Failure to launch

I'M always jabbering away on here about the stuff I've written or am in the process of writing. But since I started doing the comics thing back in 2001 there have been a few projects that I've started with good intentions and great enthusiasm that have ended up falling by the wayside. Some of them deserve never to see the light of day again (I'm looking at you Dead Rock Stars) but there are one or two that could feasibly make it back onto my schedule at some point in the future. In the meantime, here's just a taste of the ones that got away...

DHAXX THE DEMON
This was a bawdy comedy featuring an aristocratic demon called Dhaxx who was supposed to be Satan's cousin. Even by Hell's standards he was a total wrong 'un and spent all his time causing trouble as he tried to build a power base for himself in the Inferno. Alas, everything Dhaxx did rebounded back on him spectacularly - it was sort of like Blackadder in Hell.

I wrote practically all of the first issue in which Dhaxx had to travel to Earth to retrieve a photograph of his flabby bare arse that was for sale on eBay. I seem to recall he encountered a future Messiah, monsters on a council estate and angels that performed some kind of song and dance routine. I quite liked this one actually but I wrote it not long after the third volume of Devilchild and ended up deciding to move right away from demon-related stuff with my next batch of work.

RECKLESS GIRLS
This was a story about a British all-female superhero team named the Reckless Girls because of their gung-ho approach to adventuring. The idea was that the Girls' oldest foe - Amok - had supposedly been rehabilitated and actually married a member of the team, only for her to be found brutally murdered a few weeks after their wedding night. The story would have centred on whether the Girls' ex-arch-enemy was the killer or not. For reasons I can't exactly recall I really struggled to write this one but having read the plot synopsis for the first time in ages the other day it could be one I return to in future.

DEAD ROCK STARS
This was the graphic novel project I started immediately after finishing the first Devilchild volume in 2002. It was set in the near future when Britain had become a fascist state in which all rock music was banned.

The plot saw the ghosts of famous musicians and rock stars (Jimi, Kurt, Biggy etc) visiting a young lad who had been chosen by mystical forces to lead the rebellion against the government. It was a bit like The Invisibles with lots of rather clumsy music references chucked in. The artist who agreed to work on it bailed out to do something significantly less shit.

LETHAL: HE KILLS VAMPIRES
This graphic novel project is the one I most regret not finishing. It was a story about warring East End crime gangs, one of which just happened to be run by a pair of homicidal vampires. Lethal Lenny Limehouse was the Cockney vampire hunter in the middle of it all, aided and abetted by a friendly female vamp to whom he was obviously attracted. The arrival of the unfairly maligned Blade TV show killed this one off as there were more than a couple of similarities in the premise, but I will do something with Lethal Lenny, especially if I ever bring back Blood Psi.