This is the second issue of Deadpool Team-Up I’ve written, and again I’m joined by Matteo Scalera here. Matteo drew the Captain Britain issue I wrote and I really enjoyed his work there. He’s got a nice line in comic sensibility and does the slapstick stuff very well indeed, which this type of comedy comic needs. Having said that, there’s nothing comical about Thor (not even the wings on that helmet). Deadpool works best when he’s bouncing off a straight man, and the more pompous that straight man, the bigger the bounce. This story: ‘Mjolnir and Far’ (ouch) was loads of fun to write, not least for the fact that I couldn’t believe I was writing Thor. Fanboy squeee, I believe the phrase is. Hopefully just how much I like this character comes across through Deadpool’s one-liners, just as it did in the Cap Britain issue. Oh, and cover’s by Humberto Ramos, and it’s great:

Also, the new LOW LIFE story, HOSTILE TAKEOVER, starts in 2000AD Prog 1700, which is out from tomorrow, I think. Me and D’isreali bringing the Yakuza to Mega City One, and ripping the Wally Squad to pieces along the way. I think it’s fair to say that this is a game changer for Aimee Nixon, Dirty Frank and co. Here’s a couple of D’isreali’s brilliant pages.

I’ve written an eight page SON OF SATAN story called ‘Silence’ for Marvel’s October-shipping black and white horror anthology. The cover, below, is by my old Cla$$war collaborater Travel Foreman and interiors are by an Argentinian artist called Pablo Peppino. He’s done some Hellblazer in the past, which perfectly suits this creepy little story, which was part inspired by my love of Andrew Smith’s MOONDUST (very recommended) and tells the tale of the aftermath of a NASA mission where one of the three astronauts simpy vanishes into thin air during their capsule’s comms blackout during re-entry. Damon Hellstrom is Marvel’s John Constantine, really. Or he should be. With a big pitchfork.

Also, LOW LIFE: HOSTILE TAKEOVER (PARANOIA MK. 2) starts in 2000AD Prog 1700 in a few weeks. It’s a ten parter, with a long title. I like long titles at the moment, for some reason. And it features the art of D’Isreali and it is, frankly, an absolute treat to see your scripts transformed into things this pretty.

Spider-Man.

That’s one of Mike Fyles’ killer covers for the series. And Koi Turnbull (Fathom) is drawing #2.

Anyway, this has been a really interesting process for me. Four writers – Rick Remender, Stuart Moore, John Ostrander and myself – are all writing individual issues (Rick’s bookending it with #1 and #5), and, starting with a conference call off the back of Rick’s script for #1, we’ve acted as a kind of email ‘writer’s room’ throughout the plotting. Everyone’s contributed ideas and notes, everyone has been very cool, supportive and respectful of each other and it seems to have worked out really well. I’ve never been involved in something this collaborative with the writing before and it’s been really enjoyable and quite inspiring. Put us on a tour bus together for a year and we’d no doubt end up with major substance abuse issues, fatal light airplane crashes, cousin marrying, divorces and jail time, but this has really worked. And generated a story that could be something quite powerful (we hope).

ONE MONTH TO LIVE tells the tale of Dennis Sykes, an ordinary guy in New York who, in true Marvel tradition, suffers an accident that gives him superpowers. The catch is that the accident also leaves him with one month to live. So, the question is, what does he do with the time left to him?

Also solicited for September is GHOST RIDER: SHADOWLAND by myself and Clayton Crain. I’ve discussed this previously, but here’s the cover and the solicit.

SHADOWLAND TIE-IN! When the Spirit Of Vengeance is summoned to the front lines of the battle for the soul of New York, Ghost Rider finds himself a pawn in a larger game, and if he wants his freedom back he’s going have to head for Japan and take on the might of The Hand where its power is strongest – in its home base. But in the far east, he’ll find everyone’s afraid of something… even the Ghost Rider.

Also solicited in September is the brilliant Laurence Campbell’s new series DEADPOOL PULP. I’ve seen a lot of the pages for this and it looks gorgeous. Well worth picking up.

And, while I’m plugging friends’ stuff, Paul Cornell’s ACTION COMICS run starts at the end of June. That’s a dream job and perfect for Paul, I think. I’ll be buying.

The convention was fun, as ever. Very chilled atmosphere this year, I felt. Maybe it was the sunshine, but all concerned seemed to be in a good state of mind, and it’s a blast to spend time with such talented, funny people. I laughed more than I have in ages. Maybe the colossal sleep deprivation contributed. And the Marvel and 2000AD panels on the Sunday both seemed to go well. Fun.

Oh, THE GRIEVOUS JOURNEY OF ICHABOD AZREAL… has just two episodes left in 2000AD. I’ll be sorry to see it go. Have loved reading it every week and seeing what Dom Reardon’s done with it. Maybe we’ll do another series.

http://marvel.com/news/comicstories.12522.shadowland~colon~_back_with_a_vengeance

If you’ve seen Clayton’s previous work on Ghost Rider you’ll know you’re in for a treat. He sent through page one of our issue a week or so back and it was, hyperbole aside, quite amazing.

Here’s a fine example of how he draws Ghost Rider from his prior collaboration with Garth Ennis. Purty:

UPDATE Deadpool #1000 has just been solicited by Marvel for August. It features a six-pager by myself and Philip Bond. Yep, the same Philip Bond whose work I loved in books like Kill Your Boyfriend. Crazy, innit. Lots of other cool people in this ‘jam’ issue. Here’s the Dave Johnson cover and the full solicit:

DEADPOOL #1000
Written by DAVE LAPHAM, PETER BAGGE, ADAM GLASS, HOWARD CHAYKIN, FRED VAN LENTE, ROB WILLIAMS & MORE!
Penciled by JEROME OPENA, PACO MEDINA & PHILP BOND, DAVE LAPHAM, PETER BAGGE, HOWARD CHAYKIN & MORE!
Cover by DAVE JOHNSON
Has it really been 100 issues since Deadpool #900? Who cares! Some of comics’ top creators take aim at the Merc with a Mouth in this massive 104-page special that pits the Deadpool against a cavalcade of baddies – including urban cannibals…underage hit men…mimes from outer space…and Lady Luck herself.
104 PGS./Parental Advisory …$4.99

Anyone interested in how I lay out my scripts can find my recent JUDGE DREDD, Out Law, which was drawn by Guy Davis, on the 2000AD Review website. Gavin Hanly, who runs the site, has done a very nice job of breaking the script down with some of Guy’s final panels, so people can see how my visual descriptions were translated to the page.

http://www.2000adreview.co.uk/site/index.php/Articles/Script-to-page-Judge-Dredd-Out-Law.html

Finally, I’ll be at the Bristol Comics Expo this coming weekend 22-23rd. I’m signing at the com.x table at some point – not sure of times yet. Laurence Campbell and I will also be signing (me)/sketching (him) at the main signing table from:

Saturday 5-6pm
Sunday 2-3pm

I’m also down to do the Marvel panel on Sunday (noon) and I’m sure I’ll do the 2000AD panel at 2.45. Erm, that clashes with the end of the signing. But I can’t miss Al Ewing in a plastic green mask, if such an event is due to happen again. Borag Thung!

Hopefully see you there.

One of the bizarre things about writing a long form series for 2000AD is how *long* it takes to write the thing, how *long* the artist takes to draw it, and then you see the episodes fly past weekly and, poof, it’s gone. (cue Basil Fawltey going “zzschum. What was that? That was your life, mate…”) Ichabod took ages to write. Not because of any enormous problems with the writing, more that we started the thing a long time ago. Now it’s going to over in just beyond a month. Odd.

I’ve been really happy with it though. Lots of things I love about this series. The overall lyrical tone, the way Dom Reardon brings atmosphere – and the black and white, spot colour mix works really well, even if I do say so myself. Someone on the 2000AD message board nailed it. It’s like the Wizard Of Oz in reverse, which was exactly what I was hoping for. Also, Ichabod is really all my alt-country music faves in comic strip form, featuring images and scenes that I wanted to write for years and finally crowbarred into one strip. At one point it was going to be called ‘Via Chicago’ (after a Wilco song) and was going to be about a WW2 US Marine. But I think a western really suits it. And if you want a spectral world, Dom Reardon’s your man. And the experiment of making the protagonist a ruthless mass murderer has been an interesting one from my point of view. Hope people like the ending. Maybe we’ll do some more.

DEADPOOL TEAM-UP #893 comes out this week, by myself and ‘no doubt a big future star’ Matteo Scalera (who’s from Parma in North Italy). Nice colour job too by Matt Wilson. I’ve talked about this previously but needless to say I’m very excited to have a Captain Britain comic written by me on the shelves. Really enjoyed writing Deadpool too. Very Dirty Frank in the comedy insanity stakes.

There’s a five page preview here, which made me laugh out loud and I wrote it. Very sad, I’m fully aware:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/prev_img.php?pid=5128&pg=3

I’ve done a few other Marvel jobs of late. One of which is being announced later this week. I’ll talk about it when I’m able. But I’m really enjoying writing the Marvel characters I’ve loved since childhood. It’s a treat for me. And I get paid to do it too.

ROBOCOP is continuing from Dynamite. Issue five is a standalone that’s probably my favourite of the series so far, with what I hope is a fairly shocking twist for longtime Robocop fans. I’m expecting a few pissed off emails heading Dynamite’s way. Here’s the cover:

http://www.dynamiteentertainment.com/htmlfiles/viewProduct.html?PRO=C725130144478

‘Meat’, the JUDGE DREDD story by myself and the brilliant Dylan Teague (an all-Welsh production) will be in June (?)’s Judge Dredd Megazine #299. Check out the amazing Cliff Robinson cover:

http://www.comixology.com/sku/APR101054/Judge-Dredd-Megazine-299

Boo Cook, all-round top man and artist on Asylum and my first ever Dredd, The Biographer (which I have a big soft spot for), is also currently drawing a one-off Dredd that I’ve written. It’s called ‘The Slow Walk’ and came from an idea of Boo’s. Not sure when thats out.

Also incoming for 2000AD is the next LOW LIFE series, which I’m currently writing. I should be writing it instead of updating this bloody blog. It’s called ‘Hostile Takeover (Paranoia Mk. 2)’ and the wonderful D’Isreali is back on art, doing brilliant design work and angelic, graceful things with Mega City 1 architecture. Take a look at a sneak preview:

So, getting the chance to write Captain Britain is an absolute thrill for me. In DEADPOOL TEAM-UP #893, coming in May, the merc with a mouth comes to London to steal Slaymaster’s old assassin tech, and Brian Braddock isn’t about to let that happen. Yes, this is the Slaymaster I read in Daredevils back in ’83 – it all comes back around.

Lots of fun writing Deadpool too. I’ve never read a lot of Deadpool comics but it occurred to me that he’s pretty much Low Life’s Dirty Frank in the ‘batshit crazy for comedy’ stakes, and I enjoy writing those sorts of strips. And the art by Matteo Scalera, an Italian artist I wasn’t aware of prior to working together here, is pleasingly great. He’s got a nice attitude and energy about his pages which suits Deadpool really well, I think. I’m sure you’ll see him on other Deadpool books in the future. And a cover by Humberto Ramos too!

I’m really happy to see this collected. It was my second story for 2000AD, written, probably, back in 2002-03, if memory serves. We opened with Pete Doherty (Shaolin Cowboy) on art, and the first episode by Pete still looks terrific. Pete had to drop out and Laurence Campbell took over. It was the first collaboration between Laurence and I, something we’ve since taken on to Wolverine, Punisher Max and hopefully more in the future. The series was eventually published in 2005, I think.

Reading it back in one sitting this weekend, it has its flaws, and some of the storytelling and panel layouts I was playing with are the most ambitious I’ve ever attempted. I’ve certainly not tried anything like it since.

But I have a huge soft spot for this story. There’s so many things I love about Breathing Space – the atmosphere, the overall sombre tone, the doomed narrative, which is wilfully uncommercial. I pitched it to 2000AD’s editor as a one-off. Every 2000AD series wants to create sequels and follow-ups, but Breathing Space definitely wouldn’t be back. I don’t think it’s spoiling anything to say the protagonist dies in episode one… It’s also the most personal story I’ve ever written, probably, reflecting my state of mind at the time.

And it looks gorgeous. Laurence did his usual stunning job on it (Lee Townsend provided inks, so fans of Laurence’s US work where he inks himself can contrast and compare) and Pete came back to colour the series with the same uniform cold blue/grey tone that we talked about when we conceived the story. Pete’s colour job on Breathing Space is my favourite I’ve had on any of my comics. And he works with Laurence brilliantly. It’d be great if the three of us could do something else together in the future.

The imminent upcoming is the debut of the new ROBOCOP ongoing from Dynamite, which is out January 27th. Written by myself and drawn by the excellent Fabiano Neves (Red Sonja, Army Of Darkness), hopefully it’ll give fans the same visceral Verhoeven-like thrill they received from the first movie, back in the ’80s. That’s the tone we’re aiming for anyway. Lots of ED-209s, hyper violence and a “little bit of satire” as Ben Elton may have said years ago, right before he went off and wrote an uplifting musical about the troubles in Northern Ireland with Andrew Lloyd Webber (a short-lived run in London’s West End, if you can believe that. I know, me neither. Shame).

The alternate cover from issue one, by Johnny D, below.

And while we’re at it, here’s the cover from #2, by Stephen Segovia:

PUNISHER MAX: GET CASTLE came out January 6^th, right when Britain was enduring a second ice age. Personally, I was incredibly happy with how this turned out. It was one of the few times in my comics career I’ve read the final proof and couldn’t believe I’d written something this good. And a lot of the praise for that goes to Laurence Campbell, whose storytelling matched my script pretty perfectly – nailing the tone, the atmosphere, hitting exactly the right dramatic beats. It’s one of the high points of my comics career thus far, for me, regardless of sales and CV. It was exactly the story I wanted to tell, if that makes sense. Considering how nervous I was of writing the same world that Garth Ennis created in his extraordinary Punisher Max run, and my wondering whether I could write something that dark, the end result was incredibly pleasing. If a little worrying. I suddenly feel the Catholic guilt-like need to write some sweet children’s stories to make penance. Possibly with bunnies, and bears, and M249 Squad Automatic Weapons (SAWs). NO!!! Get Castle seemed to go down pretty well, with excellent reviews from IGN, Blair Butler, Ain’t It Cool News and iFanboy. Shame the CBR reviewer decided to kick me repeatedly until I internally bled, but you can’t win them all.

The JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE in March (#295, I think) will feature a one-off Judge Dredd tale by myself and one of my absolute favourite artists, Guy Davis (BPRD, The Marquis). I couldn’t believe it when Guy agreed to draw this, especially given the fact that he was named ‘Best Penciller/Inker’ in the 2009 Eisner Awards. Anyone who’s seen his incredible talent for creature designs (and Revolution-era French architecture, in visually arresting The Marquis) will know that he’s an amazing talent with a fairly unique style, and it turns out, a very nice guy. When I was writing for Star Wars Tales for Dark Horse Comics I’d asked Guy if he’d like to draw a short Star Wars story. It never came off but I’d remembered that he was a big fan of Judge Dredd and the early 2000AD Cursed Earth stories, so when I was asked to pitch a Dredd tale in the Cursed Earth, I thought I’d chance my arm and ask Guy if he was interested. He said yes. Very much looking forward to seeing this in print.

I’ve got another ten page one-off Dredd on the way, this time drawn by Dylan Teague (see pic below). The other night I received some of Dylan’s pages; the next morning I received Guy’s pencils. It felt, within a 12-hour span, that I’d been given something like my own Brian Bolland and Mick McMahon Dredd strips. Both brilliant, both in enormously different styles, but still absolutely Dredd. I think the long time 2000AD fans are going to bust something when they see Dylan’s pages for this – his Dredd is like the bastard son of Bolland. Getting pages of your stories sent to you by world-class artists is one of the major joys of doing this job. It’s a great feeling when you can’t believe how good someone is making your story look. Of course, very occasionally you can’t believe how bad an artist is making your story look, but thankfully that’s a very rare occurrence. There are a lot of hugely talented artists in the comics biz.

There’s a bunch of other things happening that I can’t talk too much about here, including a few exciting things for American publishers, although I will say that the latest LOW LIFE pitch has been approved by 2000AD and I’ll be starting work on that soon. That’s a ten-parter called ‘Hostile Takeover (Paranoia Mk. 2)’ and it looks as though D’Isreali will be back on that – speaking of hugely talented artists. I loved CREATION the story we did together in 2009, so it’ll be fun to work together again.

And finally, for now, there’s a few signings to report. I’ll be at the Com.X ‘Forty-Five’ signings at Forbidden Planet in Cardiff on Jan 23^rd and in London on Feb 4^th. I’ll also be at the Exeter Comics Expo on Feb 13^th. There’s a load of top writers and artists appearing at each of those, so it should be worth attending. Say hello if you come along.

www.fantasyevents.org/exetercomicexpo/index.html

First and foremost, it was a complete joy to work with Laurence again. We’ve done a few stories together now – BREATHING SPACE for 2000AD and WOLVERINE: BETTER TO GIVE for Marvel a couple of years back. Not only is he a very good friend but he also happens to be one of my favourite artists and, in terms of storytelling sensibility, we’re usually on exactly the same page. I’d love to show you some of his work from this issue but I’d better not yet. But some of it – two pages from the final act in particular – are, for my money, the best work he’s done. Just extraordinarily good.

And yes, this is the Punisher comes to Wales. Why British writers feel the need to bring US characters to their stomping ground is a persistant mystery. From my point of view there’s something very funny about Frank Castle catching the 4.15 from Hereford. And I think he fits right in with some of the meaner parts of my South Wales home. There’s certain rough pubs where Frank walking in would make perfect sense.