Welcome to my new book And Where Will It All End? The Secret History of Comics, where I take you behind the scenes to show you how your favourite subversive characters were created.
I’m serialising the book, releasing a new chapter every week. You can read the intro here, it’s available for everyone. Every subsequent part has a free preview and the rest of it is for paying subscribers only, so if you’d like access to ALL of my Secret History of Comics as I release it every week (plus other benefits, check them out here), please consider subscribing: it’s £5 per month or £50 per year. I’m offering a free seven-day trial on Iconoblast, so you can try it out.
After The Day of the Dead, another Law novella followed: Cloak of Evil (see The Secret History: Marshal Law bonus post for my commentary on Kevin’s illustrations). This time, Kevin was far more involved in the writing – hence why he’s credited on the collected edition: Origins.
We based it on the Christine Keeler scandal and Christine made a great vacuous superheroine. Kevin’s input was fantastic and very funny, especially on our depiction of Christine. Our version here is Kassie Kelly. Websniffer runs a website called Web of Shame. Serge is a Russian spy also known as KGBH. Dan Powers, like John Profumo, is Minister for War and he is in charge of a secret super hero program.
Websniffer and Marshal Law seemed to think she'd been pumping Dan for secret information and passing it to Serge. But in all the time she'd known him, she and Dan had never had any pillow talk. He usually went straight to sleep. Often, when she talked to him in the day, he'd fall asleep in mid-conversation. He told her it was a medical disorder he suffered from. Many people she talked to seemed to suffer from this complaint.
But it might explain some of the odd things Serge had said to her. He must have been trying to recruit her as a spy.
She remembered how when the Russian was going home on leave, he told her how his country needed more information on the American super hero program, genetic codes and manipulating DNA. He indicated that he could be very generous...
She replied,"Will you send me a present from Moscow?"
He'd looked at her curiously and asked if she wanted him to send her a code-book?
"No," she replied. "A handbag with clutch action."
He did send her the handbag. There was a book with lots of numbers inside. It appeared to be full up so she threw it away. It was no use as a diary. Serge - how could he? The bag was clearly second-hand with someone else's stuff inside.
On another occasion he gave her a monographed handkerchief as a present. There was a microdot in the corner with false information on it. He wanted to see if she would pass it on to Dan Powers. She saw the nasty blob on the handkerchief and got her mother to boil- wash it.
Serge was impressed when she told him. No one could possibly be that stupid. What a Mata Hari.
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