LET'S TALK ABOUT AZAD

 I am going to be a guest on the Bernie Keith show on Radio Northampton this coming Monday (30th) at 10.30am to talk about my short story AZAD. Tune in for profound insight regarding the human condition.

THE 2025 RACHEL COOKE PRIZE

 

There’s a bit about me and my four page short story AZAD in today's edition of The Observer newspaper. AZAD was my entry into the 2025 FABER/OBSERVER/COMICA GRAPHIC SHORT STORY COMPETITION, now known as THE RACHEL COOKE PRIZE, and I found out a couple of weeks ago that AZAD had been awarded the runners up spot. The competition has been running since 2007 but this was the first time I’d entered a story so obviously I was delighted with second place. 

I would like to thank Paul B Rainey, the competition winner in 2020, for all his invaluable advice and support. It was Paul whom I first approached when I was considering entering the competition early last year, even though I didn't have a story in mind at the time. Paul’s encouragement was instrumental in helping me get off my lazy arse and submit a story. 

I would also like to thank Nick Dimmock and Robert Wells for their feedback after I showed them AZAD before entering it into the competition. Their invaluable advice was exactly the sort of constructive criticism I needed and they both helped me improve the story no end.

Finally, an extra nod must go to Rob Wells. When I first showed AZAD to Rob he immediately predicted it would win, a view I did not share in any way, shape or form. That being said, the belief Rob showed in AZAD meant a great deal to me. And blimey! He was NEARLY right! 

Cheers Gentlemen, I very much appreciated it!

You can read The Observer article here 

THE WORLD SWEAR-OUT CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL

 

Here's the cover to my new comic THE WORLD SWEAR-OUT CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL which currently being the printed. The is the second comic (of 4) in The House Of Hatch series of swearing and can be ordered here

Drawing of John Barrington OBE

 

Drawing of David Joyce

 

AZAD

 

Here's a very rough pencil drawing for the first panel from a four page short story I'm currently working on called AZAD. I hope to have the story completed by the end of next month.

 

 

 

"Rebirth"

 

Here's a panel from a three page story I've just completed with the theme of "Rebirth".  I wrote and drew the story for inclusion in the booklet for this year's CAPTION SMALL PRESS & COMICS FESTIVAL in Oxford this coming August.

LOST IN SPACE 2: Commentary corollary 5 (of 5)

 “Charley says..."

 

 

When I was working on  Lost In Space 2 I showed a friend of mine one the above pages from Barry The Alien and The Messenger in The Black Hole Bar and Comedy Club. He then asked me if I had stolen the idea for the language difference from C3PO and R2D2 in Star Wars.

 

 

 

Nope. Barry The Alien’s first comic book appearance came in my 1995 mini comic The House of Hatch, the inspiration for which came from one of those public information films aimed at children which were on the telly quite a bit in the 1970s. In Barry’s case it was “Charley says…” an animated cat warning kids of the dangers of messing about with everything from a box of matches to strange men in the local park asking if you’d “...like to see some puppies?”. The complete “Charley says…” can be seen on YouTube here. My 1995 Barry The Alien strip was basically “Charley says…” in space.

 

 

Having just read all 26 volumes of the utterly brilliant series The Complete Peanuts by Charles M Schulz it’s certainly worth mentioning that Schulz used the same conceit back in 1967 when he introduced the character of Woodstock to Peanuts. Whether this was a first in comics or not I don't know, but Schulz certainly used it to great comedic effect.

 

 

TOKEN GESTURE... IT'S ALIVE!!!

Copies of my latest comic TOKEN GESTURE arrived at THE HOUSE OF HATCH from the printers yesterday and they look great! Certainly the most childish, immature and embarrassing comic I’ve ever done so obviously I’m pretty pleased about that. But don’t take my word for it! You can judge for yourself for just £6 incl p&p! Buy here Read more here

LOST IN SPACE 2: Commentary corollary 4 (of 5)

 

 

As well as drawing the Lemmy mask (see the commentary text in Lost In Space 2) in the splash page of The Recruitment Chronicle story in Time We Left 3, I also added another in joke which only a few friends of mine would’ve appreciated. The slightly obscured text in the picture on the wall above Steve’s head was taken from real life. It came from a picture of the Mekon’s impressively large head I’d drawn on a huge piece of cardboard with some 1984-inspired text “BIG MEKON IS WATCHING YOU”. 

 

BIG MEKON IS WATCHING YOU - artist reconstruction

 

I intended to post this oversized masterpiece to some friends of mine in Hull all of whom were well aware of, and suitably amused by, my then obsession with the evil genius back in the early 90s. My plan came asunder when I took the cardboard picture into Wellingborough High Street Post Office as the guy behind the counter absolutely refused to take my priceless work or art for reasons I don’t recall. What I do recall was he got pretty arsey about so it was clear there was no way Royal Mail were going to do the honours between Wellingborough and Hull.

I did manage to get Big Mekon to its intended audience as I hitch-hiked to Hull a few weeks later. All I remember about that particular adventure is the wind made hanging on to the cardboard image a bit of a challenge as stood roadside trying to cadge a lift. My friends in Hull were suitably amused when I turned up with my massive Mekon though, so we all lived happily ever after.

Next: "Charley says..."

1 March 2025 Addendum: I posted a bit about my giant Mekon picture on Facebook and it turns out one of the Hull recipients, Jason Drewitt, seems to know what happened to it "I’m pretty sure that I borrowed the original 'Big Mekon is watching you' and took it down to London and had it on stage when the little band Hunni I was in played at The Water Rats in Kings Cross as first support for Skunk Anansie"

 

LOST IN SPACE 2: Commentary corollary 3 (of 5)

 

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

 

Before I used The Mekon and The Freak Brothers in the second issue of Time We Left 2 in 1994 (Lost In Space 2 pages 6 to 10 and 14) I wrote to the copyright owners asking for permission to use the characters in my own little comic. I received formal responses from both Fleetway (the then copyright holder of The Mekon) and Knockabout Comics (the holder of the copyright for The Freak Brothers in the UK).

 

When it came to using all of the famous comic characters in for the interviews story in Time We Left 3, there was no way I was going to try and get permission as it involved about 50 characters in total. What I did do was cheekily add the proviso “No similarity between between any of the persons in this comic and anyone else is intended except for satirical purposes” to my own copyright statement as a workaround. I did credit the creatives behind each of the characters though.

 

 A few years later in 1999 I was at a party in London thrown by Bloomsbury (the publisher of my two stare-out books) and I ended up chatting with a member of the Bloomsbury staff. Our conversation turned to copyright and the ownership of artistic intellectual property and I mentioned I had written to a couple of publishers asking to use their characters for my second comic. The woman from Bloomsbury rolled her eyes and proceeded to tell me Bloomsbury receive loads of written requests of this nature and they were a right royal pain in the arse. She gave me an example of a recent request she had to deal with which came from a woman who was getting married and was seeking permission from Bloomsbury to reprint her favourite poem in her wedding service cards. The woman from Bloomsbury told me that all publishers hate these sort of requests as they all have to be dealt with and replied to formally, all of which takes time. She went on to say that publishers couldn’t care less about this sort of thing, they only care if their property is being blatantly plagiarised or if any serious money is being made from its use without permission. In the case of the wedding, I remember the woman from Bloomsbury saying “Just print the fucking thing!”.

NEXT: “Big Mekon is watching you”

 

TOKEN GESTURE

 Here's the cover to my new comic which is nearly finished.

 

 

LOST IN SPACE 2: Commentary corollary 2 (of 5)

 THE DUN COW

 

As well as changing the cover image for the second version of Time We Left 3 I also cut out seven pages from its first incarnation. These pages followed on from page two of The Recruitment Chronicle story and comprised Steve and Nigel the Octopus going round the pub asking random punters if they would like to star in a comic, namely Time We Left. All very meta and all very unfunny too unfortunately. I replaced this sequence with a few more comic character interview pages in the second version which were slightly more entertaining. Anyway, the pub in question was The Dun Cow, a real pub in Wellingborough which I used to frequent on occasion back in the early half of the 1990s. The centrefold of the first version of TWL 3 (above) was a drawing of Steve, Adam and Nigel The Octopus approaching the pub which I renamed for laughs. 

 

The real Dun Cow pub was an attractive building with plenty of character but it was demolished years ago. A rather uninspiring block of flats now stand in its place. That’s progress!

Next: “Copyright infringement”

 

LOST IN SPACE 2: Commentary corollary 1 (of 5)

MARCHEAN PRESS

 

 

The comic character interviews and fight scenes in the latter half of Lost In Space 2 originally saw print in my 1995 comic Time We Left 3. There were actually two versions TWL 3, the first of which had a black and white cover drawn by myself. The second version had a colour cover hand painted by my friend Adi Sellers (which was amended and reused for the cover to Lost In Space 1).  

 

 

The original artwork for the cover of the first version of TWL 3

TWL 1, 2 and the first version of issue 3 were originally printed at Marchean Press, a (now closed) printers in Wellingborough. When I took in the artwork for TWL 3 to Marchean Press I specifically asked for a white card cover for the 70 copies I was getting printed seeing as the wraparound cover was a space scene. When I returned to Marchean Press to collect the print run I was distinctly unamused when I discovered they had used this vile pink card for the cover instead of white card as requested. After I’d pointed this out, the printer guy started bullshiting me about how great the pink card cover looked which just pissed me off even more. I suspect the truth of the matter was they had a load of this shite pink card lying around and they just wanted to use it up. The printer guy made it clear it was a case of take-it-or-leave-it but after a bit of verbal argy bargy he said he’d knock off a tenner from the bill. I wasn’t in much of a position to argue really, I’d already paid the £20 deposit prior to the job plus he had all of my original artwork. I settled up and vowed never to step foot in Marchean Press again. Unfortunately, I was now saddled with 70 copies of my latest opus with garish and very crap-looking pink covers.

TWL 3 in pink

Some months later I landed a part-time job in the print room at at Wootton Hall, the Force Head Quarters of Northamptonshire Police in Northampton, meaning I was now able to print my comics myself (if you want a job doing properly…) The in-house copying prices were way lower than any of the local commercial printers too. The print room also had a great Canon colour copier meaning I could now afford to print decent colour covers on my comics. The first comic to get a colour cover was a new version of TWL 3 so into the bin went the horrible pink card cover first versions.

A couple of years later I bumped into the Marchean Press printer guy in Wellingborough town centre one Saturday morning. He stopped to tell me he had seen an article about me in the local paper The Evening Telegraph (see Reviews) about my stare-out comic being picked up for a comedy TV show. He was delighted to read that I had had some success with my cartoons and seemed genuinely pleased for me. Seeing as our final bit of business was a such a sour affair, this was actually pretty decent of him really.

Next: "The Dun Cow"

 

 

THE 1993 PRINTING COST OF MY FIRST COMIC

  

I came across this invoice recently. It shows the amount I paid for 120 copies of my first comic, Time We Left 1, back in April 1993. According to the Bank of England's inflation calulator, £126 in today's money is £265.

Out of curiosity, I just got a quote from an online printer for 120 copies of my first comic (with the same specifications obviously) and the price was just over £100 (including delivery). So printing my first comic today would be way cheaper in real terms than 30 years ago. The printing quality would probably be much better too.

Also worth mentioning is the original cover price for TWL 1 was £1.

 

RUDE MUM

Rude Mum - unfunny

Here’s a rejection letter I got from VIZ back in 1993 after I submitted a cartoon for their consideration. It’s not really very surprising my Rude Mum cartoon was passed on as all it was was a straight forward reversal of their own Rude Kid gag which hadn’t featured in VIZ for a while.

Maybe I should have just had Rude Mum insulting her kid in an amusing fashion rather than have her commentating on Rude Kid’s absence from VIZ? Maybe I should have then bombarded VIZ with some extended family variations such as Rude Grandmother, Rude Aunt, Rude Second Cousin Once Removed etc. Alternatively, Rude Identical Twin, Rude Baby, Rude Unborn Child or even Rude Pet Goldfish could have been an avenue worth exploring? Okay, perhaps not.

 

 

It’s also worth noting that back in 1993, VIZ’s “Editorial Office” clearly had its own franking machine with a suitably amusing design in keeping with their corporate brand.

 

Rude Kid - funny

 
 

Farewell 2000AD but before I go...

 

Four years after getting a letter published in 2000AD, I managed to gatecrash Tharg’s Nerve Centre once again, this time in Prog 504 (10 Jan 1987) when I had just turned 17. I have to confess that the story behind my second letter does not make me look particularly great unfortunately. The London address printed under my letter was obviously that of someone from the editorial team as they forwarded me a batch of no less than five letters from other Squaxx dek Thargos, including a whopper that was four (handwritten) pages long. To my unending shame, I didn't reply to any of those letters, which rather begs the question, why on earth did I write my second letter to 2000AD in the first instance? I don’t remember why I neglected to reply to those five letters I got, but laziness is probably the most likely reason. That said, I had rather fallen out of love with 2000AD by this time and I stopped buying it altogether with Prog 508, just four issues after my second letter saw print. What I do remember is my decision to cancel my 2000AD standing order was a really torturous one, one that I had been putting off for weeks. This decision was made all the more difficult by the fact that I had collected every issue of 2000AD since Prog 1 and so had the complete set as it were. That said, I couldn’t deny the reality that “The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic” was no longer Zarjaz enough for me.

It’s interesting to note that the 2000AD staff had some sort of safeguarding awareness way back in 1987. This is pretty ironic in my case as, by the age of 17, all the evidence available at the time clearly indicated I was developing into an “axe-wielding maniacal psycho type” myself, so the five 2000AD readers who made so much effort writing to me, clearly had a lucky escape.

Sucking up to Tharg...

 

The first time I ever saw print in a national periodical came all the way back in 1983 when I had a letter printed in 2000AD Prog 344. Let me tell you, getting a letter published in 2000AD at the age of 13 was totally thrill-powered, as was receiving a postal order for £5 from The Mighty One himself. Writing Tharg a completely sycophantic letter was clearly a smart career move. Incidentally, I wasn't telling pork pies, I did indeed buy a second copy of Prog 335 as it came with a great poster of Judge Dredd (by art droid Ron Smith) which I wanted to preserve in mint condition for future generations to marvel over.

 

 

As an interesting aside, when I posted this youthful brush with fame in a Facebook comics' group recently it was pointed out to me in the comments section that the artist behind the "Barik, Space Mercenary" picture (bottom right) was Earthlet Eoin Coveney who went on to become a professional art droid for 2000AD itself! You can see examples of Eoin's excellent work for 2000AD here. 

 

 

The arrival of LOST IN SPACE 2

Copies of my latest comic LOST IN SPACE 2 arrived this morning and it turned out really well, especially the cover which was expertly coloured by my mate Adi Sellers. I use the online printer MIXAM for all my publications and I can't reommend them highly enough. You can buy Lost In Space 2 for £7.50 incl p&p (UK only) from my online shop here

 

 

Paul A Hatcher meets Paul B Rainey

 

Had a very enjoyable lunch with author and comics artist Paul B Rainey in Milton Keynes on Saturday. We spent pretty much the whole afternoon talking comics but still felt we had plenty more to cover. Paul gave me a preview of the pages he’s so far completed for his new book Murder School (to be published by Drawn & Quarterly in early 2026) and it looked great. If you can’t wait for Murder School to come out then I highly recommend his excellent book Why Don’t You Love Me? (also by Drawn & Quarterly) which can purchased straight from Paul’s Big Cartel shop here alongside plenty of his other fine publications. Why Don't You Love Me? was given a fine review in The Guardian here so do check it out.