Pitch panel

A panel from a pitch I've been working on with Spanish artist, Jsm.

Skinner refuses to die

THE good folk over at the Irish Comic News website (www.irishcomicnews.com) are currently serialising the Tim Skinner: Total Scumbag one-shot I wrote back in 2008. The first part is already up, with a second part going live later this week.

I re-read Skinner for the first time in a year or so the other day and was surprised at just how many of the gags still hold up. Zombies rule the publishing world more now they did five years ago, character deaths have become ever more fleeting and meaningless. The more things change in comics, it seems, the more they stay the same.

On the surface, Skinner is all about rude jokes, bodily functions, slapstick violence and childish digs at people far more talented and successful than me. But, believe it or not, the book did have a more serious purpose too. Skinner himself was meant to be the embodiment of the comic industries' worst excesses, particularly the way in which it uses and abuses beloved characters. In 30-odd pages, TS:TS only does what comics companies do to their characters all the time. They're killed, brought back, killed again, made to wear absurd costumes, given insanely convoluted backstories, burdened with ridiculous anatomies, retconned, rebooted, reduced to one or two defining characteristics... I could go on.

I had a couple of people tell me they thought the book was "misogynistic" but that was kind of the point. Is the yobbish Skinner lusting after Spectaculass's large breasts really that different to the way in which Power Girl has been treated over the years? Her only distinguishing characteristics are that she has big boobs and displays them through a little 'tit window' in her costume. Not exactly empowering, is it?

Besides, you aren't actually meant to like Skinner. The title of the story isn't Tim Skinner: Good Samaritan. He's a scumbag and while it's perfectly OK to laugh at the shit he gets up to, he's surely impossible to empathise with. He killed the Superior Seven's pet cat, Kenny the Kickass Kitten, for Pete's sake!

I should, of course, mention that the Skinner one-shot was drawn by Declan Shalvey, the guy who now makes a living on the likes of Venom, Northlanders, Conan and The Massive. I'm not sure if it was the last project Dec drew before he landed the 28 Days Later gig with Boom! but it was certainly one of the last. He did a fantastic job and even coloured the book himself. I love this particular page set in 'Murda-City One' and was always a bit disappointed that no one spotted it was a homage to William Hogarth's famous Gin Lane engraving (which I've reproduced below it so you can compare the two)...

Anyway, all this reminiscing brings me to the real purpose of this post. Skinner's coming back (you knew he wasn't really dead, right?). He'll make his return in Tim Skinner: Retconned either later this year or early next, probably as one of those new fangled webcomics. I have a sack load of new ideas, a heart black with sarcasm and scorn, and an artist ready to make it all happen. Watch this space...

Nix

An early cover idea for a project - called Nix - I've been working on with the fantastically talented Taylan Kurtulus. Taylan has one of the most unusual art styles I've come across and I love it! This is one of the projects I'll be pitching around to publishers later in the year.

Defiant!

I'VE been extremely busy since the turn of the year and don't plan to take my foot off the accelerator any time soon. As any regular readers will know, I've been trying – and mostly failing – to get a number of projects off the ground for the last couple of years. All that hard work, anguish and frustration finally seems to have proved worth it though. I have a lot of stuff on the go at the moment and, for the first time in a long time, a roster of artists I trust to help me pull it all off. 

First up is Defiant! The Legend of Brithnoth, a graphic novel based on the famous(ish) Anglo-Saxon poem The Battle of Maldon. Dan Bell is the artist and it's coming out next year through Steve Tanner's excellent UK indie, Time Bomb Comics. It's been easily the most difficult thing I've ever written and it took me a long time to work out exactly how to adapt the original poem. I've tried to stick to the facts as they are known but have fictionalised and taken liberties a fair bit too. We're going to start publicising Defiant! at the London Super Comic Con next weekend.

Next up is a sci-fi project, called The Good Ship Otzi, which has found a publisher in the Netherlands. R-Comics is a small publisher with big ideas – just the sort of people I like in other words. I'm not sure as yet whether the book will be a mini-series or an ongoing but I'm about halfway through writing the first issue and reckon it would work pretty well as either. You'll hear far more about this in the weeks and months to come. The artist, Mike Harrington, is going to be creating a dedicated website for the project and I'll have more on that soon too.

Beyond these two projects I have five or six more that are at various stages of development. Most of them are with artists and I'm hoping to have stuff to pitch before the end of the year. Like I said busy, busy, busy...

The Next Big Thing

My old friend Garrie Fletcher (check out his blog here: http://herecomethelobsters.wordpress.com) has tagged me as part of something called The Next Big Thing wherein writers get the chance to tell the world of their current writing project by answering 10 questions about it. I then get to tag three other writers in to do the same thing, which I'll take care of at the end. 

So, Andy, what’s your next big thing?

I'm working on a graphic novel retelling of a real-life event from England's Medieval past, the centre-piece of which is a massive, bloody battle. Unfortunately, I can't talk too much about the specifics (even previous retellings) as I'm keen not to give the game away. What I will say is that turning something that actually happened into fiction has been quite a challenge. I did a ton of research but was still unprepared for how much you have to shape facts, timelines and characters to make something work as an interesting, proper story. 

1) What is the working title of your book?

That's another thing I won't be giving away just yet.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

A couple of years ago I was pitching ideas to a UK-based graphic novel publisher (now sadly defunct) and getting nowhere. The editor I'd been speaking to suggested this particular historical event to me but I have to confess it was something I'd never heard of before. But I started researching the subject, visited the site where it took place and quickly became obsessed with it. I wish I could say more because it's a fantastic, fascinating story.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

It's an historical action/adventure tale.

4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

There are three main characters, so let's see... Liam Neeson to play the lead, Viggo Mortensen to play his nemesis, Tom Hardy to play his trusted lieutenant (as long as he promised not to do his weird 'Bane voice').

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Blood, guts, honour, betrayal, death and Vikings. Lots of Vikings.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I have a publisher although contracts haven't been signed yet. It's pencilled in for a 2014 release giving me enough time to write it and artist Dan Bell enough time to draw it.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I'm still battling through the first draft. What I quickly realised is that just because you have a list of events it doesn't mean you have a story. It took me a while to find a genuine 'hook' to hang the narrative on but I've found that now and the writing has been a lot smoother and considerably less frustrating since I did. The maxim about writing being '90 per cent perspiration, 10 per cent inspiration' has been particularly true in this case.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Brian Wood's Northlanders series for Vertigo would probably be the closest thing to what I'm doing but the tone of my project is very different.

9) Who or What inspired you to write this book?

The story's main character was a truly amazing man - a bloody lunatic but an amazing man. It seems bizarre to me that he isn't better known in this country for his extraordinary bravery and heroism. I think he has a bad rep that he doesn't deserve. It also seems strange to me that the event itself hasn't been adapted into fiction more often. It would make a hell of a novel and a hell of a film. Hopefully it will make a hell of a graphic novel, too. 

10) What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Dan Bell's lovely art - as the project progresses I'll be posting some of it up here (with Dan's permission of course). 

The three fellow writers I'm tagging are: Jason Cobley, Steve Tanner and John Paul Catton.

Amnesia Agents #1

DESPITE hearing a thousand-and-one positive things about the show, I've never made it up to Leeds for the city's annual Thought Bubble festival which takes place this week. And, sadly, it's the same this year. The main problem is that it always seems to clash with my eldest son's birthday (he turns nine on Friday). Added to that this year is the fact my mother-in-law has just passed away, and my wife will be spending the next week and a bit in Jamaica arranging the funeral and putting the old girl's house on the market, leaving me at home with the kids. 

Although I can't physically be at Thought Bubble, at least a story I wrote will be. It's a short and simple one-pager called 'Leo'. It's illustrated by Baz Renshaw (who you might know from the magazines Redeye and Multiverse), and you'll find it in issue #1 of Jason Cobley's Amnesia Agents comic. AA #1 - "an anthology about memories or the lack of" - also contains contributions from the very talented likes of Andy Bloor, Vicky Stonebridge, Gary Crutchley, Chris Askham and David Hitchcock. 

Amnesia Agents #1 is £3.50 for 52 pages. For more details, check out Jason's blog: http://writingcobblers.blogspot.co.uk/

* IN other news, I think I've found a publisher for a couple of my projects. I won't say any more now but hope to have more concrete news in the very near future.

Overload & French lessons

I'VE been invited to contribute a story to the next issue of Martin Conaghan's excellent Overload anthology comic (the cover to the most recent issue is above).

The story will be six pages, in black and white and I'm looking for an artist to work on it with me. My story may be a parody of the Avatar horror comic Crossed, or perhaps something else entirely. Anyone interested, give me a shout at andywinter1@gmail.com

* SPENT most of last week in Paris, and it was from the huge Virgin Megastore along the Champs-Elysees there that I bought this graphic novel...



It was prominently displayed in the store's large comic department and I couldn't help but wonder what the reaction would be if, say, the big HMV store on Oxford Street decided to stock a comic-book with such a confrontational title. The Daily Mail would be baying for blood and prison sentences, I suspect!

Although the in-your-face title may suggest otherwise, Motherfucker is actually a very serious work as this blurb from the back cover attests...

Point 1: We want the power to determine the destiny of our black people. Point 2: We want full employment for our people. Point 3: We want black people no longer robbed by the capitalists. Point 4: We want decent housing, decent. Point 5: We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in society today.

My French is pretty rotten but from what I can gather the book is about the formation and development of the Black Panther Party in the US in the 1960s. As I say, my French is only a few notches above "J'mapelle Andy" and "Quelle heure est-il?" but with the help of Google Translate I'm going to try and read it. 

It may well take me a month or two though...