Free Spencer Nero… In Every Pack!

In a time of global crises, political uncertainty and civil unrest, what everyone needs is a big man in a mask to punch things better! Which is why Filippo, Scott Twells and I present A Smidgen of Spencer: Dwarfs, Dames and Dopplegangers! Compiling stories from PARAGON #22-24 and PARAGON Annual 2019, this FREE digital comic features the Civil Centurion having issues with little men, girls and himself – in short, it’s ripe for psychoanalysis! Or you could just read it and laugh at the usual spate of mild perversion and boy’s own thrills!

Features a guest appearance by lettering pro Jim Campbell!

Download it here.

It's a Spencer Nero Club world!

A quick post to document another positive review for The Spencer Nero Club #1, this time from Howard Fuller of Howie's World of Comics. Howard is a recent convert to the small press, but gave us a five-star review, so he's clearly not lacking in taste. We've been down the tubes - now we're on top of the world! Thanks, Howard.

Thumping Hearts Hold the Ravens In: 'Spencer Nero Versus Britain' in PARAGON #25

‘Spencer Nero Versus Britain’ has its origin in two somewhat disparate individuals – Jason Cobley and Kate Bush. The former’s role is simple – I’d hoped to read some new adventures of his well-seasoned small-press hero, Winston Bulldog, but Jason was very busy with other commitments (a novel and paying work for Commando comic.) That being the case, I wondered if he’d mind me borrowing Bulldog to reunite him with Spencer Nero (they previously teamed up as part of The Paragon Paradox) for a special story to celebrate PARAGON’s ‘silver anniversary’ – issue #25. Jason graciously agreed. So what was the story to be?

I’d made notes on possible sequels to the Paragon Paradox a while back. One involved the cast all being turned into dogs (apart from Bulldog, obviously) and going on some cosmic hound-quest, which started me down the road of making the story canine-themed. At one point I had the idea that supernatural dog-beings were converging on Spencer because his body had been transformed into a tasty skeleton by an Aztec death-god – and they wanted the bones! I still like this idea – I intend to use it as a separate story – but I decided the dog-angle was a blind alley, as far as this crossover went. Instead, I decided to look at what really connected Nero and Bulldog – and the answer was obvious. Britain. Which is where Kate Bush comes in.

‘Oh England My Lionheart’ is a song in which Bush nostalgically contemplates a romanticised vision of her home country, complete with all manner of iconic British references. But what if these symbols were turned against the nation that had spawned them? What if all that was quintessentially British went bad? Nero and Bulldog were both defined, in different ways, by their nationality. How would they deal with its darker side?

This dark side was personified by Anthony Seyden, M.P. – a politician and psychic fugitive from Bulldog’s world. Seyden – ‘Tony Satan’ to his friends – was based visually on the wildly-ineffective ‘New Labour, New Danger’ campaign, staged by the Conservative Party in the run-up to the ’97 election. The image of Tony Blair with ‘demon eyes’ proved no deterrent to his landslide victory, but it provided a memorable image I was keen to appropriate. As a ‘prosecco nationalist’, Seyden’s politics lean in a different direction to Blair’s, but they both rejoice in the idea of British icons and like to associate with celebrities – though Seyden’s more likely to set fire to his.

Art on this was by Scott Twells, and lettering was by Filippo – we had recently completed ‘The Spencer Nero Club #1’, and with ‘…Versus Britain’, I felt we were firing on all cylinders as a three-man team. It almost goes without saying that they both did a remarkable job, but I’ll say it: they both did a remarkable job. This is the most visually-interesting Nero story ever. I was particularly fond of the way Scott extended Seyden's mouth so that neither it nor his eyes fit properly on his face. It just makes him that little bit more disquieting.

A few comments on the individual pages:

Page 1: We start with what I like to think of as a ‘John Smith’ page – in his 2000AD stories, the great writer made frequent use of these little ‘catalogue of horror’ sections, where he gave multiple snapshots of some unfolding atrocity. I don’t often get a chance to do these but thought it would be a good way to set the stage.

Page 2: This story follows immediately on from the leprechaun yarn – Spencer’s still got the slash-mark from the leprechaun blade on his jacket. I loved Scott’s bone Spitfires – the story is pre-WWII, but Spitfires did exist, and are a reference to the ‘black Spitfire’ that drops Kate Bush to her funeral barge in ‘Oh England…’ Originally there was a line that suggested Seyden’s weaponization of iconography included a predictive element – he could even corrupt things that would become iconic. I left it out for space reasons. Also of note here is Spencer’s use of the Janus mask as an energy-sheathed weapon, opening doors into his foes – this idea came about from an unfinished story in which Spencer tackles a mystical Chinese tong gang, resulting in the creation of a Peckham weasel-god. The weasel-god itself is occasionally alluded to in the strip as an ‘offscreen’ adventure.

Pages 3-4: Originally, Nero and Bulldog got in a fight with the ants, but I thought this version was more elegant – and it followed on from the idea in the leprechaun story that Spencer carries condiments. The downside is that it robs Bulldog of some action by making Spencer the one to deal with the transfigured businessman – this bothered me a bit, but I figured Bulldog got enough to do later to let it go.

Page 5: Seyden’s secret origin. The Dalmation is Gooch from the Paragon Paradox. I like Scott’s savage black cab – and you can’t beat a good mole joke. Note that the scientists are indeed a mole, a toad, and a vole (or water-rat) – the main characters from another iconic British tome, ‘The Wind in the Willows’.

Page 6-8: When people tell me I write weird stories, I never get it – doesn’t everyone think about wicket-based wicker-men in the shape of W.G. Grace? The implication is meant to be that there are darker and more sinister icons beneath the nation’s psychic surface. I’m particularly fond of Scott’s art on these pages – some grand-scale normalness (ok, madness then.) Seyden’s helpers were referred to in the script as ‘Chaos Cricketers’ – my instruction was to make them look as if Games Workshop had designed their uniform. The wicket-masks give them a slightly ‘Judge Death’ vibe.

Page 9-10: Scott added the idea that Bulldog would give a parting gesture. Scott also pointed out that I’d subconsciously stolen the ‘plink’ sound effect from Zenith – it’s the noise an Einstein-Rosen bridge makes in Phase III when they cross dimensions.

Page 11-12: I decided that Seyden should cycle through iconic British appearances to make the page more interesting for Scott to draw – note also yet another George Formby reference. Is this leading up to something?

Page 13: A version of this was the first page I wrote – it was going to feature alternating panels of Bulldog and Nero describing their respective Britains, with Bulldog seeing the positives and Nero the negatives. The joke was meant to be that their worlds were more similar than they realised, but they both saw Blighty through different lenses, and so couldn’t reconcile their mutual visions. In the end, it morphed into this. I did think about giving the King a stutter for historical accuracy, but it seemed a bit petty.

Page 14-15: It’s now become a tradition that Bulldog makes a profound statement on the last page of their crossovers. Note Seyden’s ambiguous ‘death’ – I wanted this story to give me a new Nero villain to play with. The intention was always to bring him back if Scott and I liked him.

We liked him.

And I hope you liked the story. Downthetubes seemed to – they declared it “utterly brilliant.” I’ll take that!

You can obtain a copy of PARAGON #25 here.

Comics Wot I Did In 2019: Part Two - Das Boot’s on the Other Foot

Concluding my commentary on stories from 2019, and providing previews of things to come this year in 2020.

Right – the leprechaun story in PARAGON #24 was mostly editor Davey Candlish’s fault (though I blame Jim Cameron too, for encouraging / provoking it, and coming up with the title, ‘Spencer Nero and the Leprechauns of Doom’!) Davey had posted the front cover of the novel 'The Little People' on Facebook – yep, it’s same John Christopher that wrote The Tripods - and immediately, it seemed a major omission that Spencer Nero had never gone up against Nazi leprechauns. Within minutes of realising this, I’d come up with the plot – frankly, the story pretty much wrote itself. In many ways, it is the archetypal Nero story – it features folklore, Roman mythology, Nazis, and a hefty dose of silliness and satire. All in five pages!

Sors – Roman luck god and instigator of the plot – was very much on my mind, as I’d been trying to write a 20-page Nero prequel comic, set prior to Spencer joining the Department of Contingency. The chief antagonist was going to be the aforementioned deity, who had cruelly inflicted good luck on Britain – something that turned out to be less fortunate than it appeared. I eventually shelved the idea, but still wanted to see Sors in print. Luck and leprechauns go together like bishops and being kicked up the arse, so he was a natural fit. The first Nero text tale left Sors washing dishes in the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane – he’s finally finished!

Meanwhile, Sister Von Zero was last seen in County Kerry, facing a beating from the similarly gender-swapped Veleda the druid(ess). I thought about reverting Sister Von Zero back to a man after “…the Trouble with Girls” but I realised that visually, she was much more interesting as a Nazi nun (and probably a lot easier for Scott to draw too.) (Veleda, on the other hand, probably will revert to her original female gender, as I think she worked better as a woman – maybe, like Patsy from AbFab, it’ll fall off after a few months.)

Art on this was by Scott Twells - I'm running out of superlatives for this chap's work, but as ever, he pulled off a blinder. So much character in his... characters! Lettering was by consummate pro, Jim Campbell, a real friend to the small press - it's always a pleasure to have his touch on my Nero. As it were.

A few brief notes:

Spencer’s bath-time rendition of ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’ continues the strip’s ongoing flirtation with George Formby. We’ve seen Oswald with one of Formby’s ukuleles (more of that this year) and a newspaper headline pertaining to a Nero / Formby team-up (a reference to a hitherto unpublished musical story, which needs a bit of revision before it appears.) More tangential Formby to follow…

Leprechauns aren’t the only supernatural beings compelled to count grains – vampires seem to have a similar affliction. It seems Spencer habitually carries granular items on his person to deal with said foes – but what else does he have in his jacket? All will be revealed in his next outing.

And speaking of which, it wasn’t planned at the time, but Sors’s mention of British Bulldogs oddly foreshadows the guest star of the very next Spencer Nero…

Yep, coming later this year in PARAGON – Spencer Nero Versus Britain, in which our hero teams up with Jason Cobley’s storied creation, Captain Winston Bulldog, for a 15-page fight against a nation gone bad! (Many thanks to Jason for his permission to bring Bulldog back to the series, after the pair first teamed up in The Paragon Paradox.)

But before that…

The Spencer Nero Club #1: Folklore and Fire! 28 pages of all-new 1930s fanboy antics, starring Oswald Gypsum and chums! Art by Scott Twells, cover colours, lettering and design by Filippo. More on this ‘un soon! 

Comics Wot I Did In 2019: Part One - Club Sandwich

2019 was, as usual, a bit of a Spencer Nero year. Two stories emerged into the wild.

The first, ‘The Spencer Nero Club’ is probably the most significant, and one of my absolute favourite yarns. It was written some time ago – it was meant to follow on right after The Paragon Paradox crossover – but was delayed due to a change of artist. The talented Alex Mines was originally scheduled to pen this one, but paying work understandably took precedence, and eventually, the spectacular Scott Twells was drafted into duty. This, as it turned out, was a Very Good Thing, and led to Other Things – but more on those next year.

The Spencer Nero Club pulls a number of different threads together – it’s definitely one of my better bits of writing. The framing story concerns Spencer Nero’s fan club, led by Mr. Alabaster’s nephew, Oswald Gypsum. Oz (as he is henceforth to be known) features heavily in at least one unpublished script, and was a key part of the first Spencer Nero text story “…Chairman of the Board”, but had, until this point, only appeared briefly in a couple of very short strips “…Ruthless Rhymer” and “…Elephant in the Room” (plus a cameo in “…the Trouble With Girls”.) In “The Spencer Nero Club”, he really comes into his own – he very much seems to have supplanted William Kitt as the third main character of the series, after Spencer and Alabaster.

The story also introduces his school, Blackabbots – no prizes for guessing where that name comes from – and his chums, Tookey, Smallpiece, Venables and Botts. All these boys derive their names from the Palin / Jones comedy series, “Ripping Yarns”, specifically the episode ‘Tomkinson’s School Days’: the names are either mentioned in passing by the Headmaster or seen written on-screen.

As well as the story of the boys, “The Spencer Nero Club” is the one that gives Spencer the new regular ability to open Janus Arches as teleportation portals. It also deliberately sets a limit on the power – he can’t use it to go to other dimensions, or else the Roman god Terminus intervenes. This is due to the damage that Janus-kin – Spencer’s alternative selves – typically do to the multiverse. I know the idea of duplicate variations on the protagonist is a total cliché, but what the hell – it’s fun! Sometimes you’ve just got to go with it.

A few other observations:

Pages 1-4:

The images of Spencer are supposed to be a bit homoerotic! Everything on the shelves connects to a previous adventure – a Naztec statuette from the first Spencer Nero story, a feather from the Black Caladrius, the Ruthless Rhymer’s tongue - as does one of the newspaper headlines. The other, the ‘weasel’ one, may yet be explored. However, Von Zero’s swastika eye has never appeared before – the Fauna of Mirrors is from a Chinese tale about an invasion by mirrorworld demons who’d hitherto pretended to be our reflections!

In general, I really enjoyed crafting the (frequently bitchy) dialogue between the boys. Venables, the group’s mandatory arsehole, was the most fun to write. Note Tookey’s action figure – in the first Nero text story, it was implied these don’t sell too well, but that someone had recently bought one. Now we know who. Speaking of that story, Sors, Roman luck god and chief antagonist of said yarn, makes his first appearance in comic form. Look for his return…

Pages 5-7:

Welcome to Terminalis, a junkheap world of items that have reached their limit and can go no further. Stranded here are a variety of parallel universe Spencers: I thought the creepy mime, Spencer Pierrot, would prove my favourite, but Scott Twells’s excellent design for Spencer Pharoah made him the standout. Ironically, it’s Panzer Nero who has a life outside of this story – but more on that next year. Spencer Noveau is based around the Art Noveau movement – my instruction to Scott was to avoid straight lines and go for sweeping curves. He’s done a cracking job.

Pages 8-9:

Spencer’s murder of Panzer is a bit vicious – but you know what he’s like with Nazis. I don’t know if Scott did this deliberately – presumably not – but the way the blood drips down Spencer’s face after the Glasgow kiss from Terminus is in the same pattern as his Uncle Bonaventure’s ‘James Hetfield / My mate Graeme’ beard. If Spencer makes it into middle age – unlikely, I know – he might just have to grow such a facial adornment.

Back to Blackabbots for the final page, and we get a brief appearance of ‘orrible ‘eadmaster Ol’ Bergeron – modelled loosely on Richard Harris – whilst Oswald’s rebellious streak (and fetishisation of Nazi memorabilia) come to the fore. And at this point I started to think “You know what? The framing sequence was the best bit of the story – I could do more with these characters…” and cogs started turning in my brain.

To conclude, as well as Scott's typically brilliant art, it’s also worth mentioning the huge contribution of letterer Filippo to this story – he’s come on in leaps and bounds in terms of his (already perfectly good) lettering skills, and in this one he really lets rip and shows what he can do when you give him some sound effects to play with. Plus he was endlessly accommodating when it came to making changes. What a guy.

 'The Spencer Nero Club' appeared in PARAGON #23 - an extremely strong issue, if memory serves.

Spencer Nero and the Trouble with Blogs

The Ace of Cups. Art by Scott Twells, letters by Filippo.

Is it true? Am I down to only one blog post per year? Blimey! 2018 wasn’t a particularly productive year for me, from a comics-related perspective: indeed, by no standards was it an ordinary year, with too much else work-related going on, sapping time and energy for the creative process. However, a few stories managed to escape into the wild – a couple of Spencer Nero yarns and Something Else. Possibly. Here’s a few words on ‘em:

“I like men who have a future and women who have a past.”

-        - Oscar Wilde

In ‘Spencer Nero and the Trouble with Girls’, from PARAGON #22, an iconic British hero faces a gender-swap, and anyone who has concerns about this is accused of being a Nazi (in one case by an actual Nazi.) What, you may ask, could possibly have inspired this story? Who, I reply, knows? The mind of the small-press writer is sometimes best left unexplored. (As is the mind of his editor, who managed to schedule this story for September 2018, perfectly coinciding with a certain high-profile media event.)

But, this being a blog, we’d better at least have a gentle rummage.

The basic idea for this had been sitting around for a while – to gather up some of Spencer’s former female foes into a Sisterhood of Sirens, and derive some humour out of Spencer’s mistaken inability to take them seriously. (As a nod of the head to the original title for ‘The Pack’, and to suggest Spencer’s dismissive attitude, I’d considered calling it ‘A Few Bints and Spencer’, though I knew I’d never get away with it!) At one point, there was going to be an entire page of Spencer just laughing at the idea of women being a threat to him. In the end, the story went off in a different direction, as a comment on contemporary pop-culture, though Spencer’s off-hand sexism slipped through in a few panels. I’m not sure any of the characters come out of the story particularly well – as is my wont, everyone’s opinion and perspective, including my own, is thoroughly mocked.

It’s also a pretty continuity-heavy tale, featuring, as it does, the skull of Ekhidna from ‘Spencer Nero Goes South’ and ‘The Paragon Paradox’, Veleda the Druidess from ‘The Hour of the Heron’, Mrs. Simpson from ‘Spencer Nero and Mrs. Simpson’ and Dr. Von Zero from ‘The Island of the Naztecs’ and ‘The Hidden Olympics’. The story also features Spencer making greater use of the Janus Mask’s abilities, first unveiled in the aforementioned ‘Paragon Paradox’: technically, there should be a story in between, ‘The Spencer Nero Club’, which really flags this up properly, but I gather it’s still being drawn. Nonetheless, I like it when a series has been running long enough that you’re able to include various callbacks and links to previous continuity – hopefully this wasn’t too disorientating for any new readers.

Simpson attack! Art by Scott Twells, letters by Filippo.

However, the story is a tour de force for Mr. Scott Twells, a gentleman who, of late, has been saddled with the onerous chore of rendering umpteen of my scripts into a wholly undeserved and vivid life. Scott’s got it all, artistically-speaking – a unique and distinctive style, a stunning grasp of action sequences and the uncanny ability to capture characters’ mood, emotion and personality. I think this is probably his strongest Spencer Nero work to date – I particularly love the contrast between his finely-defined characters and his more impressionistic take on the Irish landscape of County Kerry.

You can pick up PARAGON #22 here:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=EBAHA8S3HV2E8

A French ‘Phant! See?

‘Spencer Nero and the Elephant in the Room’ was written in a matter of hours to provide an elephant-themed story for this year’s Ganesh-centric PARAGON Winter Special. As stories go, there’s not much to it – editor Davey Candlish originally suggested Spencer and Oswald tangling with a haunted African tribal mask, but somehow I ended up thinking about fictional elephants from children’s books instead. A quick check, and yes – it turned out Babar was indeed from the 1930s, and therefore the best fit. Somehow, Scott Twells (there’s that man again) managed to use my pretty thin premise to conjure up some typically glorious art. I don’t know if tarot cards were involved. In retrospect, the title of this story bothers me – it needs to work on another level, as well as being literal, and it doesn’t. Unless the elephant in the room is the British class system, and Spencer’s subordinate status to Alabaster. All right, that’ll have to do.

Art by Scott Twells, letters by Filippo

 You can get your copy of annual here:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=9M3DVT9FZUTP6

Rocket Man

Now, the third thing this year has, improbably enough, also featured Scott Twells, but I’m not sure if it’s been officially released. The Psychedelic Journal, to which I’ve contributed in the past, has done tales of Time Travel and the Wild West, but has subsequently moved on to the theme of Wizardry. As such, I concocted a story about a real-life sorcerer, the remarkable 1930s Thelemic sex-wizard and rocket engineer Jack Parsons. Now, I’ve seen the completed comic, but I haven’t seen it for sale on Comicsy, so I don’t know if 'Babalon Working' was fully unleashed to the general public. For the moment, here’s a random panel.

A bit phallic, innit? Art by Scott Twells, letters by Chris Mole

Happy new year!

Drunk Enough to Know No Fear: The Genesis of Brahms & Liszt

Many years ago*, when I was young, I got an email from Davey Candlish, editor of PARAGON. He had a number of projects he was interested in instigating for his comic, and was wondering if any writers fancied pursuing them. To me, one idea leapt out immediately - and this was it:

"A buddy movie / amateur detective type tale set in 1853 Weimar. Two

professional musicians who actually dislike each other's work team up to

solve... whatever, you choose. I want a light hearted tale with lots of

quips and digs at each other. Their names? Brahms and Liszt. You don't

need to know their music, or indeed like it - it's just a hook to hang

the story on."

 Brahms & Liszt, the famed composers, as music-themed detectives? I liked it. And almost immediately, I started to see how the double-act would work, and how it would suit the kind of stories I like to write.

My first point of reference, oddly, was the Tom Hanks / Dan Aykroyd comedy movie 'Dragnet', with the roles reversed. Liszt, the older man would be the wilder one - the maverick 'rock 'n' roll' showman, almost a Keith Richards of classical. He'd have the Tom Hanks 'Pep Streebek' role - the easy-going good guy. The younger Brahms would be the more uptight, OCD perfectionist of the pair, with an eye for detail - analogous to Dan Aykroyd's 'Friday' character.

Digging into Brahms & Liszt's first meeting in Weimar, both Davey and I simultaneously discovered that the local Grand-Duke had perished around the same time - could foul play be involved? I also discovered that the duo had not got off to a good start - Brahms had fallen asleep during one of Liszt's performances. With a little more research I was able to flesh out their characters. Here's the notes from my original pitch:

Franz Liszt: 42-year-old Liszt is a pop star before the term was invented, a somewhat Byronic ladies man who lives a Bohemian existence. Worshipped across northern Germany, Liszt goes in for theatrics and a baroque ‘n’ roll aesthetic. Liszt lives with a married Polish princess, Princess Carolyne, in Weimar. He has children from a previous relationship who live in Paris. For all his celebrity status and quasi-mystical hold over his audiences, Liszt is also a great humanitarian – he’s so wealthy he can afford to give away huge sums to charity, and whilst he seems to have a maverick quality, he has a strong moral core.

Johannes Brahms: 20-year-old Brahms is Liszt’s opposite, a young orderly, traditional man, of set routines and habits, and a notorious perfectionist, with a strong eye for detail and a slightly obsessive streak. He is a deeply sarcastic, taciturn figure, an old man before his time, who is always ready with a put-down or an expression of scorn for Liszt’s extravagant lifestyle. However, he gets on well with children, and enjoys nature. He is not at all vain, and dresses rather cheaply: brought up as a Lutheran, he has the classic Protestant work ethic and disdain for flamboyance.

With this in place, and an overarching plot whose nature I'll not yet reveal, I had the ingredients for what I hoped what be an enjoyable buddy comedy with a dose of murder, mystery and a slight touch of the paranormal. And now, drawn by Davey, coloured by Jim Cameron and lettered by Spencer Nero alumni Fillipo Roncone, 'Wotan Walks in Weimar' is finally about to make its debut in PARAGON #21.

I hope you enjoy it -  it's been fermenting a long time!

 *2011, to be precise.

Mythconceptions - Spencer Nero in India

And that's just for starters.

Some time ago, I wrote a story in which the protagonist was a Nazi. I was always worried that someone might think I approved of his beliefs and behaviour, but he was a one-off character, and it was hopefully pretty clear that I was mocking both him and his ideology fairly relentlessly.

But what happens when you do something similar with a long-running character who's supposed to be the hero? 'Spencer Nero and the Misapplication of Karma', as featured in Spencer Nero Vol. 2, poses that question. It's always been pretty clear that Spencer is a mass of contradictions - a cheerful, educated, heroic fellow, who can behave in the most boorish, grotesque and petty manner imaginable. He is, in short, all that is good about the British pulp hero, as well as all that is bad. Nonetheless, despite his personality quirks, he is usually on the right side, and though his means may be suspect, his end is generally laudable.

Not in this story.

This was in fact the fifth Nero tale ever written, but it's been a long time in gestation. At this point, Nero seemed to be hanging out in a different country every issue (he seems to spend most of his time in Britain these days) and it seemed inevitable he should at some stage end up in India. But an agent of the British Empire enforcing colonial oppression in India is a problematic figure, to say the least, so I decided not to hold back, and make Spencer flat-out ridiculous in his self-superiority. However, the only way I could see it working for the character is if his reasons for looking down on the locals weren't what you'd expect. Spencer isn't a racial supremacist - he's a mythological supremacist. India worries and confuses him because he doesn't understand the various belief systems that exist there, and he thinks his own belief - in incestuous Roman divinities - is more straightforward and user-friendly.

True, there's a get-out clause for him - the runic magic from way back in the Olympics story - and for a while I did consider this might become Spencer's equivalent of Father Ted's "That money was just resting in my account!" In the end, I didn't pursue this idea, though it does feature in early drafts of 'The Pack', and is resurrected for Spencer's introduction to the collected edition.

The Compass Mantis went on to front a quiz show with Richard Osman.

Does the story work? In terms of script, I don't know - I'm not convinced I properly resolved the tension between playing with the 'Indiana Jones'-style representation of the subcontinent, and mocking the attitudes associated with that representation. In retrospect, I feel the story tries to have its cake and eat it, and there's a couple of panels that, if you took them out of context, could give completely the wrong idea about where I was coming from. On the other hand, I do like a couple of the jokes - Spencer's business card amuses me - and I like the Compass Mantis, despite his cheerfully punning name and his dreadfully stereotypical use of the phrase 'Infidel!' He is probably one of the most capable opponents Spencer has faced, and were it not for karmic complications, the fight might well have panned out differently. It's also interesting to see Spencer taking orders from someone who isn't Mr. Alabaster - Governor Anderson is a real historical figure, and the later namesake for WWII Anderson shelters. And finally, this is the story that establishes Spencer's talent for offending deities, something which becomes a recurring theme throughout the series. (See 'Spencer Nero Feels Your Pin', also by Scott Twells and Jim Campbell.)

And speaking of those two gents, as far as art and lettering go though, there's no question - both of them play a blinder. Scott delivers what may be his finest work on a Nero story to date, handling humour, characterisation and action sequences with the kind of aplomb that make him one of the most exciting talents on the small-press scene. I'm particularly fond of some of the stylish perspectives he adopts, which really make the characters leap off the page. Meanwhile, Jim's font for Durga is sublime, and his ability to render my excessive dialogue in a readable format is remarkable - plus, if anyone does a better piano-falling-on-an-idiot KCHANNNGGG sound effect, I'd like to see it.

And now, let's finish up, as is customary, with some random observations:

• On page 3, Spencer's 'Oh... bother' is borrowed from Winnie-the-Pooh, which is the best children's book ever written.
• Edward VIII is on the wall in Governor Anderson's mansion because this was originally written as a 1936 story - it was probably going to slot in between "...Goes South" and "Mrs. Simpson."
• Punching out big cats really is Spencer's speciality - it was the first thing we ever saw him do in a comic strip.
• The Compass Mantis's name was inspired by a line from an Ian Gillan / Tony Iommi charity single, 'Out of My Mind', whereas Spencer's line about 'Instant Karma' is a John Lennon reference, several decades before the fact.
• The Compass Mantis's South-South-East Strike occurs at (more or less) a south-south-east angle. And Spencer's response, 'Pedicabo Ego Vos Et Irrumabo' is the most unpleasant thing he's ever said, though I don't think he intends to do it literally. And no, I'm still not translating it.

And on that refusal to co-operate (in the spirit of Ghandi, I'd suggest) we end.

"I'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order."

I have come here to chew Pedigree Chum and sniff ass... and I'm all out of Pedigree Chum.

Pious. And hairy.

The recently-published Spencer Nero Compendium Vol. 2 has some exclusive material in it - not least 'Spencer Nero and The Pack', with art by Ben Rose. 'The Pack', which sees Spencer Nero enlisting the aid of paranormal pooches to save Mr. Alabaster, has its origins in a 'Just William' story called 'A Few Dogs and William' - indeed, the original title was 'A Few Dogs and Spencer'. The stories aren't particularly similar - in Richmal Crompton's one, young William Brown wrongly thinks he's accidentally poisoned a dog and sets out to find the owner a new one - but both feature a quest for dogs and moments of canine mayhem.

All the dogs that appear in 'The Pack' are genuine creatures of myth and legend, of course. Saint Guinefort, The Pack's co-ordinator, may have first come to my attention in Fortean Times - his worship apparently continued right into the 1930s, when the story is set. The very concept of a Dog Saint is one that I wholeheartedly approve of - the pronouncement that "there is more faith and love in the heart of a dog than any priest could ever muster' is very much the voice of the author creeping into the story. On the other side of the good dog / bad dog axis, the villain of the piece is Black Shuck, an archetypal example of the 'Black Dog' phenomenon. The idea of phantom black dogs is one that has interested me since childhood, when I got hold of a copy of Tom McGowen's 'Encyclopedia of Legendary Creatures'. The art therein, by one Victor G. Ambrus, is the stuff of nightmares, and his red-eyed depiction of the black dog both terrified and fascinated me. Apparently, East Anglian black dogs are the worst, hence the origin of the shinbone that lures Shuck in. However, in an unfortunate example of random synchronicity, between my writing 'The Pack' and it getting published, 2000AD published a story called 'Black Shuck' which even features the fiery-eyed cyclopean version of the aforementioned haunt-hound. Just one of those coincidences that are all-too common in comics.

It's also worth noting that The Pack has been through more drafts than anyone realises. An early version, with Spencer's pal William Kitt in a more prominent role, involves Spencer accidentally feeding an artefact of the Sumerian dog deity Bau to his pet lion, Androcles. In this version, it's Spencer who faces Bau's vengeance, and has to form The Pack to protect himself. Another version, for which I have a complete script, substitutes Mr. Alabaster for Mandeep Chowdray, the Indian civil servant who works in the office next door, and gets a very brief mention in 'Spencer Nero and the Misapplication of Karma'. In this iteration, Spencer undertakes the quest solely to prove he's not a racist - unfortunately he ruins everything by being profoundly racist about the French, Irish and Chinese dogs he's recruited. I decided against this version - it was sounding a little too much like Father Ted - but I did like the way I wrote Mandeep, who proved witheringly contemptuous of Spencer, but charmingly so, to the extent Spencer failed to notice it. Maybe he'll turn up properly sometime - I think he works for the Department of Oversight.

Now for a few words on the art of Ben Rose. One thing I particularly enjoyed was the way in which Ben, like Louis Carter before him on a certain Dr WTF?! story, started slipping in his own visual gags, which both improved the story and made it significantly ruder. (Oddly enough, Ben's cartoony art and elongated, stylised figures actually remind me a little of Louis's work.) As I said to Ben at the time, if the original impetus for the story was the notion that dogs were great, the published version suggests that dogs are great, but also quite disgusting. Which I suppose is true. Examples of Ben's perversity-amplification (it's a super-power) include the source of St. Guinefort's distraction, the way Ben frames the bone-gnawing scene, and Spencer's reaction to the dogs 'making friends' off-panel. You are a sordid boy, Mr. Rose - I wholly approve, and am grateful you brought your own very apt ideas to the hairy proceedings! On a different note, Ben is the artist who's probably got William Kitt closest to how I imagine him looking - a bit effete and rather like a young Jude Law. It's all in the eyelashes. (Kitt has still never appeared looking the same twice between any two stories - it's starting to become a character trait that I may have to work into 'Spencer Nero' continuity.)

Hopefully 'The Pack' ends up making your tails wag - I like it a lot, and it's probably the least violent 'Spencer Nero' story I've ever written. Dogs clearly have a therapeutic effect.

Arf!

Snrrfff!

The Paragon Paradox Part Three (Final Part, Honest!): Eliminate 'Er!

Welcome to the final part of my thoughts on 'The Paragon Paradox' - and rest assured, it is the final part. (First part here, second part here.) First, a few words on the artist currently known as Scott Twells - a remarkable talent. I first  encountered his work when he illustrated a yet-to-be-published story of mine for a yet-to-be-disclosed comic. Discussing his work with the editor, it struck me that though his style for that story was deliberately scratchy and cartoonish, it was also blessed with a remarkable sense of composition and some sublime posing. Oddly, Davey Candlish had also sent Scott a short Spencer Nero script to illustrate, which meant he ended up drawing two of my stories in quick succession - before being handed The Paragon Paradox on the strength of 'Spencer Nero Feels Your Pin'. The upshot is that only David Broughton has ever drawn more pages of my scripts* - a gent with whom he shares a similar talent for swiftness, without ever sacrificing quality.

Now for a few random observations:

Part One:

Lettering by Jim Campbell

• The Dalmatian hanging out with Bulldog at the start is called Gooch - this is not a reference to any weird piercing (look it up! No, wait, don't!) but in fact a nod of the head to a book I enjoyed as a child, namely 'Mr. Gooch and the Penny-farthing', a story about some dogs that run a bicycle shop. The lead dog is a Dalmation in a boiler suit.

• Mr. Twells notably places the number '18' on Bulldog's hangar - 'Hangar 18' is, of course, a key song on Megadeth's 'Rust In Peace', one of the greatest albums in the history of the human species. Ergo, I posit that Scott Twells is likely a thrasher of some description.

• Ganesh's foe is a Promethean Eagle - the horrible thing that used to pull Prometheus's regenerating liver out on daily basis. At one point I was going to have Bulldog carried away by the eagle - until I remembered he'd just been carried off by a pterodactyl in his own series a couple of episodes ago!

Part Two:

Lettering by Dave Metcalfe-Carr

• Jikan's arrival line is paraphrased from 'Shogun Assassin', in which Ogami Itto exclaims "They will pay... with rivers of blood!" On reflection this sounded a bit Enoch Powell, so I changed it. It wouldn't have been the most appropriate line for a story in which extradimensional immigrants threaten Britain...

• Ekhidna's changed slightly from James Corcoran's depiction - she's a bit better looking (still got nice cheekbones) and actually closer to what I originally imagined she'd look like.

Part Three:

• It struck me as I reached the end that this story is a Freudian nightmare - a gigantic archetypal mother-figure gets gang-banged mauled by a bunch of macho men. Someone had to articulate it (but not excuse it.)

Lettering by Ken Reynolds

• Bulldog and the big hairy metaphor: Wait a minute - didn't I say in my last post that Bulldog was the most down to earth of the team? Why is he going all metaphorical here? Well, given his lineage and pre-eminent status as small-press icon, I decided he was the best person to articulate the subtext of the story - namely that it's all about the difference between small-press comics and the work of 'the big boys' (as Davey Candlish likes to call them) at Marvel and DC.  Ekhidna represents the latter - constantly repeating herself, squirting out debased copies of myths that once mattered, unable to do anything particularly original but always ready with a new #1. She's finally floored by the PARAGON characters, who of course represent the small-press: varied, versatile, hit-and-miss, off-the-wall and representing the true spirit of their creators. All done in the context of the crossover, that most quintessentially American of comics formats, filtered through PARAGON's 70s/80s Brit sensibility.

And that, as they say, is your lot!

*James Corcoran has drawn the same number as Scott.

The Paragon Paradox Part Two: Tres Hombres (Plus One.)

Art on Paragon Paradox by Scott Twells - more on him in the next part!

Happy new year, and welcome to the second instalment of my rambling commentary on 'The Paragon Paradox' from PARAGON Annual 2016. (First part here.) In choosing my Paragon Patrol, I had three characters in mind from the off. Obviously I'd use Spencer Nero - Ekhidna was his nemesis, after all, and I figured his tendency to jump to conclusions might cause a bit of friction with his peers. But although leaning heavily on Spencer Nero continuity with the story, I wanted Jikan to take a leading role. He's the comic's flagship character - PARAGON's equivalent of Judge Dredd -  and I deliberately held back his arrival till Part Two to give it more impact. Jikan subsequently galvanises the team and is pivotal to all that happens afterwards. I've never written Jikan before, and whilst he looks like Toshiro Mifune, I originally thought he should probably come across like Tomisaburo Wakayama  - Ogami Itto from the 'Lone Wolf and Cub' movies. (Yeah, I know they're based on some remarkable comics - I have the first couple of volumes - but I saw the movies first and they've had a lasting impact.)  That notion didn't really stick - Jikan seems more amiable than the gruff Lone Wolf - but he does carry out some theatrically over-the-top blood-letting that is hopefully in the spirit of the films.

Lettering by Jim Campbell

Next up was Ganesh: a mainstay of early issues of PARAGON, who these days only appears in his 'Li'l Ganesh' or 'Oor Ganesh' incarnations (both of whom also make cameos.) I wanted to bring him back in his full atomic-stomping glory. I wrote him as quite knowing and slightly fed-up - he really just wants to get back to his celestial garden, but the universe keeps conspiring against him, in ways whose outcome is all too clear to him. I also gave him a slightly pompous side - he's a god amongst mortals, after all.

Spencer Nero's role in the story is basically to screw things up. Everything that happens is his fault (dating right back to PARAGON #13) and he doesn't make things any better by picking fights with his team-mates, getting his uncle into difficulties, and breaking the entire multiverse.

It's a running theme that Spencer is often architect of his own troubles, or at least doesn't always make things easier for himself, and that plays out in spades here. But what's really significant is that this is the story that properly settles whether or not the Janus Mask does actually have mystic powers, or whether it's all in Spencer's head. It turns out it does indeed have remarkable, untapped powers - but Spencer's spent fifteen years using it on its most basic 'setting'! Might we now witness him trying to explore these powers in future stories? We shall see. There's something of same conceit here that Arnold Rimmer faced in Red Dwarf: Back to Reality - the suggestion that he was stuck playing the useless-gimp-cover-identity of a vastly more capable secret agent.

So, who would the fourth man be? Originally, I thought Icarus Dangerous might be good, not least since he actually hails from Ancient Greece, and would therefore be a logical fit with Ekhidna. I imagined Spencer Nero would look at him with the same kind of star-struck awe in which teenage girls view boy bands - a living, breathing person from classical mythology! But that didn't prove possible, so Davey Candlish suggested I use Bulldog. Bulldog was created by Jason Cobley, who very kindly agreed to let me write his character - for a brief history, have a look at Jason's blog here.

Bulldog I saw as working-class (even though he's an officer), effective and fairly blunt - the sort of chap who might prick the pomposity of the more flamboyant members of the team, and undercut their pretensions with a dry quip. Bulldog's role swiftly became the guy who gets things done - the reliable, sensible backbone of the squad. Compared to the other three, he seemed a much more straightforward, much less troubled character. In some strange way, it felt to me like having Bulldog in the story somehow 'legitimised' it, helping draw a clear line to some thirty years of small-press comics history (but more on that in the next post.)

So, this was the team, with a few others pencilled in as cameos, to show Ekhidna's impact on various parallel worlds. Except, in my original synopsis, Ekhidna was only the first villain the heroes would face - she'd swiftly be superseded by a related character (and, in even earlier drafts, his minions too), out for revenge. I'm not going to name these fellas here, as I still hope to bring them into 'Spencer Nero' in the future, but if you know your Greek mythology, you'll know that Ekhidna didn't create most of the monsters of antiquity on her own...

The problem was, of course, that this was wildly overambitious, and as usual, I was trying to squeeze too much in. At one stage, I even wanted some of the PARAGON heroes to end up stuck in the dimensions of the cameo characters - I had a plan that they'd have to escape from Oor Ganesh's Dudley Watkins dimension, in which Spencer Nero (secretly Scottish - see PARAGON Annual 2015) might end up going native. Actually, I still like that idea - might make for an interesting Nero two-or-three pager.

Oor Ganesh, by Davey Candlish

Anyway, that's quite enough for now. In the next and final part of this series of posts, I'll provide commentary on the finished strip itself, speculate on whether Scott Twells likes thrash metal, and explain what the story's really all about...

The Paragon Paradox Part One: Master of Sparks

A homage to... something, not quite sure what. Pencils / inks by Davey Candlish, colours by Jim Cameron

The PARAGON Annual 2016 is out, in more formats than you can shake a rabid badger at. (Not that shaking tends to work - they just tighten their monochromatic grip.) So, if you want to see Spencer Nero, Jikan, Bulldog and Battle Ganesh team up to punch extradimensional evil (and each other) in the face, here's your chance. And here's mine too, to indulge in a multi-part blogging bout, in which I take a self-indulgent look at the genesis and development of 'The Paragon Paradox', my story for the annual. But first - here's how to get hold of the book in the incarnation of your choice.

The hardback:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/paragon-comic/paragon-annual-2016/hardcover/product-22482758.html

The paperback:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/paragon-comic/the-paragon-winter-spectacular-2016/paperback/product-22486883.html

The e-book:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/paragon-comic/the-paragon-annual-2016-ebook/ebook/product-22484146.html

Just 'The Paragon Paradox' itself:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/paragon-comic/the-paragon-paradox/paperback/product-22482820.html

And now, let's turn the clock back to find out how the story came into being. Feel free to wobble productively - this is a flashback after all...

In the worlds before PARAGON, primal chaos reigned...

'The Paragon Paradox' all began with Stephen Prestwood - specifically, this smashing picture that he drew of various PARAGON heroes, standing around looking tough.

Crossover candidates

Davey Candlish stuck it up on the PARAGON blog in March 2015, and I happened to mention we now needed a story where they all teamed-up and fought some interdimensional menace. Of course, saying something like that in front of Dave is like dipping yourself in gravy and dancing naked in front of a man-eating tiger - you can't be surprised when he bites. So it was decided there and then I was to script the multi-hero tale - a tale which the inspirational Mr. Prestwood suggested be titled 'The Paragon Paradox'.

Looking back at my notes, it seems I almost immediately decided to link the whole thing into Spencer Nero continuity by featuring Ekhidna, the extradimensionally-exiled Mother of all Monsters from 'Spencer Nero Goes South' in PARAGON #13. I could have come up with some other interdimensional menace, but since I already had one waiting, why not use her? I'd had plans to write a story called 'Spencer Nero's Army', in which he and various characters from his adventures to-date all teamed up to travel to Ekhidna's realm and rescue his uncle, so I thought I might use this basic framework for the crossover.

Panel from 'Spencer Nero Goes South', art by James Corcoran

I definitely wanted this story to 'count', for Spencer at least - I like crossovers that are very squarely part of a character's continuity, rather than ones that are detached, and never mentioned again. The Judge Dredd / Batman and Judge Dredd / Alien crossovers are perfect examples of the former - both draw on existing continuity, have some impact on Dredd's world, and are obliquely referenced further down the line.

So with that in mind (and deciding also that if I used Spencer's continuity, I had to make damn sure he didn't dominate the story), I had to choose my cast. It wasn't realistic to feature all the characters from Stephen's original drawing in major roles - this wasn't Crisis on Infinite Earths - so I decided to boil it down to a squad of four... a Paragon Patrol.

In the next post, I'll explain, who, why, and what they were originally going to get up to...

I'm #18 and I like it!

Well, give or take twenty-years. But I'm never one to let the facts get in the way of an Alice Cooper-based pun, and the release of PARAGON #18 gives me that opportunity. Two Spencer Nero tales in this one  - aside, of course, from another smashing instalment of 'Bulldog and Panda' by Cobley / Prestwood / Campbell, and a particularly notable episode of Jikan from Howard / El Chivo / Caliber. Here's a few words on 'Spencer Nero and the Reckless Return of the Ruthless Rhymer'.

This story is a sequel to the original 'Ruthless Rhymer' two-pager from PARAGON #13, back in the mists of 2013 (Yikes! Time moves fast in the small-press world!) That tale was drawn by Neil 'Bhuna' Roche, and I loved his design for the Rhymer so much that I was moved to write a lengthier tale of the vicious versifier. The Rhymer is inspired by the cruel and hilarious writings of poet Harry Graham, but he's also very autobiographical - the Rhymer is the impatient side of me that gets annoyed by selfishness, thoughtlessness, bumbling, and general idiocy, the short-tempered side that wants to dish out ridiculously disproportionate justice to the irritating. As such, writing his antics proves very therapeutic - although his outrage inevitably makes things worse for him in the long run. I particularly enjoy writing in rhyme - rhyming stories have become a bit of a PARAGON tradition - and it's always a welcome challenge trying to get the meter right.

Art is by Nero-newcomer Dave Snell, who does an intensely characterful and atmospheric job - I absolutely love his scornful, self-satisfied and yet rather hapless Rhymer - exactly how the character should be

To finish up, here's a few random observations:

• Can you spot the signed picture of Aleister Crowley on Mr. Alabaster's desk?
• Also on page 1, the Rhymer's resurrection is a bit of a tribute to the end of the movie 'Carrie'.
• The large ladies in the elevator on page 3 are a tad Beryl Cook - something which has cropped up in my stories before.
• That's William Kitt in the museum on page 4 - the most chameleonic character in Spencer's supporting cast, he's like the David Bowie of the strip, when it comes to changing his look all the time.
• Spencer is borrowing Homer Simpson's 'think unsexy thoughts' routine on page 5.
• Page 6 sees Edward Lear in full fight - Davey Candlish is a real fan of this poet (though I didn't know that when I wrote the story.) In fact, Davey told me he'd had a recitation of The Owl and the Pussycat at his wedding!
• Page 8 gives me the excuse to bring back the Rhymer any time I want - but given the conclusion to the story, I'm not sure how much rhyming he'll be doing!

Unfortunately, magic gremlins got into the works when the story was published, and replicated a speech balloon from a previous page atop the climatic panel - so here's said panel as it was meant to be seen. Cut it out and stick it into your copy - or paste it onto the screen if you're reading digitally!

Biff!