Who's Who in the CBU 1674AD

A writer for over twenty years, Tony spent over ten years working internationally for a variety of television, radio and magazines as a feature and script writer, winning several awards doing so.

In 2003 he returned to comic writing, and since then has written for Marvel Comics, Walker Books, AAM/Markosia Entertainment, Panini Comics and Titan Publishing, for properties such as X-Men, Amazing Fantasy, Doctor Who, Starship Troopers, Wallace & Gromit and Shrek. With 'Two Drunk Guys In A Bar' partner Dan Boultwood he has created The Gloom for APC and in 2006 he adapted G.P. Taylor's The Tizzle Sisters and Eric and the bestselling children's book Shadowmancer. His creator owned book, Midnight Kiss, was nominated for an Eagle award in 2006.

His upcoming work includes Hope Falls for AAM/Markosia (again with Dan Boultwood), Dodge & Twist for AiT/PlanetLar, Warrior Nun Areala: Excommunicated for Antarctic Press, Robin Hood: Outlaw's Pride and the comic adaption of Anthony Horowitz's Raven's Gate series, both by Walker Books. He's also the writer of the new IDW series Doctor Who: The Forgotten with Pia Guerra on art.

The Final Curtain...

By Tony Lee

I never meant for this to be my swansong.

Seriously, I was going to speak about my trip to Brighton, and the talk I attended hosted by Tim Pilcher, which discussed concerning Justice bills, but the letter I hoped to print hasn't arrived yet, and I found myself spending a chunk of the weekend stressing about what to put in its place. In fact, over the last few months I've spent quite a few weekend stressing at the blank, computer simulated sheet of A4 paper that stares at me as I rack my brain trying to work out what to write here.

In over a hundred columns over the years, I've written about pretty much everything, sometimes more than once. Payments to a freelancer? Check. The hours you work? Check. The problems in scripting? Check. Pitching? Networking? Convention etiquette? Mental fans? Check. And it's getting harder and harder to think of something to say, especially in a weekly column.

It wasn't always weekly, though – when I first started it, it was bi-monthly for Silver Bullet Comics, then monthly, a feature in Comics International. When it returned to digital at Silver Bullet Comic Books, it returned into bi-monthly, every two weeks on a Monday – and then when SBCB became ComicsBulletin – I foolishly agreed to do it weekly. Something that I'd pretty much managed, without fail (apart from when my editor was on holiday and I too had a break) for pretty much all of them.

But I can't say ALL of them, because a couple of weeks ago, I missed a week. Totally. No late column, no fill piece. I just missed one.

You see, to explain why, I have to go back to the very beginning and the reasons as to why I even started the column. In the middle of 2005, I was just getting my feet into comics. I'd had a couple of things published by APC, Midnight Kiss was just out, The Gloom had been delayed, Starship Troopers was about to be released as a four part series and I'd done an 11 page story for Marvel. I was unknown and to be honest, so far down the pecking order of comics that it hurt. I had no possibilities out there, and pretty much every editor I spoke to didn't have a clue who the hell I was.

It was two things that changed this. One was Warren Ellis – I'd been watching him on the Internet, controlling it like a ringleader at a circus – he did a column, ran a board, he had managed to brand himself so that even if you didn't know who Warren wrote for, or what he even wrote, you knew who he was. The branding of Warren's ‘Internet Jesus' was so well done that everyone knew of him. And I knew that if I was to get into comics, if I was to get editors to give me gigs, they needed to know who I was as well. And currently, they didn't.

The second was Jonathan at Silver Bullet Comics. I'd been quite prolific on message boards and suchlike and I'm not blowing my own trumpet too much when I say that I knew that I could be mildly funny on these posts, and in August of 2005 I had the opportunity to change this. Silver Bullet Comics offered me a column, every two weeks – and I took it. I called it ‘It's Only A Comic' and I wrote about various things. However, by the time Christmas came around I was already disillusioned – Jonathan had moved off the column as my editor and even though I was sending it in on time, it was taking weeks, even months to go up – and I wasn't doing this for the site, I was doing this because I needed to build my branding. And, after about six months, I stopped. And Dez Skinn stepped in. At the time, he was the editor and owner of Comics International, and he wanted me to do what I did at SBC, but monthly and for the magazine. And so I stopped with SBC and moved across into print. And I wrote the column until Mike Conroy bought the magazine, effectively firing me because he felt that I would be too biased towards Markosia in my columns. The fact that this happened two hours after I'd posted a massive rant about his Eagle Awards was apparently nothing to do with it – I like Mike a lot, but there will always be a touch of the ‘hmm, really? ' on that one.

With my column now in limbo, I found myself talking to Craig Johnston of Silver Bullet Comic Books, a rival to SBC the same day – he suggested that I return to the Internet, and so in late 2006 I returned to columns, this time with Dan Boultwood beside me. In a year's worth of writing these columns, I was starting to get a ‘name' in comics, APC had folded but Markosia had risen from those ashes, Starship Troopers had outsold some lower end Vertigo books and Midnight Kiss had been cancelled, although I'd been able to end the story. But I was still an unknown.

And so we started our next phase – but it was never as good, because I was often having to wait for Dan to send me stuff – because Dan was also up to his eyeballs in work, I was working a nine to five job and it was just hammering me. In the end we decided to take a break and I'd return alone, It's Only A Comic would now be He's Only A Writer. And in early 2007 that's what we did – stupidly moving during this from every two weeks to every week.

The problem was that it worked too well. Currently, I have too much work on my plate and I don't have the time to write the column any more. Added to that I'm also moving in with my fiancée Tracy, which means that I have a month or two of house moving stresses, which also take up my time. In a couple of months I'd probably have plenty of time again, but I don't want to simply go ‘I might be back in a month' as that cheats you, the reader. In the four years since I started writing columns, I've become a known ‘face' in comics. Not a favourite writer or anything, just someone that's easily recognised. Partly this is because of the column, but also because for the last three years I've worn a ‘uniform' of shirt, tie and vest.

But this too is changing, and I'm finding myself turning up to more and more things now in just a shirt – although the vest is good for putting things like my phone in – and my ‘branding' can now take a secondary role. And when I missed a column and felt no remorse, I realised that it was time too to change, maybe even stop the column. And then when I realised I was stressed, even scared of this column's deadline – I decided it was time to stop. In four years I have never been paid for one of these columns, and when it affects paid work? You have to cut the cord.

I loved writing the column – no, I love writing the column. Jason Sacks is the best editor I could have ever have hoped for, and the guys here have given me nothing but support. And I've been a real sod sometimes.

The problem with column writing is that you burn out. And I think I've been burned for a while. I'll treasure some of the greatest moments though – my biggest one is when personal icon Keith Giffen, after one column emailed me to say ‘Amen'. I danced around the room after that. I've had a few where editors I've really wanted to work with tell me that they really enjoyed my most recent column – They don't hire me, of course – they just tell me that they enjoyed my column... And of course you, the readers have at times been my staunchest supporters, especially during the ‘poogate' scandal last year.

When I started writing these, I was a nobody. I had one book to my name. Now I'm writing the monthly Doctor Who, I'm adapting countless books for publishers and my Robin Hood book is a Junior Library Guild Award nominee amongst others. There's a part of me that says that I'm insane for stopping this right now, as I have so much coming out I can talk about, but I need the break. I spend more time planning one of these columns than I do planning a comic sometimes and I just don't have the time.

And it's time for someone else to take up the baton, to tell people how it is out there. Me? I'll still be on twitter, www.twitter.com/mrtonylee and I'll be returning to my sadly neglected blog at http://users.livejournal.com/_tonylee_/ so hopefully I'll see some of you around. Don't be a stranger.

Thanks to Jason Sacks, Jason Brice, Keith Dallas, Dez Skinn, W. Alan Davis, Jonathan Encarion and Dan Boultwood for the fun I've had on these columns over the years, thanks to all the professionals who have taken time to provide answers in the ‘how do you pitch' style columns and thanks to Tracy for putting up with my weekend visits over the last couple of years where I get up early to write this column when I should be snuggling in bed!

It's been great, guys. I won't be back in seven... But never say never.

Tony Lee,
London, Sunday 14^th June 2009