Back To The Teacher...

By Tony Lee

When I was a small boy I went, as all other small boys do, to school. Minet Junior School to be precise, and from the ages of five to eleven I would daily walk to this school and be taught the variety of skills and knowledge that would assist me in later life—and in this case I do mean the ones that I was taught in, not the ones that I learned after school, behind the bike sheds from the strange old bearded man who always had tasty candy for us all*. I learned about inspiration, imagination, and more importantly the fact that you could always wait until the very last moment before writing your homework, a nugget of knowledge that has kept me secure in this world of deadlines and schedules.**

Minet School – photo taken from SHIELD Helicarrier...

Now, I know I've spoken about this before, but as you read this, or even possibly before you read this, I'll have been to my old school one last time, this time as a special guest. I write this on the Friday before I go, but as this goes live, I shall be in Hayes, Monday morning, standing in front of a school of children and inspiring them to do better things when they leave—just as someone once did for me.

When I was eight, maybe even nine, we had a guest to the school. I'm actually embarrassed to admit that I can't remember his name, but he was a burgeoning children's book writer, a friend of one of the teachers, and he was here to tell us of the wondrous things that can happen in the world of the writer. And from that moment on I no longer wanted to be an actor or a space man—I wanted to be an actor, a spaceman and a writer.

Remember – I was eight or nine years old, here. I stopped wanting to be a spaceman when I was thirty one.

So anyway, this guy turned up in his own time to spend an hour with us, to explain that being a writer didn't just mean that you could only write dry, boring novels, or work as a journalist. You could actually make a living from the books that we read every day, stories like Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, or Stig of the Dump—these stories were more than just fun things to read—they were a career.

Of course, it took me a very long route to get around to actually following his words – I've now been a writer for twenty one years, starting in games journalism, moving through magazines to radio to television to newspapers – I did the whole journeyman route to comics, and I know that I'm a far better writer for it.

And now, almost thirty years after a stranger told my class that we could make our writing dreams come true? I get to tell it myself to another assembly of children.

It's a humbling thing, to be honest. Unlike the man thirty years ago, I'm actually from the school, I'm an old student made good. I'm the prodigal son, as I've said before, and all of the school will come to see me talk. Which is the part that really stresses me – you see a large chunk of where I am right now stems from a moment in my junior school years, from an inspirational talk by to total stranger. Who's to say that what I tell them on Monday won't do the same to someone else, that thirty years down the line they might be a famous writer on the verge of selling millions of copies and they might chalk it down to the enigmatic bearded comic writer who gave him (or her) hope when they were a child? Maybe they're a drunken, broken failure, their life and marriage ruined due to an obsession that they were never able to fulfil, a stupid dream given to them all those years ago by a bearded bastard with a grin who swayed them with talk of milk and honey in the world of the writer?***

You see, I walk a knife edge, sure I could tell them how great it is to be a comic writer and to be honest at the moment, it's pretty damned marvellous. But it took me two decades of flittering around the fringes to get here. I wrote for Weekending, a Radio 4 show in the 90's. Pretty cool, huh? Well unfortunately only if you listened to Radio 4 in the 90's. I wrote games reviews. Pretty cool, huh? Well, only if you owned a Sinclair Spectrum in the late eighties. See what I mean? At any one time there were probably fifty people in the world that gave a crap about what I wrote. Yeah, I know there were most likely many more, but it sure as hell felt that way. And for twenty years I wrote while taking every conceivable job imaginable, purely to keep my dream going.

There were points when I wanted to give up. There still are. Do I tell these eight year old kids that? Do I tell them that thirty years down the line they might finally make it? That twenty years down the line they'll probably have given up on the dream, got married and work in an office?

No. Because I'm not their career guidance, I'm the guy who's turning up to give them inspiration. I'm the guy who's turning up to go ‘You live in Hayes, which isn't that great these days. Many of you live in council houses on council estates with one or two parents who are on benefit. Some of you don't even have two parents, and you're already watching your elder brothers and sisters work their daily grind at Burger King – but I'm here to tell you that this doesn't have to be the way to go. This doesn't have to be the path you take. For there's a wonderful world out there and you can be anything, do anything you want if you only believe in yourself. '

And if I say this, if I talk about how cool comics are? I might just inspire a couple. Just like I was, back in the day. Now, if only I could remember that writers name...

* There wasn't a bearded man with candy at our school. But there was one at the next school, and we were all rather jealous.

** Of course, I jest for the good of this column – I never miss deadlines. Ever. And of course, I never ever leave it to the last moment. Honest.

*** There is indeed milk and honey in the world of the writer.

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So I've been hitting the party scene as late, which is always fun. A week ago was the Bristol Comic Expo, and I think we've said enough about that. Thursday night was a showbiz extravaganza of the most optimum of performances as Random House and David Fickling Books hosted an extravagant press launch of their new weekly comic for children, The DFC. This is a brand new, 36 pages a week comic for kids, and one of the most ambitious and inspired things I've seen in the UK comics scene in quite a while.

Tony and Tracy, DFC Launch, Thursday 15th May...

And of course as one of the writers, of two stories in fact, I was invited to attend with my other half Tracy as my guest, and so we trundled merrily along to the British Film Institute on the South Bank, London to celebrate such launch goodness with our friends and colleagues.

Now the good thing about these sorts of bashes is that there's always free plonk and great nosh (to use 'comic' talk) and this launch was no exception with wine and beer galore and a variety of tasty little nom noms to munch on during the speeches. And speeches there were too. David Fickling himself thanked everyone for attending and spoke of his dreams for this new comic with help from ‘speech balloon' placards that were raised at various points of the speech, and then Eisner nominated creator Nick Abadzis was brought to the front where he then spoke about the creator, and how it's not just a case of putting pictures on paper that makes the story - and then some bloke called Phillip Pullman stood and talked about the project. Phillip's writing one of the strips, you see.

From that we launched a hundred balloons up into the air above the Thames, and some of these had cards that gave free year long subscriptions. Amusingly, these had seemingly been tied together earlier, and flew off as a bunch, separate to the rest. Ah well.

But the launch was great - the press and creators mingled together and much of the coming stories in The DFC were printed out and on the walls - I not only found pages of The Prince Of Baghdad showing the process from pencils to finished page, but also one of the pages from St Spooky's School For Girls was in the video they played, and so was shown to the four hundred or so people every few minutes.

And Prince Of Baghdad collaborator Dan Boultwood was there with his other half to share in the glory and free plonk, as were Beano strip creator Laura Howell and Brit Manga's Mrs Sex Emma Vieceli, both with stories in the comic, Markosia publisher Harry Markos and the most brilliant Literary Agent in the world (being mine of course), Julian Friedmann were there, Andy Baker, Shane Chebsey and James Hodgkins, the organisers of the Birmingham con were there, Paul Birch deflected questions asking if he was joining the editorial team and hell, there were tons of other comic luminaries there.

I managed to get Tracy to talk to Phillip Pullman, who she loves, and she did remarkably well and didn't start clutching at his leg and asking for an Armoured Bear, which was nice. And of course my editors Ben Sharpe and Will Fickling were there, looking a bit deer in headlights as they realised suddenly that this might be big.

And then it was over, we were all kicked out by the NFT Film bar and we adjourned to the upstairs bar where Tracy and I met a nice editor from Random House and chatted about books, and bitched about a certain well known children's author, before returning to the hotel.

London Expo, ExCel Center...

And of course this weekend is the London MCM Comic Expo at the ExCel Center in London Docklands. This is rapidly becoming one of my favourite conventions and each year the comics village just gets bigger and better. This year Emma Vieceli, the usual comics organiser has to drop out due to a wedding she's attending and so I've stepped in and we've arranged a feast of British talent for you all – Obviously we have me and Dan, we'll attend the opening of an envelope, but we also have celebrity chums Dave Hine, Simon Furman, Lee Townsend, Andy Tong and Al Ewing. Dom Reardon will hopefully be attending and both Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie will be selling their wares. Nick Abadzis will hopefully be signing and the special guest, all the way from Americaland? Is Steve Niles. Yup, you know you want to be there for that.

We'll also be doing a couple of panels over the weekend and as a high brow busywhizz I also get to hang out at the exclusive showbiz bash where I get to hang out with guests including Edward James Olmos, Shawnee Smith & Julie Benz.

And there I have it – that's what I say to the kids on Monday. That not only do I have the most amazing job in the world, where I get to write amazing stories that take you to incredible worlds, not only do I get to walk into a bookshop and get that massive self esteem buzz when I see my work on the shelf, but I also get to travel the world and hang out with real celebrities.

Of course, the former is way more important than the latter – celebrities come and go, but the work you write? It'll stay there forever. It'll be read forever.

But to an eight year old?
Celebrities, all the way, baby!

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© 2008, Tony Lee

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