Comics Coming!

By Regie Rigby

Hello again, my foolish friends!

First up, in all my “frothing excitement” (as a friend described it) about my own humble comics project here on FoolBritannia, I clean forgot to mention a rather more impressive project from two of my column writing colleagues here at SBC.

Half Dead by our very own Park and Barb, with art by Jimmy Bott is out now, just sitting on the shelves of your local comic book store waiting for you - yes you to go and buy it. I’m actually still waiting for my copy because my retailer sold out – that’s right, not a single copy to be had in his shop! I don’t know if that’s the general situation, but if you find yourself in the same position, don’t miss out! Get them to order you a copy – they’d be happy to.

And yes, I know this means that I’m recommending a comic I haven’t read, which I don’t normally do, but I have seen bits of it and I like what I see. I also trust the vision of the creators, whose work I have admired for a very long time. So, while I’m always going on about supporting new talent, that’s not why I want you to buy this book. I want you to buy it because it’s going to be good, which is far more important.

And while I’m on the subject of people who have much more impressive comics projects than me in the works, can I point you at Two Drunk Guys in a Bar? You should of course be reading SBC’s newest column anyway, because it’s co-written by Tony Lee, who is “A Genius”, as I believe I have mentioned before.

But you should definitely read this edition of the column because it contains a small teasing peek from one of Lee’s many forthcoming projects Hope Falls. I know almost nothing about this book, except for this image:

The art is by Dan “The Man” Boultwood, somebody I’ve always associated with a much more “cartoony” style. This image is true to his regular style, but is somehow more serious. I’m intruigued. I’m very intruigued indeed, and I’ll be keeping an eye on this one for you.

Which brings me to my own little project. I’m still not ready to name the artist, who as I type is chained to his desk working on concept sketches, but I promised to give you a bit more information on the Sunset project this week, so here you go.

First of all the project is called “Sunset”, and that is a name the character will be known by. But it isn’t his name, just what people come to call him. You might get some idea of how long this idea has been in my head if I tell you that the original project title was “Nightfall”, a name which was scuppered by the early nineties Batman epic of similar title.

So, if it isn’t his name, why is he known as “Sunset”?

Well, it’s all down to the media coverage he gets when he first launches his vigilante campaign I’m afraid. That, and a misunderstanding about a press release. Who he really is of no interest to the fascinated public – they’re far too preoccupied with who they’re being told he is…

The whole point of the project has always been to imagine a Batman style vigilante in a world without superheroes, and so I envisage that there would be a lot of sensationalist media interest if a bloke started beating the crap out of muggers and then disappearing into the shadows. He’s not a media savvy guy, and he’s not in control of his media image.

I mean, why would he be? He’s inspired by Batman, but he’s not Bruce Wayne. He’s not rich – at least not in his own right. He’s not especially clever. I mean, he’s not stupid. He’s even maybe slightly above average IQ wise, but he’s not a genius, and he isn’t very worldly. He’ll have had quite a secluded upbringing because he was being trained for his “mission”. He didn’t have time to study the way the media works, he doesn’t understand it, an d he doesn’t have access to the squads of media consultants that Wayne can doubtless call upon.

So, he launches onto an unsuspecting world to find that an identity has been imposed upon him that he doesn’t really want, and that gets in the way of what he’s trying to do. After a conversation with the insanely talented project artist I think there might also be a logo involved. One he’s going to hate.

It’s not all woe though.

He doesn’t have the gadgets budget that Bruce Wayne has –who does? But he does have one or two tricks up his sleeve. Nothing too flashy, but I’ve been having huge amounts of fun researching the sort of weapons you can buy on the internet, an I have to say there is a vast quantity of lethal looking (if questionable) stuff available to anyone with a credit card. And I was thinking, well, if you were trying to kit yourself out for some unofficial crime fighting action, and you didn’t own a company with an experimental weapons division, how else would you get hold of your equipment?

So, my character’s fitness and martial arts prowess will be complimented by a small arsenal of simple but effective armaments. Mostly designed to incapacitate because – and you can call me squeamish if you like – he’s going to be committed to not killing. This is partly an ethical judgement of my own, and partly a way of making sure that the end result is on the “Batman” end of the brutally violent vigilante spectrum rather than the “Punisher” end.

It’s important to me that my character stays well away from that Punisher archetype. Again, call me squeamish, but I don’t see any merit in making a hero out of a serial killer – and that’s exactly what Frank Castle is. My character is driven, yes. But there’s a line the good guys can’t cross and remain good guys. Cops can kill. So can Soldiers. They’re sanctioned by society and are accountable to a chain of command which is itself accountable. Vigilantes are not. The no killing rule is therefore vitally important if they are to be anything other than dangerous psychotics.

Besides – from a storytelling point of view I think non-lethal weapons are more fun. I’m not a big fan of guns. They seem to me to be essentially “point and shoot” equipment. Bullets are, at the end of the day, just bullets, and the machines that fire them are visually uninteresting. Look at the insanity that goes on in the books that feature gun toting superheroes. The weapons they carry just keep getting bigger and bigger because there’s nothing else you can do to make them stand out.

By way of contrast just look at the fun the writers and artists of Batman and Green Arrow have with weapons. Batarangs. Tasers. Trick Arrows. All sorts of bits and pieces that you can use to add colour to a story. I want to play too.

So. Watch this space. Sunset is coming. Armed, dangerous but non-lethal and ever so slightly confused. Where is he coming from? What is his motivation?

You’ll find out.

I’m going to shut up about him now, until I can show you some images and reveal the artist I’ve been lucky enough to hook up with for this experiment. So, watch this space…




I don’t want to sound precious or anything, but Sunset is an idea I’ve had in my head for a long time now, and I want to protect him. So, I don’t normally do this but…

This column, and the character ideas for “Sunset” described within are ©copyright Regie Rigby, 2007.

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