If Only Man Could Moult

PARAGON #14 is out, roaming the streets like a lunatic, and telling wild and improbable tales of action-packed goodness! There are many great things therein, chief amongst which is the jumbo-sized conclusion to Dirk Van Dom and Stephen Prestwood’s wonderful ‘Icarus Dangerous’, which for my money has been the comic’s biggest draw since #7. (Appropriately, its run is bookended by remarkable covers, both courtesy of Matt Soffe.) We also have the start of Tom Proudfoot and George Coleman’s ‘The Major’, which looks gorgeous (in a deeply evil sort of way) and which gets a big thumbs up from me for its Edinburgh setting – as a patriotic Scotsman, I love anything that delves into the myths and legends and indeed entrails of our blood-soaked nation. We also have a dose of laser-whip-fuelled crocodilian lunacy in ‘Jikan’, courtesy of Mr. Van Dom and editor/artist/mastermind Davey Candlish, whose chameleonic art-skills have rendered this one in a Mignola-esque stylee.

For my part, I have contributed two tales, both of which, bizarrely enough, centre around our feathered friends. There’s a Spencer Nero short, ‘Spencer Nero and the Hour of the Heron’, in which our smug hero finds himself dealing with Dartmoor druids and their pagan Heron god, the eyeball-eating Old Nog. Davey Candlish draws this one in a style inspired by ‘Chew’ artist Rob Guillory. The main feature, however, is ‘Spencer Nero and the Locked Door’, in which Spencer’s curator chum William Kitt takes centre stage. Kitt has to deal with a rampaging threat connected with the appearance of a caladrius, the healing bird of ancient Rome. But where is Spencer while all this is going on? Art here is by James Corcoran, and 'tis a dark treat indeed.

At the time of writing, #14 is FREE for download here, so grab a copy – the early bird catches the worm, after all. It is a comic with many feathers in its cap, and we’re as proud as peacocks of it.

Nero @ #13, Part 1: Slay ‘em with Graham

Welcome to the first part of a two-part blog-posting about my recent work for PARAGON #13. This bit’s all about ‘Spencer Nero and the Ruthless Rhymer.’

A few issues back, Dave Candlish included a ‘Rupert the Bear’-style rhyming tale in Paragon, based around the character of Battle Ganesh, and charmingly illustrated by Jim Cameron. I was impressed (not least by Candlish’s use of the phrase ‘macadamian lout’ – when’s that ever occurred in the English language before?) and wanted to do something similar with Spencer Nero. Now conveniently enough, it so happens that 1936, the year in which ‘Spencer Nero’ is presently set, marked the death of a man popularly known as Harry Graham (though his first name was, improbably enough, Jocelyn.) Graham is best remembered as a poet – specifically for his ‘ruthless rhymes’, spectacularly cruel but remarkably upbeat studies of such cheery subjects as infanticide, murder and accidental death, all treated with a comic touch. The general theme of Graham’s poems is the slaying of the stupid, irritating or merely hapless, often for the pettiest of reasons. For instance:

Or, more simply:

 

The combination of the mannered and the sadistic really appeals to me in Graham’s work (it reminds me a lot of the short-story writer Saki) and so I wanted to write a character who came from Harry Graham’s world, and could dispatch those I considered to be petty annoyances. Thus the Ruthless Rhymer was born (though his name also owes something to ‘The Riddling Reaver’ from Fighting Fantasy game books.) Sporting Rupert-style checked trousers and a can-do approach to slaughtering those who disrupt his life, I sent the Rhymer off on his misanthropic way.  But what really lifted the story was the artwork of Bhuna (Neil Roche to his chums), whom I believe Dave Candlish reckoned would be a good match for the  story on the basis of his similarly savage work on Dirk Van Dom’s equally mean-spirited ‘Buck Tucker’ character (currently appearing over in Vanguard.) As soon as Dave passed me Neil’s early designs for the main characters, I was blown away by how characterful and stylish they were – check out this one for the Rhymer himself:

 

 

The other ones are on Bhuna’s blog, over here. Suffice to say, I loved his art so much that it inspired me to write another, much-longer Rhymer-related script: that won’t be appearing any time soon, but rest assured, plans are afoot for the Ruthless Rhymer to make his unlikely return.

Next time on the blog, I’ll be talking about ‘Spencer Nero Goes South’, gallant gentlemen, Ray Harryhausen and Medusa’s cheekbones. See you then.

Falling Towards Apotheosis

So for all my banging on about Spencer Nero like he’s the second coming, it’d be remiss of me not to mention what else appears in Paragon #9. Matthew McLaughlin and James Corcoran contribute a prehistoric Jikan tale with a delightfully Hammer / Amicus sensibility, the art for which is truly lovely, Corcoran’s atmospheric swathes of black being a particular highlight. The same writer also teams up with the mad, bad and dangerous to know Louis Carter (that’s bad in the sense of Byronically wicked, not a critique of the art!) who illuminates this month’s outing with some wonderfully stylised robo-philosophical musings. And explosions. Carter’s art is lovely stuff – I could absolutely see his robots as animated figures in some peculiar cartoon. Meanwhile, Davey Candlish couples (ooer, missus) with Alan Holloway for a violent western outing, ‘No Compromise’. There’s something about the western genre that Davey just seems to excel at – crumpled gunslingers must be one of his favourite subjects. And the strip’s first line, about how a stranger ‘rowed into town’, is a very witty conceit.

And finally, there’s Dirk Van Dom and Stephen Prestwood’s ‘Icarus Dangerous’. There’s a lot to like here, not least the muscular,action-packed art, which plays around with perspective (as is suitable for a flying hero) and which has a real weight and power to it. Gorgeous stuff. Of course, I’m a sucker for mythology too, and the whole ‘Greek myths in space’ thing makes me think of 'Ulysses 31', the best cartoon ever. Meanwhile, little references like Icarus suggesting his dad would enjoy the local architecture give the science-fantastical fusion a charming grounding. And despite the fact that several months pass between issues of Paragon, somehow ‘Icarus Dangerous’ manages to keep up a breackneck pace, rattling along with all the vip and vigour of a weekly-scheduled strip, full of energy, pressure always piling onto the hero.

The strip also made me muse on the likeability of the lead character. One of things I enjoy about this series is that Icarus is a bit hapless. I love characters that screw up or aren’t entirely sure what they’re doing, particularly if it’s their own fault. I find it a trait that’s extremely easy to identify with: indeed, one of my all-time 2000AD favourites is Ace Garp, a past-master in the field of creative balls-ups. In the case of Icarus, he seems, to paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, to be doing the best he can with what he has where he is, but that clearly comes with a few bumps along the way. So much the better – in my experience, readers love seeing characters on a learning curve. Look at how popular the teenage New Mutants were with Marvel fandom when they debuted in the 80s. For a character so strongly associated with the concept of ‘the fall’, it’s a sharp move by Dirk Van Dom to give Icarus this slightly blundering quality, whilst at the same time reminding us that we fall to rise.

Indeed, the whole notion of haplessness is one that’s going to become more apparent in my own character, Spencer Nero, in forthcoming stories. In his first outing, he’s uber-confident and doesn’t make many mistakes, but as I tease out the darker aspects of his character, you’ll see how his arrogance increasingly makes him put his foot in it. In a script I’m writing at the moment, set in India in the time of the British Raj, I take this to an extreme, and Spencer becomes pretty much sole architect of his own problems.

Anyway - Paragon #9. Go buy. Bye.