Pageturners: Where Spacewarp came from
'It's been a real struggle finding actual comics, rather than free gift bagged toy franchise promos, for my kids growing up.'
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.
A while back, I watched a video clip of a young lad, Theo, being interviewed by his dad, Chris, about my Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth which he was avidly reading. He particularly liked the alien Tweak because he was clever, yet pretended to be stupid. And Satanus because he was such a monster. My retweet of that video got 187 likes, 23 retweets and 70,600 impressions.
Here’s Chris’s comments on the subject: ‘It's been a real struggle finding actual comics, rather than free gift bagged toy franchise promos, for my kids growing up. There's Phoenix and the Beano, both of which are great, but slim pickings for those of us who grew up with dozens of titles every single week! So now he's taken to exploring vintage 2000AD, it's a bit of a boon. It's astonishing - he's devouring this stuff so quickly, it's properly turning lights on lights in his head and giving him ideas and making him think about stuff. And it's totally age-appropriate, the early stuff! And plenty of his young pals are the same. THE MARKET IS THERE! Sure, they're into video games and YouTube stars and tablets and whatnot, but ultimately they want stories that tickle their imagination. And that can be a film, a book, a TV show... or a comic.’
So this and similar encouragement and comments were the inspiration for Spacewarp.
Here’s a brief overview of what I had in mind:
Spacewarp will be a one-shot anthology, popular culture SF comic featuring new, or lesser-known (not established) artists. Drawn to professional standard, it will be for the equivalent of 2000AD’s original core readership: a comic that was enjoyed by all age groups. I want Spacewarp to be a similar age-buster. Just like Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, Harry Potter and James Bond. Such great fiction can be enjoyed by anyone, any age.
It will be available as print on demand and digital, and it will be creator-owned by the artists and the writer.
It’s written and drawn with payment by royalties.
It’s not satire or homage to the past, it’s new stories with something new to say. It’ll be black and white. No colour. And the artists must be of the same high standard as the original 2000AD. Not cartoon style and not fanzine art.
Story and theme-wise, Spacewarp is a unifying and terrifying event that affects all the stories as it warps time, space, reality and people.
Introduced by alien robot editor, Schlock, the comic will have male and female characters (no Marvel comics anatomy), modern sensibilities and varied ethnicity, so it can be enjoyed by everyone.
The comic has two broad objectives:
First, to encourage new talent and prove the viability of a proper copyright deal based on the French comics industry standard (the best in the world).
Second, to show that it’s possible to recapture comics’ original core younger audience. The audience that the industry wilfully deserted and that defeatists don’t believe can be catered for anymore and doesn’t really understand, anyway, preferring ‘adult’ comics. Although these industry pundits and professionals never quite dare to come out and say it, it’s clear to me that they actually dislike that youth audience.
We had a great range of stories in Spacewarp: JURASSIC PUNX (dinosaurs), with art by Bruno Stahl; SF1 (future war), with art by Ade Hughes; XECUTIONERS (future cops), with art by Gareth Sleightholme; FU-TANTS (future teenage mutants), with art by Mike Donaldson; SLAYER (galactic war), with art by James Newell, and HELLBREAKER, with art by Ian Ashcroft. If you want to find out more about Spacewarp, head over to our website, which has loads of bonus material and a free ‘Future Schlock’ story you can download.
Here I’ll just talk about HELLBREAKER which ran to 8 pages in Spacewarp. Ian Ashcroft was the chosen artist. He ticked all the boxes and got Hellbreaker and McNeal spot on. Like all the other Spacewarp artists, he did a great job on the story.
A full length, colour 48-page version of Hellbreaker by Ian should be out next year.
HELLBREAKER
INFERNALS, the Dead sentenced to eternal punishment in Hell, have broken out of their prison and returned to Earth to exact vengeance on the Living.
The first Infernal to escape is our protagonist DE LA RUE.
Tall, sinister, shadowy in the tradition of any number of noir characters like Dracula, the Shadow, Fantomas, Batman, Jack the Ripper etc.
He was the Last Man in Britain to be hanged. And the First Man to escape from Hell.
All Infernals burn internally for all eternity but become USED to it over the centuries and usually show no external sign they are on fire.
When they ‘warp’ into flame mode (similar to a werewolf warping into beast mode) they can then extinguish their flames and recover in a remarkably short period of time.
He is stunningly handsome. Just as some murderers in prison attract a huge fan following, he will similarly attract a massive following on social media where he is seen as a modern day Robin Hood.
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR McNEAL is his deadly enemy. She leads a special anti-infernal squad in the Department of Infernal Affairs. But she finds herself strangely attracted to Hellbreaker.
DETECTIVE SERGEANT ASQUITH This very special character, created by George McDonald, is an old-school copper in the mould of DCI Gene Hunt in Life on Mars and DI Jack Regan in The Sweeney.