Massacre For Boys

I decided that this morning is the time to send Walking Wounded #2 off to the British Library.

Following the link from last year's blog article on this subject took me to a 404 error. I really hate it when websites arbitrarily re-arrange themselves like that!

Still, the BL home page is kind of navigable and pretty soon I found the new URL:

http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/legaldep/index.html

Interestingly the two comics I sent them before don't seem to have made it into their catalogue. Am beginning to wonder if this is a legally-required black hole...

And here's my script for page one of Death on the Rock:

1) Wide shot of a large Germanic drawing room in the late evening. ADOLF HITLER sits on an ornate armchair, warming himself by a blazing fire. The Fuhrer is dressed in uniform, but his collar is undone; a mug of hot chocolate steams atop a small table by his side.

The room is fairly dark save for a strip of light representing an open door. A shadow of a man in officer’s uniform falls within the door-light.

CAPTION: BERLIN, 1942.

2) Just inside from the doorway of the drawing room. A sophisticated-looking man in late middle-age, wearing an impressively decorated uniform marking him out as very senior, is giving the “Heil Hitler” salute. This is GENERAL FREUND.

FREUND: HEIL HITLER!

3) Close on Hitler, looking up towards the general. He appears icily calm.

HITLER: ARE YOUR MEN READY, GENERAL FREUND?

4) Medium shot of the room that shows both men. Hitler has risen from the armchair so he is now on the same eye level as Freund. The General is probably taller but he is lowering his head slightly in deference to his leader.

FREUND: JA, MEIN FUHRER. VE ONLY AVAIT YOUR COMMAND AND THE INWASION SHALL BEGIN!

HITLER: THEN EXECUTE OPERATION FELIX AT ONCE. SHOW NO MERCY.

5) Close on Freund turning back purposefully towards the door.

FREUND: IT SHALL BE DONE.

6) Very close on Hitler’s face. He is angry now, although it is not immediately obvious why the sudden change has occurred.

HITLER: BUT FREUND… BRING ME CAPTAIN VILLIAM TIRED. I VANT HIM ALIVE!

Ah, Adolf, such a bad man, such a great character.

And Operation Felix almost happened. Had it done so then the events depicted in Walking Wounded #3 almost certainly would be entirely accurate.

Instead of utterly made up.

Our esteemed Walking Wounded letterer is a bit of a dab hand at loads of other stuff, including drawing and inking.

Here's the cover for the upcoming Strontium Dog fanzine Dogbreath issue #18:

Art by Bolt-01, Colours by Steven Denton.

Long-term readers may recognize the mise-en-scene, as this cover depicts an event from the 8-page strip Steve illustrated for the comic last year and which is now going to see the light of day within these hallowed pages. He posted lots of "in development" stuff which you'll find in the blog archives...

If you want to know more about Dogbreath, not to mention it's stablemate Zarjaz! - and frankly, who doesn't? - then you should visit their new home here.

Steve is still working on stuff, by the way, most recently the colour back cover to the new Something Wicked.

I am now officially giving up on UK-based comics news sites.

You'd think they would be there to promote British comics, but no, in fact they seem to exist largely to indulge their owner's interest in television science fiction.

So, whilst my attempts to get them to mention Walking Wounded #2 to their readers have fallen on deaf ears, if a sodding Stargate DVD is released that seems to be worthy of immediate and extensive coverage.

Ironically, I have seen more than one of these sites moan about their failure to get nominated for this year's Eagle Awards and yet if they won't support British comics to any significant degree how can they expect the British comics community to support them?

Furthermore these sour grapes seemed to prevent the proper reporting of even the Eagles. It was not until I saw the SFX report on the commencement of voting for the Eagle Awards that I even realized Massacre for Boys got a mention in the press release.

So, rather than waste any more time or effort trying to get UK comics news sites to mention us, I am now turning my attention to US comic news sites and UK print publications. Still a waste of time, I expect, but if you're words are going to fall on deaf ears, they may at least be important deaf ears!

I'm currently part way through the script for Walking Wounded #3 and once again my count of female characters is low. In fact it's zero.

This is not through misogyny but rather because World War 2 stories have a tendency towards being male-dominated. Obviously there are exceptions, such as Charlotte Gray and Enigma to name but two, but the comics that we're to a certain degree pastiching weren't very interested in appealing to girls anyway, nor even appealing to boys' interest in girls.

So is Massacre For Boys just for boys? Well, hopefully not but I am aware that most of the readers are men. Indeed I did feel this was pretty much how comic audiences are made up anyway but at the Thing I did see a lot of girls, virtually all of whom weren't interested in our work.

However, interestingly we did get one female customer pop over to pick up Walking Wounded #2. She'd won the first issue in last year's "guess the number of comics and keep them" competition and had liked it enough to remember it for 365 days then pop back for seconds.

So Walking Wounded is a hard sell to the female audience but it's not necessarily because they won't like it but more because it doesn't seem to be for them. I guess this is something to live with for now, as Walking Wounded is what it is, but the issue is worth revisiting for future projects.

Oh, and there will be at least one major female character coming into Walking Wounded eventually....

The nominees for this year's Eagle Awards have been announced and, somewhat astonishingly, we've been included

Walking Wounded is up for Favourite Black & White Comicbook - British. We're pitted against a strong field, and in truth you'd have to rank us as outsiders to take the award, but it's still great to have our work recognised like this.

A big thank you to everyone that nominated us! Now the voting stage has begun and if you'd like support our candicacy please do so at:

Eagle Awards Online Voting Form

I'm glad to see that of my other picks, The Black Dossier for Favourite Graphic Novel and Brian Bolland for Roll of Honour have also made it through.

I'm not in so much of a post-Thing lull this year as I've been using the momentum created by the show to work on some scripts for Massacre For Boys In Colour. I've completed a 6-page Crusader effort and just today composed the short but sweet return of Jimmy Baker Animal Hatmaker.

Jimmy is probably our silliest creation, and in that spirit I've been googling for similarly themed stuff. My favourite so far has to be this:

Ah well, I'm off to try and drum up some publicity for Walking Wounded #2. Back Soon!