Monday 25 January 2010

You can't keep a good tale hidden.

Just before Chrimbo the above comic "Bomb Scare" arrived on me doorstep.
Nothing unusal in that you might say, comics are always being delivered in this household.
However, in this terror filled tome is a little tale that I completed a fair few years ago.
I wrote this tale, "In Loving Memory" about 15 or so years ago for a friend of mine Ben Dilworth.
Now in the late eighties I was writing a load of these short stories, mostly nasty shock ending tales and I wanted Ben to draw and ink it.
However, he couldn't get his head around it, tried for about six months and just couldn't get it to work. So he he gave it me back and started to work on something else I'd written (and a crackin' job he made of that,)
I decided to have ago at it and drew it in about 2 weeks, scripted it all up and promptly put it in a draw and forgot about it...
Until January last year when I was looking for something else, I found this strip.
Now I'd been inking digitally with illustrator for a while so I thought I have ago re-inking it.
The basic layout and pacing was fine I could improve some of the dodgy anatomy but I was never happy with my inks, so I thought why not.
It didn't take long to finish it off and of course the first thing I did was show me old mate Shane Oakley. Apparently it was always a favorite of Shane's but he thought my script was a bit week. and would I mind if he had ago re-writng the script.
I didn't mind at all, so he took it away and a couple of weeks later came back with a corker of a script. I lettered it up...then put it away.
We were trying to think of somewhere to submit it...but there didn't seem anywhere to place it.
A bit of surfing the old net later on in the year and I come across a small press publisher called Time Bomb Comics, and they were looking for some strips for their forethcoming anthology Bomb Scares. I submitted a new story I'd just written, but I didn't want to draw it as I hadn't the time, but they said no, they needed the story in 2 weeks.
One of those lightbulb moments and I sent them "In Loving Memory" and lo and behold they only want to print the bloody thing.
So after a looooong time it finally gets seen.
Not a bad little tale, with a crackin' new script, so whatcha waiting for, head yourselves over to timebombcomics.blogspot.com/ and check out all the good stuff that they're putting out including the anthology "Bomb Scares".
And just to whet your appetites, here's the first page of In loving Memory.
If you want to read Shane's script, then you're gonna have to order a copy.
A tad expensive at £4, but it's well worth it.
Well... whatcha expect me to say , Shane and I are in it, so it's gonna be good.

3 comments:

shane oakley said...

can't argue with that.

Gary Crutchley said...

Well, that makes a change.

shane oakley said...

no it doesn't!