THE MUSE OF FREEDOM
Planning the year ahead: a Pageturners Extra
I thought it would be interesting for you to see my writing plans for the year ahead. And perhaps to encourage others to follow
Creatively and financially, it looks like it will be my best year so far and the reason for this is because I’m simply following the Muse. Whether she is a construct of the subconscious, an external supernatural force, the power of the imagination, or a Greek Goddess, who can say, but I write about her in some detail in PAGETURNERS.
If a writer doesn’t follow their Muse, their progress is likely to be irregular and experience setbacks.
So, for many years, I continued writing for 2000AD, which – because it follows an archaic system of buying all rights – cannot, by definition, satisfy the Muse and therefore, from time to time, became her opponent.
Such a sweatshop system doesn’t allow for the free flow of ideas. Rather, it encourages a ‘fast-food’ methodology, with no time to think. Such pulp fiction is anathema to the Muse. It has always been that way for British comics: D.C. Thomson; Rebellion; and Panini UK - which are, embarrassingly, still out of step with the rest of the global publishing world in 2025.
Thus I would have carried on writing Sláine if I had a six week period to Muse on his future. That was turned down, and so I walked. I had no choice – The Muse is She Who Must Be Obeyed.
I’ve written about the Brit comics poor rights deal many times before, so all I will add just now is that in 1868, Louisa M Alcott won a comparable battle with her publisher who wanted to buy all rights to her classic Little Women. This would have given the publisher control over her characters and sequels. Just as Rebellion and the others still insist upon control today. The publisher offered her a huge advance to buy all rights.
Louisa, driven by her Muse, turned down the advance and insisted on control of her own creativity.
So British comics are still operating a system of control by publishers that was being successfully challenged as long ago as 1868!
Sweatshop writing always means a drop in quality, a need to take short-cuts, which I’ve never been prepared to do. When circumstances have forced it upon me, it’s cost me.
So here’s the alternative when a creator follows their Muse.
The months and the time allotted are provisional and will doubtless move around the calendar, because the Muse is all about Freedom and not being tied down and turned into a wage slave.
JANUARY – HELLBREAKER
Two weeks writing the opening sequence to the forty-eight page book, created by myself and artist Ian Ashcroft.
The rest of the book is written, drawn and painted, I just have a roughly eight-page sequence to write to start the book.
It definitely requires the assistance of the Muse to hit the right note. Eight pages wouldn’t normally take me two weeks, but it needs what Mick McMahon famously called ‘staring out the window time.’
Communion with the Muse.
I need to Muse on what the story is all about and how it will appeal to its audience before writing it.
Then the rest of the month would be taken up with editing and overseeing the lettering of the book, ready to do a Kickstarter later in the year.
FEBRUARY – RAGTIME SOLDIER
Artists: Gary Welsh and Phil Vaughan
Eleven pages are already written and drawn, so it requires a further thirty-seven pages to complete the book.
I talked about Ragtime Soldier a few posts ago.
I’ve done most of the research, but I want to go over my research again and see what else I can discover about the Forced March drug given to soldiers in WW1, produced by the Big Pharma of its day: Henry Wellcome (today known as the Wellcome Trust).
And the tragic aftermath with soldiers addicted to the drug (cocaine and caffeine) for the rest of their lives.
And I need to Muse about what event Dundee’s Black Watch were involved in during the Battle of the Somme.
And the hero’s family back in Dundee.
It all needs to be factually correct. And press the right emotional buttons. This is the successor to Charley’s War, after all.
So research may take another week. Writing: two or three weeks.
Gary and Phil have already done a brilliant job, and with a full-length book it will show their talents off to best advantage.
I’ll spend some time on the Kickstarter, talking about the cover etc.
The late, great Ian Kennedy did the first Ragtime cover, and several names have been suggested for an artist to follow in his illustrious footsteps.
This Kickstarter will be run by Comic Scene, who are at the heart of Scottish comics.
MARCH – PROJECT X
This work offer came out of the blue and I’ve had to make space for it on my calendar.
It’s still not firmed up, so I have to be rather vague about it, I’m afraid.
But it has two big attractions. Firstly, it provides another outlet for a creator-owned intellectual property with a talented artist.
Secondly, it could sell on the newsstands.
This is always problematic, but still feasible. I know my Muse is especially keen on the newsstand market because my story will be reaching kids and adults who are unlikely to visit comic shops. They are also the original market for comics, on which the industry has been built.
Some ‘elitist’ creators may have ‘outgrown’ what they might disdainfully call ‘kids comics’, but I never will.
The more ‘downmarket’ the comic, the better I like it.
Fuck elitism!
APRIL & MAY - OTTO VAMPIRE KNIGHT
It’s still early to share all the details, but it’s a definite.
Two books x 60 pages each.
I’ve roughly mapped the story out. I’ll probably write volume one over the two months.
It will be in French, but there will be an English language digital edition at least.
The artist has a HUMUNGUS following. His last graphic novel of 120 pages sold 80,000 copies.
Yeah, you read that right: 80,000 copies!
It features the subterrene that I described in 'No Human’s Land’ Chapter 17 of Pageturners.
If you haven’t read that chapter of Pageturners, think ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Earth’.
The artist has designed the subterrene and it looks amazing.
By a typical ‘coincidence’, a few days later we had a social evening with two friends of ours here in our village. One of them was the CEO of a global mining company.
What are the chances?! That’s the Muse in action.
I’m nervous about showing her the subterrene in case she doesn’t like the way the blades are drawn. And she’s also going to ask tricky questions about how the blades are powered and how far it can travel.
Er…
If the subterrene has a tanker of fuel following it, it just doesn’t look as cool. But it needs to travel several miles across Hell.
H’mm.
So I need to think about all that!
Definitely ‘staring out the window’ time.
JUNE AND JULY – BATHORY, QUEEN OF THE VAMPIRES
Similar set-up to Otto.
Both stories were inspired by Olivier Ledroit, co-creator of Requiem.
He suggested some amazing ideas for Bathory, which I and another great French artist loved.
Olivier also set-up two Requiem stories for a special Hellfest issue of Metal Hurlant. One will be drawn by Olivier. The other by the Otto artist.
They’ve both been to Hellfest many times – the leading European Heavy Metal music festival, so it’s going to look amazing.
Just as ‘Stan Lee presents’ the Marvel universe, so I think Olivier has made the Requiem universe into an ever growing world of amazing vampiric characters.
For the Bathory story, I came up with an authentic evil Catholic werewolf bishop based in Iceland. He is the prime villain. And a writer’s dream – a complete and utter bastard.
The French artist liked my outline and told us that he’d just come back from a holiday in Iceland!
What are the chances?! It’s the Muse again.
This story is at an earlier stage of development than Otto, and needs more research – especially on the Bronze age origins of Bathory in an earlier incarnation.
AUGUST - HOLIDAY
Chances are it might be earlier or later in the year, but we’re determined to take two weeks holiday and two weeks on doing other stuff, like gardening, painting the house etc.
SEPTEMBER & OCTOBER – PROJECT X CONTINUED
My aim would be to create a forty-eight-page book, so it will need a total of two to three months to achieve this.
If it doesn’t happen, there are many rivals competing for this time slot. Principally:
Helping Lisa with Kickstarters on Sha Volumes 2 and 3, American Reaper (3 volumes), and Hellbreaker (1 volume).
And also helping Comic Scene with Ragtime Soldier kickstarter.
But also writing my text WW1 thriller Sean Stone, which I’ve reluctantly had to put on hold for 2025.
NOVEMBER –CAMPAIGN FOR JUSTICE
It’s likely to be earlier in the year, but every year I devote at least a month to campaigning for justice against the evils of the Catholic Church.
As I write stories about evil, it’s actually rewarding to study the real life evil that is the Catholic Church, easily equivalent, over time, to the more short-lived Nazis or the Mafia.
I’m a ‘McKenzie Friend’ to a fellow Catholic Survivor, Rafael Viola. Rafael is incredibly bright, but had a shit education, courtesy of the Catholic Church. They actually wrote him off as retarded because of his heavy Glasgow accent, which they didn’t understand. So, as a McKenzie friend, I compose various letters on Rafael’s behalf and assist him in his goals.
(I’d love to see some upper class English twat be written off as retarded because they didn’t understand his braying tones in Glasgow.)
Currently, we are dealing with the Nuns who ran Croome Court and Father Hudson Homes, where Rafael had the misfortune to go.
If you look up these places online you’ll see they are appalling hell-holes with myriad accounts of physical and sexual abuse and allegations of child trafficking (to Australia) and murder.
Despite a strong recommendation at IICSA (the Independent inquiry into child sexual abuse) the current Nuns have decided, in their great wisdom, there is no need to investigate the criminal behaviour of their predecessors. They’ve marked their own homework and generously awarded themselves 10 out of 10.
So Rafael and I are challenging them through their lawyer, whom these holy women use to shield them from Survivors.
And we also have the De La Salle Brothers (my old school and the inspiration for Torquemada), who also taught Rafael at St Gilbert’s approved school.
The BBC describes the place as ‘Hymns and screams. Physical, sexual and emotional abuse at St G’s.’
As Rafael relates in his book, Stealing Lives, ‘abuse included force feeding boys their own vomit. Others were raped and molested in many unspeakable ways… As the boys were viewed as delinquent, the De La Salle Brothers… tortured them as they pleased.’
‘Some of the De La Salle Brothers …(were) officially charged with rape… some were reallowed as teachers after their sentences were fulfilled.’
‘Some documents are sealed until 2044.This might be to do with their secret involvement with illegal and classified experimentation on the boys.’
Rafael (who self-harmed during his time there) has tried to bring action against the De La Salles. But these holy men have told him (via their solicitor) that they worked for the Home Office and therefore they are not responsible for their crimes. Instead, Survivors should sue the Home Office.
And no apology, of course, from these Men of God, even though the head of Catholic Safeguarding admitted to me in a recorded zoom interview I did with her, ‘The optics on this do not look good.’
Just a bit.
So I’ll be talking over all of this with Rafael and seeing if there is a way forward.
DECEMBER – CONTINGENCY MONTH
In any year planner, it’s valuable to have a contingency month to deal with projects that took longer than expected.
Or unforeseen situations and setbacks that I hadn’t taken into account.
Or Kickstarters that may need more input from me.
And stories that may have speeded up, so artists are ready for the next step sooner than expected.
For example, Olivier Ledroit is busy in 2025 on the final volume 13 of Requiem Vampire Knight.
He may need some changes to my story. The editor leaves us to our own devices. Unlike in the UK, the editor recognises we’ve been in this business long enough to know what we’re doing. But Olivier may want changes for whatever reasons, often to do with space and pacing. But Olivier may also speed ahead and want to discuss our proposed new Requiem series – a sequel, in fact, set here on Earth – in which case I need to be ready.
I’ve outlined the new Requiem series approximately, (Featuring a werewolf Torquemada), but I’m sure Olivier will have new ideas to add.
It’s incredible to think that the ever-expanding, creator-owned universe of Requiem, Otto, Bathory, Hellfest, Manga Requiem and Claudia, all began with a story rejected by Dave Bishop, then editor of 2000AD.
I’m convinced the Muse, mindful of the saga’s potential in France, whispered in his ear and got him to turn it down.
So Dave actually did me a huge favour.
So that’s my year ahead. All the best with your year ahead and I hope it’s looking equally promising.
Happy New Year from Lisa and I and may your Muse go with you!
All power to you! ✌️❤️✊️
Happy new year to you too! Looks like a busy, fruitful year to come!