weight about and try to do whatever they want with little regard for anyone else. Now, if you look in the dictionary, the term autocratic is defined as a dictatorship. Sure, it still means someone doing things their way, but now it feels like it's more associated with someone doing things their way to the detriment of others.

Certainly not what I had in mind with the name. 

Which brings me to what's bugging me. I'm wondering if it's time to retire the name, and choose something else? If I did, I'd have to update all of my links, rename all of my social media thingies, get a new website domain, transfer this blog over (which I must admit, I don't know how to do, but I'll learn), destroy all of those business cards and start afresh.

Or do I keep it as it is, and hope that the world changes? Just hope that the term becomes less synonymous with rulers and domination.

Or maybe bring back the "For The Masses" bit, to really embrace the REM-ness of its origins. I may be making stuff and writing things my way, but I'm not forcing anything onto anyone. If you like what I make or write, that's great. I'm not a tyrant. 

If I did rename, what would I change it to? Would people still find me? Do I actually want to be found... maybe I should simply diminish, and go into the west... 

What do you think?

Passion! (Turn to the Left)

 

The man, the myth, the legend that is, David Bowie

[No, that wasn't a typo. I'm paraphrasing one of the Bowie's song titles.]

I watch a lot of Youtube. I don't know if it's because I've a terribly short attention-span at the moment, but I do enjoy watching those talented crafters like Studson, Nerdforge, Bill Making Stuff and Dan Does. My wife watches all the videos about painting and art, and frequently I get videos appear in my recommendations about creativity. Inevitable I guess. 

One appeared on my feed recently by someone called Creative Codex, and it was about pursuing ambitious projects. The thumbnail used an image of that great combo of Davids - David Bowie and David Lynch. Of course, I had to watch...

The end of the video features of a clip of David Bowie's interview in 1997 about creativity. It focuses on a quote which I'm sure you've heard many times before - 

"If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting."

- David Bowie

And there was also the rest the video, where it discusses ambitious projects and some creators immersing themselves in a passion project that takes years to complete. It really got me thinking about these passion projects (hence the name of the post) and those times when I got completely and utterly absorbed in a project. When you'd need to keep a notebook close to the bed for those thoughts that surface just as you're falling asleep, or in your pocket for long journeys and your mind wanders and reveals a solution to one of your creative roadblocks. 

It got me thinking of times when I was completely immersed in a project that it completely took over everything I was doing. 

Drowning in Darkness

Cover for second printing
of Drowning in Darkness

Many years ago, we're talking mid-late 80's here, I wanted to write and draw comics. A friend of mine, Pete, decided to start publishing comics under the "Swampland" name, and my first comic, Drowning in Darkness completely consumed my life. It was a small, 32-page A4, comic. Sold a few copies. One comic review magazine called me the "Goth Hergé" which I was really chuffed with. It was a pretty basic story of an ex-government agent turned vigilante taking on vampires. Madness, I know, but I enjoyed it.

Pete wrote a massive sequel called Mirrors of Darkness that I started drawing and inking, but it kinda fizzled out about page 80-something. I also did the usual thing that creatives do, which was to go back and start re-making Drowning in Darkness with new art and an extended storyline. Never finished that one... I still have it all somewhere, though it's probably an embarrassing read. 

Ghostbusters: 'Spooky Science' and 'Back to Transylvania'

Very old illustration I did of me 
typing Ghostbusters adventures.

My two great passions in the late 80s were comics and roleplaying games, and after discovering the Ghostbusters Roleplaying Game by West End Games, I really wanted to write RPGs. More than that, I really wanted to write for the Ghostbusters RPG. This is back before the internet, so this involved writing a letter to West End Games (including 'international reply coupons' to cover return postage from the States to the UK), and waiting months. 

First it was a letter to see if they'd look at some stuff, and get the Release Form which allowed them to look at it without any legal problems (in case they were working on something similar already), and their writers guidelines. Then, days upon days sat over an electric typewriter drafting an adventure for Ghostbusters. 

They weren't great, and their movie-parody style was a little too close to some other major franchises, but the encouraging letter I got back from West End Games gave me the drive to keep going. I spent every spare moment writing those adventures, even doing stupid illustrations for them that they'd never be able to use. 

Missing

Covers for Issues 1, 4, and 2 of Missing

After going off to art school (sorry, University), my desire to write and draw comics was bubbling to the surface. Inspired by Twin Peaks, I became totally immersed in the world of Missing. Planned as a multi arc story over around 90 issues, it featured a wide cast of weird characters thrown together at a hotel on the border between Scotland and England, after England had become a US State, and after global warming had raised the water levels. 

There were multiple plots crossing over, featuring the kidnapping of the President's daughter, a bunch of 'Neuromatics' - surfing highwaymen who were holding up traffic heading for the border. There was murder, betrayal, intrigue, scandal, and more. It was even funded by the Prince's Youth Business Trust. My mind was filled with plot lines, characters, and plans for the future... but after I lost distribution after four issues due to low orders, I shelved the whole thing and haven't gone back to it. I have one complete set, but looking at it now I feel myself cringe a bit. Definitely a product of its time.  

Conspiracy X 2.0

Promotional image for Conspiracy X 2.0

After Missing went... well... missing... I was at a bit of a loss. I started thinking about my next big comic venture which was a post-apocalyptic comic of religion and divine-like alien beings influencing a strange cathedral... but it never went anywhere. I just kept reworking it over and over again. 

However, I'd continued roleplaying, and got talking to the lovely folk at Eden Studios (initially about a potential Conspiracy X comic) after a friend of mine told me I needed to read the Conspiracy X RPG, knowing I was a massive fan of The X-Files. I ended up helping with a number of their games like Terra Primate, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and All Flesh Must Be Eaten. Conspiracy X was amazing, but it frustrated me that it wasn't the same game system as the other games produced by Eden that I'd worked on. 

I put together a pitch and met with George while he was in the UK at one of the last UK GenCon conventions to convince him to let me convert Conspiracy X to a new edition using Unisystem. 

The week after I signed the contract for four books which would adapt and convert most of the existing content into new concise volumes, my father died. I did the slightly unhealthy thing where I squirrelled myself away into our tiny office room, and buried myself deep in the world of Conspiracy X. I contacted American government agencies to ensure everything was up to date after the restructuring with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Pulling in previously unpublished material, I was left to just get on with it and piece together a brand new edition of the game. With the amazing editorial skills of Alex Jurkat, the core rulebook finally came out... and many years later, the remaining three books were released after successful Kickstarter campaigns. 

I may have gone a bit deep on that one, but not only did it produce a game I still love, but it helped during a particularly tough time. Unfortunately, one of the stretch goals for the fourth book (the Conspiracies Sourcebook) was to ensure development of the 'sequel' game called Extinction. Set after the Saurian aliens had returned to Earth and decimated the population, it was announced just as I'd lost my mother - rather depressing bookends for my Conspiracy X career - and I just wasn't in the headspace to work on a title that involved so much death and destruction. I'd hoped that someone would take over on Extinction, but I think the Conspiracies Sourcebook was the final Eden Studios release for the time being. 

Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space

Cover of the first edition of Doctor Who:
Adventures in Time and Space RPG

After Conspiracy X 2.0 was handed in (before the Kickstarters for the remaining books), I started talking to Chris Birch, Angus Abranson, and Dominic McDowall about how a good license could bring in a new generation of gamers. One thing lead to another, and we were pitching to the BBC for Doctor Who. Thanks to my day-job working in a bookstore with a Dalek, I'd been excited to see the series return in 2005, and by that two-part finale I knew that a Doctor Who RPG would be amazing. 

Once we had the license secured, I was in the strange position where I was kinda left to it. I recruited a few other writers I knew to help with adventures and some of the sections, but once again I immersed myself in the world(s) and trying to get the game to echo the feel of the series as much as possible. It was kinda weird... a few rounds of massive playtests, feedback incorporated, and then the text went off to Dom and Angus... and then it miraculously appeared in my inbox. A cool boxed set, multiple books, dice, cards. It felt amazing to see something go from pitch to product and hit the shelves. 

WILD: Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming

Cover for WILD

With Doctor Who handed in, I worked on a few of the supplements before it became too big a beast (and an award winning beast at that) and Cubicle 7 grew to accommodate it. I was still working in my little retail job, but came out of the cinema after seeing Inception that opening weekend and my mind was buzzing with ideas. It was like someone had hooked up my brain to a Christopher Nolan's creative drive, and I just had to do something. And thus, WILD was born - Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming, an RPG of dreamshare technology. That was 2010. Ten years later, Stoo told me to stop messing about and to actually get something finished for WILD, so that he could run a Kickstarter for it. 

Stoo was a legend, sorting the printing, commissioning the awesome cover art (above) by Qissus, and the Tarot art by Gareth Sleightholme who I've known longer than I'd like to admit to. Stoo ran the Kickstarter, fulfilled the shipments - let's face it, without Stoo chivvying me and getting the publishing side organised, WILD would never exist. 

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You know what all of these projects had in common (besides me), was that they were a cool challenge, and maybe a little over my head. But I had the love for the story or property that I wanted to see it through. 

At the moment, I'm just feeling burned out and unmotivated. I want to feel that drive, that passion (beep beep), that desire to completely immerse myself in something that it infiltrates my idle mind, sparking ideas. I miss that. Right now, my mind is like it's tuned to a dead channel and the white noise is drowning everything else out. 

Soon, though... soon. 

I'll finish with another of Bowie's quotes from that interview:

"Never play to the gallery… Always remember that the reason that you initially started working is that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you coexist with the rest of society. I think it’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill other people’s expectations — they generally produce their worst work when they do that."

- David Bowie

Not Everything You Do is For An Audience

After my recent post about how I was frustrated at my drawing and wanting to do something but it being a little... how's the best way to put it?... crap, I received a perfect message on Instagram from a good friend pointing me to a wonderful comic strip by @pascalcampionart (seriously, check out the art, it's lovely).

In the strip (I won't post it here as I haven't asked for permission) the frustrated artist says that he has ideas, but doesn't like them. 

The wonderfully drawn cat says that he should just do it, get them on paper - it may inspire something better. The strip closes with the line "Not everything you do is for an audience". And that one kinda hit hard. Maybe that's my problem. Everything I've done except for a couple of rare passion projects (WILD, and Missing) have had an audience in mind. 

And that is what's holding me back. The weekend comes, I have time away from the dayjob, and I want to be creating something, but I think 'what's the point if I don't share it with people?'. Sometimes you just have to get it out of your system, put it on paper, and you'll feel better.

I need to get over myself and just do it. I mean, look at me, I'm displacing by writing a blog post on a blog that barely anyone reads. 

So here I go. Putting the computer away again, and just going to do something for me for a change. 

If it wasn't so comic it'd be tragic

 

The old Missing Comics from 1998-9

Many, many, many years ago, back in the very late 90's, I used to write, illustrate, and publish comics. This was back when Autocratik was "Autocratik for the Masses", a play on the REM album name, 'Automatic for the People'. 

My main comic was called Missing, a planned 90+ issue series about a hotel on the Scottish border, after England had become the 51st US State, and after global warming at raised the water levels to the point where cars needed to be amphibian, and highwaymen used surfboards to attack unsuspecting travellers. There were subplots of psycho boyfriends, the local sheriff department, kidnapping of the President's daughter, and weird metal bands. So much was planned, but alas it only lasted four issues and looking back at it now it's a little 90's and a bit cringey. 

After Missing was cancelled due to losing my distribution, I published one more comic for the legendary artist D'Israeli (Consequences) before pulling the plug on comics. I had ideas for a weird story involving a massive cathedral, motorcycling paladins, and an alien creature being worshipped as a god, but didn't get very far. 

Original sketch for I in the WILD major arcana

Since then, things have been very quiet with my drawing. I gave up completely, only really putting pencil to paper when I was storyboarding the webseries, or doing my initial sketches for the tarot cards for WILD. 

WILD was always going to be a square book, and I found a company making cool square sketchbooks for artists (so of course, I bought three, one of each size). 

However, I realised my art wasn't up to scratch for WILD, and Stoo and I recruited my old friend Gareth Sleightholme to do the Tarot deck, which came out brilliantly.

I thought about using these sketchbooks to do something different, something autobiographical, but I only really got a handful of pages into it before I gave up again, mostly due to the frustration of what was in my mind not making it onto the page.

During the pandemic I was inspired to do something, to finally get drawing and creating again. And again, my mind went to something autobiographical. Maybe it was the stresses of the pandemic, and the weird paranoia it brought on, but I really just wanted to get things on paper.

I went to the art department of our local department store where they had a great deal on A5 exercise books that had blank, sketchbook quality pages. I bought ten of them, inspired by artists I'd seen on Instagram, and thought this was going to be my next creative pursuit...

But once again, what I saw in my mind just wasn't what came out on the page. Frustrated, I gave up again, and those many sketchbooks seem to taunt me from the shelves next to my seat. 

I keep getting the urge to draw, but I just don't seem to be able to do what I want. Maybe I'm too impatient? I remember when I was working on Missing I used to work on that daily, determined to get it done, but looking at it now I kinda think it was pretty awful. 

Will I ever go back to comics? Will I get over my own self-doubt and hyper-critical self-depreciation? 

Who knows, but for now, I'll remain a lapsed comics artist...

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 14)

MORNING GLORIES (2010-2016, hopefully more to come)

Finally, the last comic in my rundown of the fourteen comics that have had the biggest impact on my life we come to the most recent one on my list - Morning Glories.

It's a really odd one that flew under a lot of people's radars, and I always felt was ignored. So much so that back when I wrote for the UK SciFi Channel blog I wrote a big feature on Morning Glories and why it was one of the best comics that you're not reading.

Why was it ignored? I dunno. But it was brilliant.

Morning Glories follows a group of new students at the prestigious prep school, Morning Glory Academy. You quickly realise something is seriously wrong...

The students all have the same birthday. Communication with their families have been completely severed the moment they arrived, and communication to the outside world is not permitted.

The faculty staff are psychotic, threatening to drown the students, drugging them, locking them in the academy basement - but this could all be connected to the strange, spinning artefact in the basement.

The students are just as cryptic. Not exactly super-powered, one is out of phase with reality and haunting the corridors. Others have a talent or quirk that makes them different - one sees all clocks to read one single time, one seems to be psychic, another has a mysterious twin that may have gone missing.

When I first started reading it, there were a lot of comparisons to the TV series LOST, and that is very true - especially when another group of students are introduced towards the end of season 1 (as the first arc is called) known as the Truants. It all gets crazy, just like LOST, with time travel, mysterious secret societies, murder, and Hunger Games style sports day called "Woodrun".

I loved it. Bought all of the issues, and the big hardcover collections when they came out (still hoping for volume 4, Image, if you're reading this?)... then, at Issue 50, it went on hiatus. Summer Vacation was planned to continue the story beyond "season 2", but that was three years ago and we're only just getting hints that there may be some progress on it. I suppose when the writer and co-creator of the comic series hears the call of Marvel saying "come write the Avengers for us" you awesome and weird project about a bizarre school gets shelved for a bit.

I seriously hope it returns. I hope that someone like Netflix realises that it would make an amazing series, and interest in the comic is revived.

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Well, that was the last of my posts about comics. I may have to go back and reread Morning Glories when I finish my complete read-through of Tintin that is occupying my bedtime routine at the moment.

Next?

I dunno. I have a big writing project that I should get on with, so I may continue these blog posts to get me started in the morning, but it may not be daily. I think it'll be movies next - but choosing just fourteen is going be very, very difficult.

Until then, stay safe.

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 13)

LOCKE & KEY (2008-2013, and more)

Another one I came a little late to, I completely missed the first few issues of Locke & Key when it first launched. Which is ridiculous as the writer was someone we'd known about before. Joe Hill. Probably bored of being called Stephen King's son, Joe Hill had a novel out in 2007 called Heart Shaped Box, and he came to our hometown to do a signing at the bookstore where Debs worked - I remember she created this display in the store of an old suit she'd bought from a charity shop, suspended from the ceiling. It was really creepy. Debs loved the book, and his other works, so it was surprising we completely missed the first few issues.

Those first issues sold out really quickly so we just waited until IDW produced a collection of the first storyline, Welcome to Lovecraft. We bought the cool hardcover, and were blown away by how cool it is. The storytelling is phenomenal, with some amazing art by Gabriel Rodriguez that has you looking over pages again and again to get every little detail.

It's so brilliantly drawn there's one bit that really stands out where the characters are looking for keys in Keyhouse and they pass one hidden on top of a clock (I think it is), then go back and find it... but you could see it in earlier panels, just a little detail that the eagle-eyed would spot.

Anyway, for those who don't know, Locke & Key is about a family (the Lockes) who move back into their old ancestral home (Keyhouse) after the father of the family is brutally murdered. While there, the three kids (Bode, Tyler, and Kinsey) discover the secrets of the house, of their family, and the various keys in the house that each have a unique power.

Unfortunately, Dodge, a mysterious stranger is released from their imprisonment and tries to gather all of the keys for their own evil doings and to finish what had been started a generation before.

It's just brilliant. The characters are great, each with their own hang-ups and flaws, while Bode (the youngest) tackles each key discovery with dangerous joy. The moment when they discover the Head Key, one that literally opens your head so you can remove aspects of your personality, or revisit memories, and Bode is just stood there with his head open thinking it's the coolest thing ever... Amazing.

As the past is revealed and you discover what happened with their father and his group of friends, it just adds a sense of horrible foreboding that it'll all happen again. And the final volume was so tense, it was a really sweaty-palm read.

So tense it was, just the memory of what happens made the final couple of episodes of Netflix's adaptation of Locke & Key even more scary. You knew how bad it was in the comic and kinda couldn't believe they were going to do it on TV...

Brilliant stuff.

The main storyline of Locke & Key finished in 2013, and there are some lovely hardcover collections out there that are a must have for anyone who likes spooky, cool and incredibly imaginative comics. And if you watched the Netflix series and enjoyed it, seriously read the comics.

There have been some short stories published since that tell various tales of Keyhouse in the years before the Locke kids show up, and the most recent one hints at a new continuation. Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez are working on a new storyline, which leads into a cross-over with the universe of Sandman (another of my favourite comics), joining Lucifer's Key to Hell into the Keyhouse mythology.

I can't wait.

Must admit, I do think it would make an excellent tabletop roleplaying game... (hint hint)

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 12)

THE INVISIBLES (1994-2000)

I was there when the revolution started. I saw the molotov cocktail fly. I saw it start... but I turned away.

That's kinda how it happened really. In the early 90's I picked up everything that Vertigo produced. Grant Morrison is a bit of a legend, and I'd read anything he produced. So when Vertigo announced this new comic by him I picked it up from issue 1. I have this strange memory of the first issue having a weird cover - besides the simple graphic of a hand grenade? Anyway, it was weird. The first issue was strange, and I wasn't sure if I completely got it... and that was how it continued until about issue 10 when I gave up altogether.

What an idiot.

Once again, it was the staff at my lovely friendly local comic shop (Abstract Sprocket) that made me look again. Volume 2 was just starting, and the manager said that I really should give The Invisibles another go - it was about conspiracy theories, alternate dimensions, and freeing your mind.

So, I went back to it. I picked up the trades for the first few volumes, and tried again.

I think the problem was that The Invisibles is meant to be read in big chunks - if not, all in one sitting. I read somewhere that The Invisibles is a spell. A magic spell, and the ritual of casting this spell is to read it in one sitting. It'll open your mind.

The story of Grant Morrison being abducted by aliens and becoming aware of fifth dimensional creatures while writing The Invisibles just adds to the legend.

But The Invisibles is even more mindblowing than that. It has connections to one of my favourite movies of all time. Let's see if you non-Invisibles readers can spot it...

Young guy who's a bit of an anarchist is recruited by a leather clad bald guy. Young dude discovers he is the next messiah, the new Buddha. He joins (and leaves, and joins again) a group of revolutionaries who are trying to bring down an organisation from an alternate dimension who want to enslave humanity and make them conform and docile.

Hmmm. There is a theory that you can cut up panels from The Invisibles and make The Matrix out of them, and The Invisibles were around five years before Neo became "The One". But this is also inspired by Grant Morrison's earlier work on a pair of sequels to the cyber-movie The Lawnmower Man, where a group of teenagers discover that their reality is actually a simulation controlled by extradimensional insect creatures manifesting as men in suits.

Anyway, I digress. The Invisibles completely blew my mind - as it's supposed to do. Especially as the manager of the aforementioned comic shop was already feeding my brain with Robert Anton Wilson and Philip K. Dick, this was just fuel for the brain. When it got to the Magic Mirror substance recovered from Area 51, and the characters were informed that we were being lied to - there are more than 26 letters of the alphabet, there are in fact 64. When you are aware of those letters, you can see the things in our reality that we couldn't before because our brains couldn't comprehend them without the vocabulary.

Insert that gif of the guy going "Mind Blown" over and over again.

In summary, I loved The Invisibles. Once I got over myself with those first few issues that I probably wasn't prepared for, it became one of my favourites. I've read the whole thing a number of times - though I really should look into tracking down the second two hardcover collections. The complete hardcover is a bit big to comfortably sit and read.

It's a bizarre and very progressive comic that feels very 90's, but still resonates a bit today.

That said, it's the last in my list from the 90's. Nothing really struck me with as much force comic-wise for many years to come, until the final two titles on my list...

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 11)

SCUD: THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN (1994-1998, 2008)

I guess the whole of this entry could really be the 90's indie comic revolution, but out of the many titles that emerged from this era I've decided to focus on Scud: The Disposable Assassin. One of those weird little comics that came out that really appealed to me. It was a simple black and white comic about a world where you could hire an assassin robot from a vending machine, have it go off and do what you needed to do, and when the target was eliminated the robot would self-destruct.

Scud realises that if he takes out the strange creature that is his target, Jeff, then he'll explode. So he decides that if he just wounds him - a lot - and leaves him on life support, he can keep existing. The only trouble is, those hospital bills for keeping Jeff in a coma are mounting up and Scud takes on extra assassination jobs to pay for the fees.

The writer/artist, Rob Schrab, worked with Dan Harmon (who wrote the Scud spin off about the robot mafia, La Costa Nostroid) and Schrab would go off to Hollywood and end up working on series like Community (with series creator Harmon) and the huge Rick and Morty (again, with Harmon and their friend Justin Roiland). [Sidenote, Scud is the inspiration for Mr Meeseeks from R&M)

Scud was one of those things were the cool art, the simplicity of the style, and the ease of production was an encouragement to try to produce something like this myself. Especially as there was a video game, and talk of a movie produced by Oliver Stone. Heck, if Scud can become huge, I gotta try!

Another great comic that really inspired me along the same lines was Mister Blank, by Christopher J Hicks. A story of an everyman who discovers a terrorist plot to destroy his workplace. Super simple art, really stylised, and really cool. Well worth looking at the complete collection. The Exhaustive Edition collects all 14-15 issues of it in one volume.

It was a slippery slope to reading loads of black and white indies as inspiration. Lead me to British titles like Strangehaven, Sleaze Castle, Strange Weather Lately, Kane, and more. All created by awesome and incredibly friendly indie folk who were really helpful when I started working towards doing one of my own.

Typically, by the time I got onto the scene (just as 2000 was hitting) the indie scene was in a minor decline. I'd missed the boat. But that's another story...

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 10)

HELLBOY (1994-)

You'll remember I mentioned that the manager of the awesome local comic shop (Abstract Sprocket) was great at recommending new comics to me that would quickly become favourites? Well, here's another one of those great recommendations. I was a huge fan of Bram Stoker's Dracula movie when it came out, and there was a comics adaptation of it that was in such a unique and brilliant style, it was etched onto my memory.

Of course, that comics adaptation (that has recently been rereleased) was by Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy. I remember having issue 1 of Hellboy: Seed of Destruction waved at me at the comic shop saying "You'll like this! It's also got a talking monkey in it." (Referring to the rather excellent support strip at the back of the issue featuring Art Adams' Monkeyman & O'Brien).

You probably know the basic story of Hellboy from the awesome Guillermo del Toro movie with Ron Perlman - Hellboy is a demon summoned during the last days of WWII by Nazi occultists. When he arrives, he is just a baby and is taken in by the US military and raised by Professor Bruttenholm as the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense is being formed (the BPRD).

As an adult, working for the BPRD alongside other persons of unique abilities, Hellboy basically goes around with his big, stone hand and punches evil supernatural creatures back to the hellscapes they came from. It's great, funny, action-packed, pulp adventure.

But that artwork. Man, that artwork is amazing. Such a unique and vivid style, with amazing high-contrast shadows. It's just something else. Absolutely love it.

We faithfully bought all the individual issues, and then when Dark Horse produced the Hellboy Library editions, we bought them all again collected in gorgeous clothbound hardcovers. Ooooh yes.

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 9)

THE CROW (1989)

I've put 1989 as the date here, but chronologically I didn't discover The Crow until 1993. I missed all of the Caliber Comics versions, and the Tundra reprints, and like most readers I first read The Crow with the Kitchen Sink Press graphic novel that came out in '93. I remember I was at my local comic shop (Abstract Sprocket) and the awesome manager was great at recommending things to me that he thought I may like - Sin City was one, and The Crow as definitely the next (and not the last).

I don't know what it was about it. Maybe it was a combination of the story behind it, James O'Barr - the writer and artist was inspired by the grief and anger he felt after the death of his girlfriend at the hands of a drunk-driver. The sheer anger and emotion that was poured into every page of the comic is seriously hard-hitting and moving.

Combine that with the extremely goth artwork, with black and white art throughout. It was a similar style to the comics I was producing, and had that angry drive behind it that reminded me of my own angsty annoyance at the world.

It was inspiring, moving and quite a revelation in its simplicity. It was an indie comic that suddenly became huge. There was talk of a movie coming soon, too. Heck, if a cool goth indie comic can get turned into a movie, maybe I could do the same?

I read The Crow in one emotional sitting, and read it multiple times afterwards. So taken by it, we bought the limited edition of the graphic novel - a hardcover in a slipcase, signed by J. O'Barr, complete with a CD by John Bergin (O'Barr's collaborator) and his band Trust Obey. Fear and Bullets is a seriously doom-laden stream of extremely dark goth - mostly shouting in-character as Eric Draven (The Crow) over heavy drum-machines and guitars. Nothing like walking in to work with it on your headphones, shouting along "I am fear, I am complete and total madness, You're all going to die!"

You get some funny looks...

And then came the movie. The horrible accident on set that took the amazing lead actor, Brandon Lee, shrouded an already emotional story with another layer of sadness. Brandon Lee was brilliant in his other movies (I loved Showdown in Little Tokyo) and was absolutely perfect as Eric Draven. A brilliant and faithful adaptation of the graphic novel. It's one of those movies we watch every year, usually on Devil's Night.

If you haven't already read The Crow, do hunt it down. May inspire you to put ink on paper to vent your frustrations.

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 8)

SIN CITY (1991-2000)

Frank Miller's extreme noir was a bit of a departure from my normal comics, and I came to it a little late - I completely missed the original Sin City before the trade paperback collection came out. But when I did finally check it out, I was blown away. It was super minimal in its art, with pure black and white - with sometimes a hint of a single colour if necessary.

The first volume was a tale of a very heavy handed thug called Marv, who goes on a violent spree to track down the killer of his "girlfriend" Goldie. He whittles his way through various criminal lowlifes before finally uncovering a serial killer. It was cool, but when the second storyline started, A Dame To Kill For, I was particularly taken by the way it weaved into the timeline of the original story.

A Dame to Kill For is a typical tale of a beautiful woman tricking a gullible guy into killing her allegedly abusive husband, and the guy finding out he was fooled and looking for justice.

By the time the third storyline, The Big Fat Kill, started I was in my second year of my university degree specialising in animation and storyboarding. I decided to increase the weighting of the theory on my grade, and increased the size of my dissertation opting to compare comics narrative language - how the reader interprets the story progression from panel to panel, and comprehends what's going on by framing - with film language. I picked Sin City as the comic I'd look at as it is particularly filmic, and compared it to 1940's film noir - focusing on Double Indemnity. Double Indemnity is an excellent movie, about a beautiful woman tricking a gullible guy into killer her allegedly abusive husband... you know the rest.

If only I'd gone to university about ten years later I could have incorporated the Sin City movie into my dissertation.

Anyway, I loved the style, and the really cool art. Sin City opened my eyes to some of the cooler black and white comics that would come to heavily influence my own art for years to come.

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 7)

SHADE: THE CHANGING MAN (1990-1996)

I mentioned last blog post that a lot of the early 90's comic reading for me was dominated by DC/Vertigo and the range of cool, yet darker, comic series. Hellblazer, Kid Eternity, Doom Patrol, Enigma, etc. But just after Sandman started, another really experimental comic came along that had me even more hooked, and remains my favourite series of all time - Shade: The Changing Man.

With the early covers by Brendan McCarthy (yes, the Brendan McCarthy that brought Mad Max: Fury Road to life), the title really stood out on the shelves as being something a little weird. After all, the "New McCarthyism" as he was credited sometimes was certainly not your average comic cover design. (see left)

The insides were even weirder in places, but the story reflected that. I'd never read any of the first incarnation of Shade from 70's, so this was my first experience of Rac Shade - a poet from another world who leaves his body behind on Meta to inhabit the body of Troy Grenzer - a serial killer about to be executed.

Shade teams up with Kathy, whose parents were killed by Grenzer, and Lenny, and they travel the US in a weird roadtrip to battle the madness that is infecting the land.

It's nuts. Whole sections are within "the Madness" and you could spend days trying to see all the detail within those pages. Not only was Peter Milligan's storylines bonkers and brilliant, but the art...

Oh the art...

One of my favourite artists, Chris Bachalo, who I'd first seen in an issue of Sandman, brought the madness to life in some of the coolest artwork I've seen.

Bachalo's style was simply amazing, and iconic with the cross hatching on the character's noses. I loved it. I still love Bachalo's art, and have followed it through his career into Marvel's Generation X, X-Men and Doctor Strange. It's awesome.

Over the years, Shade died about four times, inhabited different bodies, and different cool coats. It got really weird and surreal, but I loved every minute of it. 

Ultimately, it came to an end, and I was really excited recently when Gerard Way announced his DC imprint (Young Animal) would see a new series called Shade: The Changing Girl. It was good, but compared to Way's awesome revival of Doom Patrol it just wasn't as weird, or gripping as I'd hoped. The new Doom Patrol did it so much better. Oh well...

My dream would be for Noah Hawley, who did the awesome TV series Legion, would decide to make Shade into a TV series, inspired by Peter Milligan's run. Oh, we can hope...

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 5)

STRAY TOASTERS (1988)

While I loved The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, there was a graphic novel (technically a trade paperback collection of a comic series if you want to get pedantic) that really leapt out at me and absolutely blew me away. Elektra: Assassin. Written by Frank Miller of Dark Knight fame, the story was cool and a weird tale of SHIELD, Elektra and an assassination attempt on a President that is harbouring a creature known as The Beast. But the artwork by legendary Bill Sienkiewicz was something I'd never seen before - painted, experimental, and simply amazing.

I was so blown away by the art I hunted down the rest of Bill Sienkiewicz's work, which lead me to buying the awesome sketchbook of his art, and his amazing series Stray Toasters. Thinking about Stray Toasters now, I honestly don't know if I ever actually understood what was going on in the series. It seemed to be about a psychologist trying to track down some weird serial killer.

This was just as I was creating comics with Pete for the Swampland publications - heck we even advertised in Deadline! But everything I was inspired by was the sort of comics I'd been reading up until then. But Stray Toasters was the comics equivalent of watching a David Lynch movie, or a Peter Greenaway movie, for the first time when everything you'd seen before was Hallmark Channel made-for-TV movies. It was radical, free and so completely different - it was so experimental playing with the art styles, the typefaces of the text boxes, the format, the... well, everything.

So cool. It inspired me to free up my style a lot, and try doing things a little differently.

I really should dig out Stray Toasters and have another read after all these years.

Stray Toasters opened my eyes to other more experimental comics like Ted McKeever's Metropol, and Dave McKean's Violent Cases and Black Orchid. Which lead me to pick up something for its cover alone...

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 4)

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (1986)

Okay, I have a confession. I'd given up on comics. Early 80's, I started playing D&D and the other RPGs with the group and didn't really have time for comics any more. My standing order for 2000AD was cancelled, and I was just really gaming. I drew comics, and I bought a load of MAD Magazine which was seriously influencing my drawing style. I wasn't drawing anything huge or majorly serious, it was just a stupid three panel comic of our adventures in the Star Frontiers game we were playing, with the characters looking more like us as players.

A lot of it was heavily influenced by the glorious comic strip that used to appear in White Dwarf called The Travellers (do a search for it, it's amazing and was a comedy parody of Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, and more...)

My art wasn't great, though there was a time when I nearly got it printed in the Hull Daily Mail - though I don't think they understood it and suggested I submitted something different.

And then the group slowed down with the gaming as half of them vanished off to university and I concentrated on writing RPG stuff for Ghostbusters hoping to break into the games industry. But it was during this time that John, our GM for Call of Cthulhu and Dr Who, said that comics were suddenly getting dark and cool again. I really should check out the Batman comic - The Dark Knight Returns.

I used to read Batman way back in my childhood, but everything I read was in those Superman & Batman annuals from the mid 70's, so it was all heavily influenced by the 60's TV show or really old classic strips. But John insisted that I give it a go, and showed me the four issues he'd bought of Dark Knight Returns.

This was suddenly cool. Batman was old, far too old to be leaping around in a costume. Superman hadn't aged as much but he was more like some unearthly god. There were hints that something bad had happened to Robin, and a new character (Carrie Kelley) had taken up the suit much to the grumbling and grumpy Bruce Wayne's complaints.

The Joker wasn't just some stupid clown any more, he was genuinely scary.

It was awesome.

Of course it wasn't very long afterwards that John said, "If you liked that, you'll love Watchmen"...

And Watchmen was amazing too.

Which lead me to checking out all sorts of cool graphic novels and comic collections featuring art and styles I'd never seen before.

Every week my parents used to drive up the coast to Bridlington to do the weekly grocery shopping. I wasn't working at the time, this was before I started working in Nature Conservation and Archaeology, so I used to go along and check out the records in Woolworths, and go up along the Promenade to a little newsagents that used to have a couple of boxes of new graphic novels for sale.

It was here that I bought my own copies of The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. I also bought volumes of American Flagg! because I remembered Howard Chaykin's art from the Star Wars adaptation, the amazing Love and Rockets collections after Pete recommended I checked out Jaime Hernandez's style - god, I love that artwork. And the visually stunning and brilliant Elektra: Assassin which will lead me nicely into tomorrow's post...

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 1)

Over the last couple of weeks I've been challenged to a couple of those Facebook meme things. First it was 20 Albums That Had an Impact on Your Life, then it was D8+3 Tabletop RPGs, and most recently it was 10 TV Shows.

The weird thing is, during these times of crisis and panic when just reading the news can make me come out in a cold sweat, I've found doing these little blog posts every day to be calming, and to get me motivated into actually doing some normal writing every day - when most of the time I'd want to just lay on the floor and pray for everything to go back to normal.

Yesterday was the last day of the most recent challenge - 10 TV Shows That Had an Impact on me, and I didn't want to sink back into an unhealthy routine. So, I'm going to keep going...

With COMICS!

Randomly found a pic of the comic on
the internet. Weird.

I know there may be some of you who read this who only know me from writing tabletop RPGs, but for a long time I wanted to write and draw comics. Just after I left school, Pete decided to form a little comic publishing company called Swampland Comics, and I drew the first issue of Ninja Secretaries from Beyond Dimension X, that was based on Pete's script, and I wrote a drew a standalone comic of one of the characters (loosely based on me) called Drowning In Darkness. It was gloomy, introspective and self-aggrandising tale of a gun-toting vigilante facing a vampiric threat in his hometown.

Looking at it now it's horribly embarrassing, but it did get some interesting reviews and I remember one that called me the "Goth Hergé". I don't know if that's just because of the lead character's hairstyle...

I went to university wanting to specialise in comics, and ended up studying animation. I think the Illustration lecturer wasn't keen on comics at the time - I think he's since come around. After I graduated, I continued my desire to draw comics and, with the help of the Prince's Trust, launched my comic publishing company (Autocratik Press). I published four issues of my ongoing comic, Missing, before it was cancelled by the distributor - not selling enough to keep distributing me.

Missing, the comic I wrote and drew in the late 90's. Feels horribly dated now...

I also published a one-shot for the awesome Matt Brooker (aka D'Israeli) called Consequences, which continued his D'Adventures of I.S.R.A.E.L.I. that ran as Timulo in Deadline. That was particularly awesome, (mostly because I didn't draw it), but that was the entire of my attempt to get into comics...


But behind the scenes, I've been reading comics for years. So many comics. I read comics before I read books, and some of them had a huge impact on my writing and art.

So I thought I'd do another one of those "Things that have had an impact on my life" things but focus on the comics that shaped me. And, after discussing this with Debs, I've decided to do 14 rather than 10, so it's a round two-weeks of this nonsense you have to put up with.

Without further ado...

THE FOURTEEN COMICS THAT SHAPED ME





PART 1

SUPER SPIDER-MAN (AND THE TITANS / WITH THE SUPER-HEROES) (1976-1979)

I have a very distinct memory of Spider-Man. It's very weird. I think Spidey was the first real superhero comic I read, and certainly the first superhero I really got into. The only others I used to read about that time were the annuals I'd been given for Christmas which were usually Superman/Batman double bills.

However, I have a very distinct memory of my dad going to the newsagent to pay his monthly bill for the newspaper deliveries (two a day), and saying to me that I could pick a comic to get every week and we'd add it to the delivery. I picked Spider-Man.

Super Spider-Man was a British reprint of the American comics in a weird format. It was landscape, and had a double page spread from the US comic on each page, so as you read it each open spread contained four of the American comic pages. They were also completely in black and white except for the glossy cover. But, it meant you got a lot more comic and story every week in each issue. It wasn't just Spidey in there - each issue contained a complete issue from Spidey, as well as a complete issue of Thor, Captain America and Doctor Strange. The actual line-up of supporting strips varied from time to time, but I distinctly remember reading those ones.

The centre pages were a super-widescreen style bit of poster art (which I foolishly coloured in with felt tip pens on some issues - my desire to draw comics getting the better of me at that early age).

It was just at the awesome era of classic Spider-Man. The art was gorgeous (Gil Kane, John Romita Sr.), and I was stunned at The Night Gwen Stacy Died. I remember the Spider-mobile, the death of the Green Goblin, the Jackal cloning Gwen and Peter, the first appearance of The Punisher. Oh man, that was all great.

The "back up" stories weren't holding back with their punches either. I read The Invaders, saw them dredge Captain America's bullet ridden cowl out of the river, and was completely freaked out by Gene Colan's amazing and spooky art for Doctor Strange.

Just thinking of them makes me want to reread them.

I do have a load of them still, but they're not in great condition (felt tip, remember). I have a weird memory of a strange centrespread poster of weird bird-like aliens invading, riding spacecraft-like bikes... It didn't have anything to do with any comic within the pages, but I remember being fascinated by that image and wondering if they were ever going to appear.

Many, many, many years later, the old nostalgia feeling brought me back to those Spider-Man comics, and when Marvel did the very economical Essential Collections, they started from the first issue reprinting Spider-Man in black and white, just how I remember it, in massive and fairly cheap books the size of phonebooks. The black and white really showed off the awesome art, and reading them again was brilliant and I felt like I was eight years old again.

It's a real shame Marvel stopped doing those Essential Collections. I bought all of the Amazing Spider-Man collections, and the Peter Parker: The Sensational Spider-Man, ones. I even bought the first Doctor Strange collection, and Howard the Duck, but they came to a halt as the reprints got up to the 80's and I guess they wanted you to get the more expensive colour collections.

Loved those comics. But, by 1977 something else came along and I was only allowed one comic per week... SciFi took priority, sorry Spidey...