‘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!
