I was asked about what I thought about when putting a comic together. Well, firstly, there is the concept. What is it going to be about is something I tend not to know until I’ve started drawing it. Thankfully, my brain does usually allow me to know which character will be in it.
I do not use scripts. Everything unfolds as I draw it. For instance, in Krakos: Sands Of Terror I knew Krakos would be in Egypt but then I drew him on a bus tour of the pyramids! By the time I had reached the final page I was thinking “End it with a big question mark!” but I then began drawing a “twist in the tale” that threw me off somewhat!
With Krakos there was a choice: I could try to take him down the super hero route or keep him as he was in the work of his creator, William A. Ward, as a regularly (if eccentrically) dressed man who is the “Angel of the Burning Death”! The utter weirdness of some pages was not planned just drawn and for that I blame my brain.
Here’s an odd side-note. I had thought that “the many-eyed one” had first been seen in “Worlds Within Words” –part of the Dr Morg Trilogy. However, there it is in Krakos! I can only assume that the great unspeakable evil mind-swiped me! So the very foundations for The Green Skies was first laid down in 2009 and I never knew it. Well, I must have known it if it is there even if three years later I didn’t know it.
Comics really screw you up.
Anyway, readers in the Netherlands, Germany and Finland (the only people I’ve ever heard from on the book) loved it. Particularly the way in which Krakos defeated the Crimson Guardian with his, uh, “ultimate power”! That I had no idea was going to happen but it seemed so right after it was drawn.
I do, of course, occasionally keep rough notes with equally rough sketches –I have several large and crammed full “Pukka” A4 note books. Some of the stuff in them will never see the light of day but some might. Most of the stuff is stored in my head. On a recent project I inserted a scene out of nowhere. It puzzled me. Last week I was digging through the stack of old sketch books and there was the scene from…1997!
A couple of one page sketches Ben Dilworth just sent me put me into a flurry of sketching and note-making last night at about Midnight! Two new series or books worked out. About a month ago, at 0200 hours, I sat up and filled about ten pages with notes and sketches.
Oh, just realised –Dilworth did not inspire 2 stories but 3!
So, the story is never set out in any detail and I like that as it can lead to some surprises even for me. With The Return Of The Gods it was only planned for one character to die –that had been in the planning stages as far back as the 1980s. However, others died at a creative whim –including characters I liked. But it happened so that’s it.
What I think about, as a rule, is making book value for money. Something that I would pick up if I saw it.
Back in 2000, I think it was, I got a letter from someone reviewing zines –it was a large, folded sheet of paper with some silly title. Anyway, he wanted a copy of the previous Black Tower Adventure for review but it had sold out. So, I returned his cheque and sent a copy of the latest bumper sized Adventure (vol.1 no. 50).
Nothing back from him but I then saw a copy of his publication at a Bristol Comic Expo. I bought it. What a review! He stated that he had ordered a copy of Adventure but it was not in stock so I had returned his cheque and sent a “rather thick” newer issue. Quite seriously: he was complaining about having his cheque returned and that I had sent him a book with over 50 pages for nothing!!!!
It got ‘better’ as he noted that the comic featured characters that “have obviously been around for a long time with a lot of back history” –I still puzzle over that complaint. I had been publishing 20+ years and he had ordered issue 49 but seemed angry that the comic had been going so long. I always put in a “what has happened so far” type intro to strips because that leaves the reader with the option of just reading the book they have or buying a back issue if they like the story.
This was the most negative review I had ever gotten because I had not taken the man’s cheque and had sent him a book with far more pages than the one he had ordered! Interestingly, a mark on the cover of that issue showed me that he later sold it on ebay for over £20!
Most comic fans like getting a nice chunky book at a decent price, though! I try to make sure that the covers look good and are fairly decent pieces of art in themselves. The back covers –ditto. I introduced the “Tower Of Power Pin-ups” to cover this! I like to add text features –about the artist if a reprint or something about the character(s). It is something European readers seem to really like.
All Black Tower books are, of course, black and white (I am the biggest publisher of Independent black and white comics in the UK after all…I’m told in Europe, too). So the colour covers should give the reader a taste of excitement so that she/he will look inside.
So, value for your Euro/£/$ is what I aim to give. And I hear from people that they tend to read the comics 2-3 times whereas they read their Marvels and DCs just once (Result!). With the odd exception most comics from BT can be read by anyone from 11 years upward and entertainment is the key word.
Also, Black Tower does not just publish comics. There is illustrated Haiku, prose stories of horror as well as dark humour and even books on “World Mysteries” such as Some Things Strange and Sinister, Some More Things Strange And Sinister and even books on wildlife such as the Red Paper or early ballooning –Riders Of The Clouds. Again, the mystery books (all A4 and profusely illustrated) get great reactions from outside the UK.
But comics are what Black Tower is known for and I must admit I do get really surprised by who refers to them. In 2004 I was meeting with some naturalists and discussing distribution maps, food graphs and all that really dry stuff. As I was seeing the university folk off at the train station one turned: “Oh, a couple of my co-workers love your comics” –I was taken aback but then another asked: “Are you that Terry Hooper –Black Tower?” At another meeting with police wildlife crimes officers I was asked about Black Tower Comics and all sorts of stuff comic related.
This is all odd since, comic community wise, I seem to be better known outside the UK than in it!
Does it matter so long as people read and enjoy the books? Not really and so long as I keep sitting at a table with a blank piece of paper and equally blank mind I’ll continue drawing!
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