Pageturners: A Real-life Hero
John S. Clarke is one of Scotland’s great heroes, as great a hero as Pollard was a villain. He was a subversive character, which solves the problem of heroes. They can so easily be boring.
Welcome to Pageturners, a book I’m writing in which I share what I’ve learnt – and am still learning – about comic writing, film writing, novel writing and how new writers can sell their stories. I’ll publish a chapter or a section per week, available for free here on Iconoblast. And I welcome your feedback or questions, so do leave a comment below!
Missed the Pageturners intro? Read it here.
It’s hard to find heroes as cool as a villain like Pollard, but I did. Alas, to date, I haven’t found a home for him in one of my stories, but it’s not for want of trying.
John S. Clarke is one of Scotland’s great heroes, as great a hero as Pollard was a villain. And just as funny as Pollard was. Actually funnier, because he’s a genuine good guy. He also has the merit of being a subversive character, which solves the problem of heroes. They can so easily be boring. They need flaws or a dark side.
Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about him.
John Smith Clarke (4 February 1885 – 30 January 1959) was a British socialist politician, poet, author, newspaper editor, art expert and lion tamer. He was born in Jarrow, Tyne and Wear, and began performing in the circus from a young age—riding a horse bareback from age 10 and becoming the country's youngest lion tamer at age 17. In his early life he was also a sailor and gun runner for Russian revolutionaries. During the First World War he wrote for publications which expressed an anti-war sentiment and gave anti-war lectures, which forced him to go into hiding in Arleston near Derby. He was part of a group of Socialist Labour Party conscientious objectors called the 'flying corps' who evaded the authorities and avoided prosecution.
Working in conjunction with Phil Vaughan and James Devlin (Vietnam Zombie Holocaust) I came up with a fictional comic strip version of Glaswegian John S. Clarke, an important member of the British resistance to World War One. Entitled Liontamer, because of Clarke’s circus background, it symbolised his taming of the British imperial lion. It had to be fictionalised to make it suitable for a comic book audience.
It’s a process I tried once before with Charles Fort: the guy who wrote all those amazing books such as Book of the Damned, about weird phenomena. I found myself more interested in Fort the man than the bizarre events he recorded. He was a most extraordinary character, but real life can be restricting, so eventually I went for an imaginary character, inspired by Fort: Shadowslayer, illustrated by Eric Larnoy and published by Editions Glenat.
Here’s a character page and I think you’ll agree that James and Phil have done a fantastic job on this hero.
We couldn’t get that story away, but I later found the circus background inspiring for Hellbreaker’s origins. I also considered featuring him in the context of my text novel and explored in some considerable detail his Romany background, thinking, in the back of my mind, of Peaky Blinders. But Stephen Knight, the creator, has a Romany connection, and I don't. So in the end, I used an Irish real-life character as my inspiration for one aspect of the novel. It’s worth stressing this for anyone searching for heroes and villains: do try to base them on people you have some family or emotional connection with. It makes all the difference.
But I so want Clarke to be remembered. I told a BBC radio crew from Glasgow – who interviewed me about my work – that Clarke would make a brilliant subject for a documentary during the centenary years of the Great War. They enthusiastically agreed, but of course nothing happened. The story of conscientious objectors and resistance to the war could not be covered, in a crude but effective attempt by the British establishment to erase the truth from our memory and present the conflict as an honourable and necessary war. Why? In order to justify current conflicts.
And Clarke is also a working class hero, of course. They are absolute anathema to the British establishment. They just might give people ideas about questioning the public school prats, the Rees-Moggs and Boris Johnsons, who we’re meant to look up to. Arguably Peaky Blinders succeeded with working class ‘heroes’, but they are presented as gangsters, as villains who will likely come to a bad end. They still need to know their place.
Here a few examples of Clarke’s humour and wit to remember this great man by.
He was a Member of Parliament for Glasgow and put snakes in another MP’s pocket!
He wrote a parody of Kipling’s If, which was popular on Clydeside. Here are some verses from it:
If you can get up in the early dawn,
Say, five o’clock, or even half-past four,
And Winter’s howling, snowy blizzards scorn,
In one mad gallop to the factory door:
If on muck you labour hard all day,
Mid soot, and stink, and noisy wheels and belts,
Until your back is bent, your hair is grey,
And the brain inside your skull sags in and melts.
If you can see your wife and kiddies lack
The joys and pleasures you yourself create
For parasites, who live upon your back,
And view with unconcern their wretched fate:
If you can do these things with easy mind,
And live and die in slums with swine’s content,
To every social ill be deaf and blind,
And leave it all to God and Parliament:
There is but one thing left for you to do,
For Mankind’s sake go out and buy a gun,
And blow your rotten brains to bits, for you
Have got no guts, my son.
He wrote humorous epitaphs about men he despised, like Alex Gordon, the agent provocateur of the British secret service who betrayed Alice Wheeldon, one of the most inspiring and courageous heroines of the Great War. Alice was a British resistance leader, part of a Secret Army, every bit as heroic and patriotic as the French resistance, but the media has made sure you have probably never heard of this great woman.
Epitaph on Alex Gordon
Stop! Stranger, thou art near the spot
Marked by this cross metallic
Where buried deep doth lie and rot
The corpse of filthy Alex.
And maggot worms in swarms below,
Compete with one another,
To shedding tears of bitter woe,
To mourn – not eat – a brother.
Here’s another one about a Tory dandy MP who sported magnificent moustaches. The kind of Eton toff we know only too well from our own era.
Epitaph on D. Graham Pole
Beneath this slab of marble wide
Poor Pole has come a cropper
His stock and spats are laid aside,
And mildewed is his topper.
For picturesque appearance Fate
Ordained him chief of clan:
Beau Brummell, he was second rate
And Nash – an also ran.
But oh! Alas! How deep the fall,
For in this awesome hole –
A pair of mutton chops is all
That’s left of Graham Pole
Imagine what Clarke would have had to say about Rees-Mogg!