Pin-up - De Waugh (Andie Tong Special)

We're very proud to announce that the incredibly talented Andie Tong (TRON: Betrayal) produced a full-colour pin up for us. Want to see the colour version? Of course you do. Look out for it in issue #01!

Thanks again to Andie.

Birthday Sketch

I have attained another year of age; wisdom is 'in the post' apparently.

Many thanks to Chris for a lovely sketch of DECONSTRUCTED's heroine, Sophie... and the cute Combat Remotes.

DECONSTRUCTED – Influences

The Red Star first hit comic store shelves in 1999 and proceeded to come out in fits and starts. It changed publisher a handful of times, and sustaining interest was difficult – a pity as the central concept was so damn satisfying. Somewhere, in a longbox, I have a run of these comics – I was an avid fan.

The Red Star mixes overwhelming Soviet-style military might with psychic Sorceresses. The heady combination of monolithic scale technology, lab designed magic and Russian tragedy is a potent one.

It was this comic that really piqued my interest in the Russian military and Soviet era government – subjects I’ve barely scratched the surface of during my research. Perhaps for this reason I made the Los Perdidos Combine in DECONSTRUCTED a Russian colony in space, instead of an American one (cliché) or an English/ Japanese co-op, which was done in Aliens, as Weyland–Yutani, although you’d never know it.

Back To BICS

It was rather ambitious now, looking back at it. I was stood in the main hall at BICS in 2009 thinking, ‘I’d like to have a stall, I want to sell comics to people, I’d like to have as much merch as Fetishman. And I’m gonna do it for next year!’

And so I went home and started outlining a plot on the couch. That turned into me writing the first issue during lunch breaks. Then the second issue popped out and so on. Of course, scripts aren’t very interesting reading, so I had to persuade artists to give me their precious time. For free. And they did.

Artists like Chris Christison, Shannon Gallant, Barry Spiers, Andie Tong and the designer Julian Parry. I felt incredibly blessed.

But here’s the thing – comics take time. Taking a brand spanking new project from soup to nuts (even if the nuts are just issue #1) takes ages. You have to write the thing, agree concept designs for the characters, for the environments, for the vehicles. There are corrections when things don’t quite go right and the biggest killer is, of course, the day job.

People have day jobs. They are busy, they are frequently beaten down, and they occasionally would rather not pick up a pencil as soon as their shift is over. They also want to socialise and play Halo (Christian!).

Mathematically you say, ‘OK, 22 pages, that’s less than a page a week over a year’, but it’s still a massive undertaking. And that’s before you get the pencils inked, or even think about colouring the project.

So, am I a little deflated? Well, yes. But then I go back to BICS and have lovely people like the Etherington Brothers asking me how it’s going, and how they like the characters. Abby Rider (Manchester’s very own font of comics enthusiasm) tells me how great the blog is… and it all seems worthwhile because theses guys knows it takes ages and they’re encouraging us and willing us on to make a finished comic.

And it makes it all worthwhile.

So thank you BICS for being inspiring, and continuing to inspire and giving me the opportunity to meet my peers and heroes. And buy Fetishman comics, of course.

DECONSTRUCTED – Influences

When I started out with DECONSTRUCTED I literally just had the single image of a girl trying to fix her crawler in vast, bleak, snowy wastes. It was one of those steep angled shots that film directors are so enamoured with, and so am I it would seem. DECONSTRUCTED is definitely indebted to a few films and comics, and I’d like to take the time to mention them here:

Solaris (2002) is a beautiful, meditative film full of flashbacks – much like DECONSTRUCTED. Only now (literally, as I’m writing this, nearly a year after I first put pen to paper) do I see how the narrative structure really fed into what I wanted to do with Sophie and the crew of The Evangeline.

This film really does deserve to be seen on a large screen and looks amazing. The art direction cleverly plays out the scenes on Earth (mostly flashbacks) in warm oranges and deep browns, whilst the current day is played out against the pale blue light of the space station. It is this colour differential that underpins the film’s ambience – that nostalgia is usually dark but warm, whilst the present is stark and cold. Cliff Martinez provides a score as gently soporific as the visuals but keeps a line of tension through the electronics to avoid drowsing off altogether.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a Science Fiction film capture a sense of yearning and regret quite like Solaris, which makes it perfect fit for DECONSTRUCTED.

Tune in for more influences next week.

DECONSTRUCTED – Influences

When I started out with DECONSTRUCTED I literally just had the single image of a girl trying to fix her crawler in vast, bleak, snowy wastes. It was one of those steep angled shots that film directors are so enamoured with, and so am I it would seem. DECONSTRUCTED is definitely indebted to a few films and comics, and I’d like to take the time to mention them here:

Alien (1979) is exactly the sort of film I mentioned in the previous post about influences (find it HERE). Heartless corporation? Check. Grumbling, bored employees? Check. Pre-CG effects and lovely chunky models? Oh, yeah.

Plenty has been said about Giger’s phallic-headed super-beast, but what really interested me about Alien, with relation to DECONSTRUCTED, was the dynamic between the crew. Space is an incredibly hostile environment, and each of the crew is placing their safety in the hands of everyone else. Now imagine if someone on the crew is new, and you’ve never shipped out with them – the pressure and possibility for paranoia are huge.

The film also features hierarchy and procedure – never more so during Ripley’s frosty conversation about quarantine with Ash, the science officer. As the crewmembers start dying, people begin to come apart at the seams and struggle to act efficiently.

A large turning point of the story (if you haven’t seen Alien you should stop reading now!) is when Ripley finds out the crew are expendable and discovers the company’s primary objective is the live capture of the creature. It’s exactly that ‘at all costs’ mentality I wanted to apply to the crew of The Evangeline in DECONSTRUCTED. Indeed, in the first draft of the comic the body count was almost total. You’re just going to have to wait and see who survived in the subsequent drafts!

DECONSTRUCTED – Influences

When I started out with DECONSTRUCTED I literally just had the single image of a girl trying to fix her crawler in vast, bleak, snowy wastes. It was one of those steep angled shots that film directors are so enamoured with, and so am I it would seem. DECONSTRUCTED is definitely indebted to a few films, and I’d like to take the time to mention them here:

Moon (2009) was largely feted as a return to the classic Science Fiction of the 1970s – a time when computer generated effects could only be dreamt of. Indeed the models and the chunky design of all the vehicles and even the moon base itself are intensely satisfying.

Moon manages to be engaging and heartfelt, even with its tiny cast. The film even toys with being a psychodrama in space for a while. One of the tropes that often appear in 70s and 80s Science Fiction is that of the uncaring, faceless Corporation – one that will do anything to ensure its profit margin. Whilst I don’t explore that idea too much in DECONSTRUCTED, it will no doubt appear in some guise in future story arcs.

Possibly the most poignant feature of Moon, for me, was the simple boredom and drudgery of working on the far side of the moon, and the things people do to escape that boredom. The amazing (living in space) reduced to the mundane (dirty laundry, coffee stains, general clutter) is a lovely counter point to the high tech minimalism of the design.

Another feature of Moon is the Artificial Intelligence (voiced by the ever-wonderful Kevin Spacey). Without giving too much away, it’s nice to see that usual ‘AI goes berserk and starts killing everyone’ is nicely avoided. The idea of a benevolent AI really appealed to me for the story arc on DECONSTRUCTED, but I can’t say too much more for fear of spoiling the story!

More influences soon!