With me and Si Spurrier. I can’t remember where this ran, so forgive the uncredited nature of it. But it might be fun..

 

So the book has been described as “a time-twisting romantic thriller-noir metaphysical black comedy”. Can we expect a lot of dark humor? 

SS: Heh, yeah, describing the book in genre terms has become something of a joke in itself. It doesn’t really sit terribly neatly in any single category… which is either a demonstration of how horribly inadequate genre terminology is, or a sign that PJ and I are contrary bastards who don’t like pigeonholes. To your description above I’d also add a hint of sci-fi and a glimmer of crime, but yeah… “time-twisty metaphysical rom-com thriller” covers most of the bases. 

It’s basically the story of a man who breaks all the rules of existential reality in order to be reunited with the woman he loves… except told from the point of view of the violent thug sent by the Divine Authority to stop him.

Hence, yeah, a typically bleak humour suffuses the whole thing. I tend to think of comedy as a glue which bonds together all kinds of supposedly disparate ideas and moods, and as a secret weapon for reconciling important themes, heavy moments, explodo action, etc. There’s nothing more delightful than taking readers by surprise, and having a constant undercurrent of dark smirk-inducement allows you to do just that. 

PJ: We’re both steeped in the 2000AD school of story telling, which is pretty much nothing but deep veins of rich black humour. Plus, I’m from Northern Ireland where there jokes are usually measured in how bleak they are.

Can you tell me anything about the Karmic Accountancy or the Divine Calculator – without going into spoiler territory, of course!

SS: The Karmic Accountancy is our cynical, abstract notion of what it’s like “behind the scenes” of the Universe. It’s part afterlife, part administration, part engine-room. It’s basically the place where all the colour and beauty and awe of life/reality/existence is reduced to a set of rules and regulation. And numbers in a book. And petty-minded arseholes in pinstripe suits endlessly stamping forms, passing round bits of paper, etc. It’s Brazil with added ontology. It’s what Heaven would look like if it turned out God was an anally-retentive ratlike accountant obsessed with neatness, precision and bureaucracy. 

…which is precisely what he is, in this story. The Divine Calculator: a supreme being with a horrible laugh, big ears, halitosis and a cat called Mimpsy. I’ll let PJ wax lyrical about the visual inspiration for all these things, but… yeah: it’s all about juxtaposing all the good things in our story – love, life, happiness, devotion – with this soulless joyless abstraction of metaphysical shittiness.

PJ: Its always fun working from Si’s scripts – he’ll often throw in big abstract concepts that leave you scratching your head thinking “how the hell do I draw THAT”? But, visually, I think Si gave me enough cues to just sit down and draw. Oddly the real world was more of challenge. The afterlife, the Karmic Accountancy, was just super busy and lots of detail and very fun to draw. The real world, though. That was tough.

Every time I get a look at Bastard Zane, I see endless possibilities for storytelling. He looks like a guy that has a lot of stories in him! Will we learn anything about Zane, or is this really the Mathematician’s story?

 

SS: Ha. Both, weirdly. It is the Mathematician’s story – sort of – but the whole thing is told from Zane’s point of view. We get to know a little bit about the guy at the start, but broadly speaking he’s a cipher: a relentless brute whose motives for preventing the Mathematician’s romantic quest are at least as strong as the romance itself. That said, by the end of the book we’ve realised Zane has some unexpectedly deep waters – not that that will stop him from pursuing his mission.

The whole thing is kind of an exercise in screwing about with expectation and conventions. And Zane’s just so brutishly likeable – it was impossible not to tell the story through his eyes. 

This was originally a black and white work. Did you find any challenges when you decided to make the work color? Do you feel like it changes the noir feel of the book at all, or did the noir feel of the original art inform your color choices?

 

SS: I’ll let PJ field that one, except to say that we always had it in mind that the art would eventually be coloured – or at least, partially coloured along cunning Powell-and-Pressburger lines… 

PJ: As Si said, we started wanting it coloured, but time and resources were the enemy. So, in the end I went with a greywash afterlife and a very stark black and white real world (reasoning if we managed to procure the services of a top notch colourist, having the coloured artwork in pure b&w will be the best thing. And now we have the wonderful Jordie Bellaire on board for colours I’m more than happy!)

Is Numbercruncher influenced by your own reading tastes? Do you enjoy noir and black comedy? 

SS: Yeah, I suppose it is – though not directly. My tastes tend towards the unlikely, the ungainly and the unconventional: mashups of genres and ideas which shouldn’t be comfortable bedfellows but somehow manage to be just that. I like speculative fiction in which the big world-building stuff is incidental to a smaller, more human story. I like the Bladerunners and the Brazils of the world. I like stories where the Big Idea (“the afterlife is a gigantic accountancy!”) is just the starting point from which all subsequent insanity spills. 

It’s weird to say this, because I’m not a huge fan of the Sin City books (they’re gorgeous to look at – don’t get me wrong) but it’s a no-brainer that Bastard Zane is a spiritual cousin of Marv. There’s something so wonderfully appealing about these big unstoppable diamond-in-the-rough slabs of meat characters. I wondered how far we could push the “loveable bastard” trope before the “loveable” bit became unsustainable. Zane’s job in this story is – basically – to prevent the happy ending. And yet, reading back through it, I’m pretty pleased about how easy it is to root for the guy. 

PJ: Artwise, it was less influence from reading and more influence from movies. The Powell-Pressburger “A Matter of Life and Death” especially (though there are plenty of other B&W or colour movies dealing with the after life). Though, they were less a direct influence and much more me pulling memories of those films out of my childhood.

What types of comics and books are you reading and enjoying artwork for?

SS: I’m pretty bad at keeping up with monthlies these days (though I’m loving David Hine and Doug Braithwaite’s Storm Dogs, and I can’t believe you – yes you, reading this right now – aren’t picking it up). So most of what I read is in collected form, which gives me the slightly dubious privilege of ignoring fads and picking from ACROSS TIME’S MIGHTY SPAN. For instance, I only just got around to Brian Wood’s Northlanders, which is splendid. Alan Moore’s Neonomicon from Avatar is a characteristically intelligent retooling and – I suspect – affectionate ribbing of (the overrated) Lovecraftian mythos. Oh, and I only just discovered Joe Sacco. Joe Sacco! Safe Area Gorazde might be one of the best things I’ve ever read. 

PJ: 2000AD, always, always 2000AD. I’m looking forward to seeing Stephen Mooney’s Half Past Danger, and Pat Mills and Kev O’Niell’s Marshall Law Omnibus has just arrived in my house and will probably sustain me for comics over the summer.

 

I see that Numbercruncher is currently scheduled to be a 3-book series. Do you see yourselves continuing the run if it receives positive feedback?

SS: It’s a four-part run, actually – I think there was a minor FUBAR in early solicits. But, well – we’ll see. The first series is a remarkably twisty beast which (I tend to think) rather presupposes that it has a definite ending. Buuuut there are a few threads left dangling, and I suppose there are still a couple of genre conventions PJ and I haven’t kicked in the balls yet, so never say never.

PJ: I think we run a pretty tight ship on this series – and things are very cleanly wrapped up, so I doubt there’d be room for a sequel, but, you know, Zane was working in the Karmic Accountancy for a long, long time. So who knows..

It happens. It’s not a great feeling. And you’ll struggle and go through several cycles of “I can’t do this” “Why can’t I do this” “I’m crap at this”

You may even find something else to do that – be it something radically different (for me programming or acting) or possibly only just a little bit different (writing or drawing something else) and you’ll be able to do that fine.

But you come back to the thing you’re stuck on and it’s still… stuck.

I’ve wasted days and days on panels (weeks sometimes) that have utterly defeated me, and what I’ve found is that … well… sometimes you just have to accept defeat. You’re going to draw/write something that‘s a little bit crap. 

Certainly crap compared to what you had in mind.

But that’s fine. Do it. Move on.

Maybe you’ll get a do over. Maybe you’ll fix it in inks. Maybe it’ll always be a bit crap.

But honestly, it’s more likely it’s not that crap – it’s just you‘ve hit one of those things where instead of being surprised* by what you’re doing you’re not able to get to what it is you’re trying to do.

The relentess ticking of a deadline means though what ever it is that’s stalled you out well, you’re going to have to get over it.

Get it done. Done is better than perfect. Every time.

-pj

*I am frequently surprised by my drawings, occasionally pleasently. I don’t Sit back and think “Ah, that‘s exactly what I imagined” because I’m imagining it as I’m drawing it – I’m always slightly frustrated though when a writer says ”Wow! You drew that exactly as I imagined it”. DID I? WELL WHAT THE HELL DID I SPEND SO LONG FRETTING OVER IT FOR THEN???

These are not the microns you’re looking for. Top is a genuine. Below that all fake.

Differences seem to be the quality of the non just isn’t as good and the ink isn’t as water resistant as the proper microns.

As an aside, after months of all digital drawing it’s lovely to do something on paper with ink.

I used to love doing single page stories. Could spend a few hours and do a complete goofball story. I slightly regret the language in this on the other hand it’s so barmy it doesn’t feel like I’m making fun of the actual characters (and boy do people get precious about that!)

(The script by a 2000AD message boarder “Kelt” I’m… I’m not sure if I ever knew his real name).

Anyway, this is the only time I’ve ever drawn Johnny Alpha and Wulf.

I’ve pitched many things to 2000AD and had zero success with any of them. On the other hand, often when an artist ditches, the series has come to me. Whereupon I (unintentionally) kill it.

RIP Samizdat Squad.

It’s probably by who you’re thinking. But it’ll be five months of war… You’ll get the inside dope, I’m sure. Including how do I get those tanks so dead-on accurate, and “is war really hell?”

(As long as you keep it all a secret) 

So here we go again. Had the first of the six week creating comics class at the Irish writers centre in Dublin. I enjoyed it, hopefully others did too.

Week 1 was about creating stories. Specifically Future Shocks. 2000ad’s short sci fi stories with a twist.

The basic format of a future shock is pretty simple – four pages. One twist (though the more twisty the better). The twist really needs to come out of the story though, no “suddenly they all became aliens!” It helps if it’s an ironic result of the protagonist’s actions. 

There are lots of ways to come up with ideas for stories, anything should be able to inspire, the trick is to tease a story out of that inspiration. 

During class we used a bunch of words to suggest stories, here’s one such:

The word scar. This suggest a scar in the landscape. From that we talked about a planet that’s ripping itself apart. The visual of a giant planet starting to gape with a scar across its entirety suggested the idea of two factions who believed that that the other side was the cause of this. And what if those sides fought and had a battle, only for the planet to fully split because it’s giving birth to giant indifferent God-creature.

(Look, it was made up on the hoof).

We talked about theme, and figuring out what the theme of the story is/was – is the story about how God is indifferent to suffering, or is the story about how two sides can disagree over stuff that’s utterly immaterial. (Trump leading on faction, Ian Paisley the other suggested some nice visual humour – always good in 2000ad)

Irony, humour are very important to future shocks.

We then burned through a half a dozen different ideas for stories, taking each and teasing out bits that felt unimportant – is this really a sci-fi story? If that laser was a Tommy Gun would it change anything at all? 

Identify whether you’ve written a future shock (sci fi story with twist) or a horror story or time twister. Depending on what you’ve written you’ve got to go back and start pulling it more into that shape.

The four page format of a future shock is interesting too. Each page will have, roughly, 4-5 panels, and the last panel of each page will be a little cliff hanger (or a twist or at least something to hook the reader, a reason for them to turn the page)

Broadly speaking the four pages become:

Page 1/ Setup 

Page 2/establish the stakes/escalate

Page 3/escalate

Page 4/ironic twist

Using that four page format to fill the sorry out – if the idea isn’t big enough, expand it, if it’s too large start to figure out how to cut it short.

We don’t have a word count, but we have a page count.

We want to build world, introduce characters we’re interested in and make sure our ideas have visual hooks – a disease that leaves characters with sense of melancholic ennui isn’t as good as a disease that gives characters giant spines poking randomly from their bodies.

One of the suggested story ideas came from “witness”

A child taken in to an interrogation room to be interrogated about his parents murder,only for it to be revealed the child to reveal he’s the murderer and kills the cops.

We taking this idea, visually it’s weak – and for a horror story (which is it’s closes fit) it’s not really horrific.

So what if the child is actually some sort of monster? We get to see the child describing the monster eating the parents and then the cops are killed by the monster.

Better. But still a little obvious.

But what if, instead, the make the good cop the monster. Bad cop interrogates the child, child describes seeing the monster. Bad cop isn’t having any of this shit. Good cop turns up to placate the child. Good cop leaves. Bad cop turns into monster eats child (or, at the very least we see bad cop running out, saying the 10 year old just had a heart attack)

Ramp up and ramp up again. Figure out your theme and embed it in the story. If it’s horror what’s the most horrific it can be.

Anyway, there was more, but that was week 1.

Next week script writing!

Tomorrow I start teaching my six week course on creating comics (in Dublin). It’s all built around creating future shocks, but filled, I hope, with interesting/useful observations (and really it’s about any sort of short story writing). Each class is two hours long, and, with the exception of week 5, it’s really a 2 hour lecture and q&as sessions.

This is my second go at teaching this course, and it was interesting to see how it evolved from my first ideas. 

My initial pitch looked like this:

Week 1: Coming up with ideas (what makes a future shock, mining ideas, turning those into stories with a twist)

Week 2: Writing a script.

Week 3: Thumbnails

Week 4: Pencils

Week 5: Inking Comics.

Week 6: Cram lettering/colouring in to one week.

Not being exactly sure who would attend such a class, it turned into a “how to write stories for artists” class. While touching on broad drawing techniques (which were heavier on storytelling than actually drawing).

I maintain you don’t need to be a “good” artist to be a good storyteller. You can tell some pretty good stories with stick figures (or just cutting out  collages).

I blogged the course as I did it week by week and I intend to do so again. Those blogs will remain free (I’m not a monster!) but I will encourage you to sign up to patreon for any extras!

Tomorrow, week 1, will be about coming up with story ideas, and types of futureshocks/stories and why short stories are the best place to learn. Using some simple word-seeds (I pluck a bunch of nice random words and we start burning through story ideas) the class is pretty packed though so it’s going to be a learning experience for me too.

So, here’s something I’ve literally just finished – it should be spoiler free, you’ll see it in 2000AD eventually.

Page 1, panel 1 (I’ll paraphrase the script here) Opening page. Establishing shot of the exterior of a large refinery (smoking chimneys, filthy) in the middle of a snowy landscape , bad guys 1 have breached a wall in the side of the factory, they have a pair of giant ballistas (for hurling massive sticks like crossbows) Gunfire from inside the refinery as they engage in battle.

All comic drawing is about problem solving. Some writers will have a very clear vision of what they’ve written, some will just know they have stuff they want happening. Sometimes the writers with a clear vision are actually harder – because they’re describing what they see  and you’re reconstructing that picture for them (like those puzzles you get where you have to describe the shape you’ve just made to someone who has the same pieces but no idea what you’re looking for).

Breaking this down: 

1. 2 x Ballistas (important)

2. Exterior of the filthy refinery, with wall removed.

3. Armies engage.

4. Wall removed.

First thing is, the best way to show this ALL is to get some distance, but with distance it can be hard to show armies (you just can’t draw physically distinct little soldier men) luckily gunfire, s/fx and a general melieu will probably do this job for us.

We want the readers to focus on the battle, while noticing everything around them, and suddenly a solution seems obvious. Sketching it out as a thumb it looks like this:

We’ll put the ballistas either side, drop low to the ground (making it feel like we’re involved, despite the fact the action is happening in the distance) and centre all the action.

Pencils look like this

(digital pencils, thank god for Clip Studio’s perspective rulers, too!)

Inks look like this…

And the draw over (for fans of that kind of thing) looks like this:

The ballistas – at the script reading stage – were a headache, but suddenly they’re doing the job of directing attention in to the battle scene. 

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing today. Hope you like it! (and I remind you: shhh! secret!)

(Looking at this again, I suspect the skys behind the mountains really need to be black to help pop focus, but hey ho!)

Page 1! This strip has only appeared in the irish language, despite the fact it was written in English and stuffed to the gills with puns.

In about a year I think I get the rights back and I can do an english translation. This was cowritten by my sometimes co-writer Scott Ferguson, hopefully the visuals carried enough of an idea that the dialogue didn’t need all the puns.

Page 1: , yo yo and kid yoyo are here to see the man frozen in a block of ice. YoYo demonstrates how stupid the frozen man is, and how much superior he is with his yoyos.

Page 2 Professor time and his time-lards (they’re made of lard!) turn up, they intend to steal the frozen man’s dna to create an army of cavemen! 

YoYo isn’t going to let that happen!

Page 3-yoyo and kid yoyo defeat the various timelards (who are all historically accurate recreations of histories greatest warriors … and Albert Enstien) BUT! Prof Time zaps Yoyo back in time! OH NOES!

Page 4: Back in the past, Yoyo is confronted by the ICE AGE! (it’s freezing everything in it’s past) and he finds himself frozen solid, we cut back to Prof Time cutting into the block of ice, ONLY TO DISCOVER THE ICE MAN WAS YOYO the entire time! HURRAH!

And we all agree, that yoyos are the very pinnacle of human civilisation!

Hope you enjoyed that!