Tree's Company: PARAGON #16 Branches Out

Spring has sprung, flowers are in bloom and the latest PARAGON has hit the proverbial stands, chockfull of nature’s bounty. Not that I’m suggesting great comics grow on trees, but my small contribution, a somewhat experimental ‘Spencer Nero’ two-pager, certainly features plenty of bark, and hopefully a little bite. The story is based around my strange fascination with metal-eating trees, focusing specifically on The Bicycle Tree of Brig O’ Turk in the Trossachs, albeit suitably embellished. Not that such things are unique to the Loch Lomond neck of the woods – here’s a photo I took of a hungry tree near the village of Strichen.

Art on ‘The Bicycle Tree’ is by small-press star James Corcoran, with a particularly pivotal lettering job by John Caliber. The original plan was to do the story as two nine-panel grids, but it’s ended up as two splash pages instead – probably for the best, particularly when it comes to showcasing James’s sublime art. And indeed, corking art is the order of the day in #16, with a lovely double dose of the fantastic El Chivo, the Newell / Candlish combo breathing life into Mark Howard’s ‘Bludd and Xandi’ (haven’t read that one yet, looking forward to it!) and, of course, the PARAGON debut of Jason Cobley’s legendary Bulldog, ably handled by Stephen Prestwood (see, Prestwood – another tree connection!) By sheer coincidence, I happened to pick up two ‘Bulldog’ collections in Aberdeen’s Oxfam Books quite recently –  they’re the work of a man who clearly has comics flowing through his very veins. Cracking stuff – the new story is a real highlight of the issue.

And so it only remains to suggest you pick up a copy – c'mon, don’t be a sap!

Vietnam Bayonet Massacre!

At last, Massacre For Boys Picture Library #1 is out there – and what a corker it is! Featuring some of the most talented folks in the small-press world (and me), this work of wonder is wrapped up in a David Frankum cover that’s the equal of anything you’ll find in the pro comics world. For a full rundown of the contents, have a look at mastermind Chris Denton’s blog here. Suffice to say, you need to get your hands on a copy, and pronto!

My contribution, in collaboration with the awesome John Caliber, is the inaugural appearance of The Zen Fusilier, also known as Captain Appollinaire Sartre. Operating in the year 1901, Sartre is a Fusilier Marin who has spent considerable time in France’s eastern colonies and developed a unique philosophy and fighting style that fuses oriental wisdom with Gallic imperialism. Now, he fights supernatural horrors opposed to spiritual ascendance.

The character evolved out of a number of ideas and influences. The main one was my fascination with world mythology and folklore. Put simply, I love monsters, the weirder the better, and as my ‘Martillo’ collection suggests, I also love researching the supernatural lore of foreign lands and discovering the mythic beings that have haunted a culture’s imagination. Connected to this is my fondness for Hong Kong vampire movies, particularly the classic ‘Mr. Vampire’, the film which popularised the jiangshi or ‘hopping vampire’. Even the classic tv series ‘Monkey’, with its insistence that demons are to be fought, helped inform Captain Sartre’s mission.

Another very different jumping-off point was a song, specifically ‘A Shogun Named Marcus’ by the band Clutch, about a redneck samurai. This got me thinking about characters who embodied a clash of cultures, and led to my writing a never-finished comic script featuring a parallel world where different historical cultures had merged together. This was done mostly on the basis of my being able to engage in a bit of wordplay with their names, so it included Naztecs (Nazi-Aztecs, later used in ‘Spencer Nero’) and Kung-Fusiliers (‘Kung-Fusilier’ was my original title for ‘The Zen Fusilier’ strip.)

Captain Sartre was also a bit of a reaction against the aforementioned Spencer Nero from PARAGON, who was steadily and enjoyably evolving into a bit of an arse. As a contrast, I wanted write a character who really was a decent guy – who might be an eccentric, infuriating, never-loses-his-cool know-it-all, but was without doubt very moral, genuinely devoted to vanquishing evil, and completely lacking in pettiness.

So there you go. I am at present working on a new adventure for Captain Sartre - one that will see him visiting France's African colonies. Keep 'em peeled, and watch out for strange lights in the night sky....

I Wanna Be Collected – The Spencer Nero Compendium

Cover by Dave Candlish, colours by Jim Cameron

It’s been two-and-a-half years (!) since Spencer Nero first made his lion-thumping, skull-perforating debut in PARAGON #9. Now, all eleven stories to date have been collected into a single hefty tome (you could club a Nazi to death with it!) documenting Spencer’s two-fisted pulp adventures in the year 1936! What’s more, the collection (subtitled ‘By Jupiter’s Jockstrap!’) also includes my original pitch for the series, as well as bonus sketches by James Corcoran from the ‘White Spider’ story, and a foreword from Spencer himself, in which he reveals his... interesting views on comic-books and their readers.


Here’s the complete contents and the credits:

1: Spencer  Nero and the Island of the Naztecs – (6 pages) – Dave Candlish, lettering by HdE

2: Spencer Nero and the White Spider (7 pages) – James Corcoran, lettering by John Caliber

3: Spencer Nero and the Hidden Olympics (7 pages ) – pencils by Mike Kennedy, inks by Dave Candlish, lettering by John Caliber

4: Spencer Nero Goes South (8 pages) – James Corcoran, lettering by John Caliber

5: Spencer Nero and the Ruthless Rhymer (2 pages) – Neil “Bhuna” Roche, lettering by Nikki Foxrobot

6: Spencer Nero and the Locked Door (9 pages) – James Corcoran, lettering by John Caliber

7: Spencer Nero and the Chairman of the Board (9-page prose story) - spot illustrations by Dave Candlish

8: Spencer Nero and the Hour of the Heron (2 pages) – Dave Candlish, lettering by John Caliber

9: Spencer Nero and the Antechamber (2 pages) – pencils by Tom Newell, inks by Dave Candlish, lettering by John Caliber

10: Spencer Nero and Mrs. Simpson (8 pages) – Stephen Prestwood, lettering by Filippo

11: Spencer Nero and the Last Laugh (1 page) – David Broughton, lettering by Owen Watts

Phew! Quite a murderer's row of small-press talent! What more is there to say, apart from...

By Jupiter’s jockstrap - buy Jupiter’s Jockstrap! (Or buy Jupiter’s digital jockstrap here.)

Vale!

French Doors Opening

 

Just a quick preview for something coming up in 2013 (probably around May, I believe): 'The Zen Fusilier'. It's a 6-page story due to appear in 'Massacre For Boys Picture Library', a new anthology produced by the much-vaunted Massacre For Boys team of Chris and Steve Denton. (And yes, this page indeed appeared as a preview on their blog last year, but hey, as publication looms, there's no harm reappropriating it and parading it over here. Any excuse to show off John Caliber's remarkable art.)

The year is 1901, during a time of French Colonial power known popularly as the Belle Epoch, and our hero is the inscrutable Captain Appollinaire Sartre, Fusilier Marin and Gallic devotee of the Orient. Sartre is stationed in Hue, Vietnam, then part of French Indochina, and is accompanied by the redoubtable and yet perpetually anxious Ensign Chaput. As for who those tree-creepers are (and what, precisely, they have dangling from their nostrils) - well, I'm not giving everything away yet.

Art (and lettering) are, as noted, by the ridiculously talented John Caliber - having seen the whole thing, I can tell you that he's delivered an absolute blinder. Colourful, beautiful, terrifying - it's an absolute feast for the eyes.

But not, sadly, for the nose. Well, unless those things in the trees get their way.

Happy New Year! (Though it won't be a particularly pleasant one for most the people on that page.)

Running Rings

So, as work on Paragon #12 proceeds apace (see James Corcoran's gorgeous blog for some mind-blowing artistic previews of the forthcoming 'Spencer Nero Goes South'), time to document #11's episode, 'Spencer Nero and the Hidden Olympics', with pencils by Mike Kennedy, lovely inks by Davey Candlish, and lurid lettering by John Caliber.

Here's the thing. I decided to set the first Nero story in 1936 fairly arbitrarily - the 1930s is the natural epoch for pulp adventure, but I picked '36 on the basis that the sixth year of a decade showcases said decade's defining characteristics. (I had read somewhere that the 90s, for example, really became what we recognise as the 90s in 1996.) Fortunately, however, it turned out that 1936 was a pretty fertile year in terms of stories. Ascents of the Eiger, international turmoil, abdications (ssh! Keep reading your Paragons for that one) - and of course, the Berlin Olympics. (The story wasn't inspired by the London Olympics - it was written quite a bit before, but was fortuitiously published just after.)

Like many comic fans, I'm not much of a sports fan: I have neither interest, talent nor ability, and I'm not remotely competitive. (I'll watch the odd game of Highland League football and the odd game of darts - that's about it.) But what did interest me was the idea of using the '36 Olympics as the backdrop for a secret war of hex, counter-hex and mystical shenanigans with Spencer as the pawn. As such, it was a chance to make Mr. Alabaster more central to the series: this is by far and away the most on-panel time he gets in any Nero story, though he'll be allowed to narrate a short one sometime soon. So, let's pick out a few panels and explain the thinking:

Trackside: I originally planned to have Nero's trackside rival be Dr. Von Zero, and have Alabaster duel with his Nazi opposite, who was going to be a Mr. Marmor (Marble) from the Department of Möglichkeit (Possibility.) I changed my mind, letting Marmor vanish into the ether (maybe I will get him into print one day) and instead reshaped Von Zero into a behind-the-scenes manipulator, with a golem as his representative: Anton Klumpen, whose surname is German for 'lump'. As for Von Zero's unlikely survival - well, I don't know how clear I made it. When he discusses 'Atlantean throat techniques', my thinking was that he used his Thule Society talents to magically command the swordfish to cut him free, but frankly, it sounds like he did something obscene to it instead.

Lumps and Bumps: On page two, the guy next to Klumpen is US athlete Glenn Morris. Historically, this all-American, square-jawed young athlete won the Decathlon - he does in this version of reality too. I quite enjoyed bringing out Spencer's more bullying streak as he tries to psyche Klumpen out, a streak that will reach its apex in about two strips time. Though Spencer does much more terribly violent things in the first story, he seems a lot nicer in that one - by this story I had settled into writing him as a bit more of an arse (albeit a charismatic one.)

Runes vs. Tarot: I don't think I ever want characters to be firing lightning bolts at each other in the 'Spencer Nero' universe, or otherwise engaging in D&D-style magic. I'd prefer to give it some kind of grounding in real-world mythology or mysticism and have the effects generally be more subtle. (Subtle? 'Spencer Nero'?! I know, I know.) As such, the implication is that ceremony and specially-attuned artefacts are important. Davey Candlish astutely described the weird duel that dominates the story as oddly reminiscent of Bill & Ted vs. De Nomolos at the end of 'Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey'.

The Super, Soaraway Sun: I love this image of Mr. Alabaster as tarot card XIX: Endearing and eccentric. Elsewhere in the panel, Spencer is drinking ass's milk (in the script there's a little milk carton with a donkey on it, but there was no room in the panel.)

 

Rogue Discus: You know, I did stop and think "Is it too obvious to have Hitler K.O.-ed here? Should I use Himmler or some other senior Nazi, to give Spencer a more individual rivalry with a less 'A-List' fascist?" And then I thought "No. Sometimes the most obvious target is the most satisfying. You can't pass up the chance to demean the Fuhrer yet again."  (See Dr WTF?!2012.) I'm not sure I'll ever get bored of this pursuit.

 

Bashmite Ethan: Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I could never quite get this pun to completely work, largely because the first word doesn't mean anything. Trust me, there's a bit of paper somewhere with all sorts of variants written down - "Smazhmi Phasin", "Kikkmi Hedin" - that sort of thing. (Actually, Kikkmi Hedin's better, isn't it? Sounds like a 'Sinister / Dexter' character.) I think this came out of a running gag from when I was a student about a made-up British martial art called 'B'oot-in'.  It was a lot funnier after you'd been drinking White Lightning, I'll tell you that.

The Golem: I will freely admit there is nothing original in the whole 'change a letter on the golem's parchment' conclusion - this is very much taken from traditional Jewish tales. I don't think any of them change it with a javelin though.

Jesse Owens: African-American super-athlete Owens was, of course, the hero of the games, with gold medals in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and long jump. He apparently didn't regard Hitler particularly badly - as he says at the end of the story, in Germany he could stay in the same hotel as a white man, and Hitler apparently waved hello to him, even if he didn't shake his hand (he only actually shook the hands of German victors anyway.) Indeed, US president FDR didn't even send Owens a congratulatory telegram for his astonishing performance, whereas Hitler sent a signed photo (!) In private, however, the Fuhrer was apparently as foul when speaking of black athletes as you might expect.

So that's the Hidden Olympics, after which Spencer does a runner... all the way to the South Pole. Thanks once more to my collaborators on this one: Mike has a distinctive style that combined with Dave's inks puts me in mind of the work of Alex Maleev. Gold medals all round, lads - and the wooden spoon for me for the 'Bashmite Ethan' bit.

Heavy Fluting

PARAGON #10 hits the ice (wrapped up in an astonishing cover by major talent Matt Soffe), and with it comes 'Spencer Nero and the White Spider'.  This strip is probably the point at which 'Spencer Nero' really starts to intersect with my personal obsessions in a major way. Ever since seeing the film 'Touching the Void' many years ago, I've developed a total fascination with human survival stories in icy climes. (A related obsession involves the South Pole - keep your eye on future issues of PARAGON for that one.) If you're not aware, 'Touching the Void' is the true story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, who attempted to climb Peruvian mountain Siula Grande in the 80s and nearly paid for the attempt with their lives. Joe himself was inspired by the writing of Heinrich Harrer, whose book 'The White Spider' is regarded as a seminal mountaineering text. Harrer was part of the first team ever to successfully climb the dreaded North Face of the Eiger, but the most famous failed attempt on the Swiss peak was made in 1936 by a German climber called Toni Kurz and his team. Their doomed journey has been recounted several times on celluloid, documented by the aforementioned Joe Simpson in 'The Beckoning Silence', and dramatised in the movie 'North Face'. The tragedy of Toni Kurz is in just how much he went through and how horribly close he was to rescue.

Toni, however, did not reach the White Spider - a treacherous, arachnid-shaped ice-field that some reckon to be one of the most difficult parts of the Eiger to traverse. Literally-minded as I am, of course, my story involves Spencer Nero squaring off against an actual White Spider, animated by the spirits of the dead, in an effort to save the soul of Toni Kurz. As well as the Spider, the story introduces a new nemesis for Spencer in the form of Saturn Reisen, a soul-gorging mystic. There were two main inspirations for Reisen - one was the artist Goya's infamous painting 'Saturn Devouring His Son', which I'd seen in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, but had first encountered in one of my dad's books of fantasy-related artwork when I was a young lad. If you ever get the chance, you need to witness this masterpiece and Goya's other 'Black Paintings' first-hand - 'Saturn...' is both repulsive and utterly compelling. The other source was, oddly, the Ditko-era villainous cast of 'Amazing Spider-Man', many of whom seem to represent the dominating power of age and experience levied against the vigor of youth, embodied by Peter Parker. As a kind of avatar of the Roman god of old age, Saturn Reisen seemed like he might perform a similar function for Spencer Nero. We will undoubtedly see him again...

This is the first Spencer Nero strip drawn by the remarkable James Corcoran, but it certainly won't be the last. It's safe to say he's absolutely nailed it, amplifying the sinister side of the script and presenting a characterful take on Spencer, who runs the gamut in this strip from determined to smug, baffled to psychotic. I defy anyone to read this and not feel a bit cold - James has given this one a real sense of place, and draws some damn fine snow. Hope that doesn't seem like a back-handed compliment - he really has excelled with the chilly environment of this story. In fact, James is lined-up to draw an Antarctic adventure for Spencer too... hopefully we can talk him into doing another one set in sunnier climes as well sometime, so he doesn't feel typecast! Also on-board providing lettering for the strip is the multi-talented John Caliber, with whom I have a future project over at Massacre for Boys comic, for which John provides some particularly smashing artwork. More on that another time. For now, simply a recommendation that you get your hands on PARAGON #10 - at 52 pages, it's the biggest issue yet, packed full of high-quality adventurous yarns.