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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.

I Want Bang Bang...

By Tony Lee

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday because I'm wonderful, Happy Birthday to me.

Yes, kiddiewinkies, as you read this (because of course you all read this the day it comes out) it's Monday the 30th and as such I am now thirty eight. I know, I don't look older than a slightly pickled twenty five, but I am indeed in the twilight years of my thirties and still writing comics for a living.

I write this on the Sunday before my birthday, having spent the larger part of yesterday in a rock bar dressed as a Pirate with a variety of other similarly clad Pirates, Ninjas and Zombies, in a joint party for myself and good friend Rich Gaunt, a year younger than me a day later than me. We'd done a similar thing a could of years ago for my thirty fifth, we took over a Reflex 80's bar for a Thursday night dressed as Pirates, but this time there were issues, mainly as it was a Saturday night at many of the bars were dubious of such a Pirate invasion.

Luckily the Subside Rock and Alternative bar, one of my favourite haunts in Birmingham wasn't as squeamish at the thought of so many Pirates, Zombies and Ninjas arriving and, claiming that it was alright to hold the bash there as they 'didn't have a dress code' we broadsided and boarded and a good time was had by all. And I drank a lot of rum. A LOT of rum. In fact they seemed to be trying to drink the bar OUT of rum so we could all go 'Where's the Rum gone? ' Lots. I don't recall if they actually made it.

Anyway, after staggering home at stupid O'clock in the morning, watching the penultimate Doctor Who and crying because I'm laying cash money down on the table now that the finale's going to involve a couple of things that I've got in Doctor Who – The Forgotten and now it'll look like I blatantly stole them even though at the time they were ground breaking and original, I collapsed in bed, having drunk my required amount of end of evening non-alcohol liquid, waking up this morning to a slight hangover and a dry mouth.

Which probably wasn't the best time to learn that artist extraordinaire Michael Turner passed away on Friday after a long battle with cancer.

I only ever met Michael once, a couple of years back at a San Diego, but I remember being struck by how quiet and unassuming he was, considering the amount of screaming fans that he had. He was easily deserved of the 'superstar artist' rep that he had and he was one of the few artists that I would actually hunt covers from out, week after week. And over the last eight years he's been fighting a momentous battle against cancer, one I hoped more than anything he would win. But in the end God needed one more angel who could draw by his side, and Michael heeded the call. Having lost my Mother the same way a few years back, I can only guess the state of his family at the moment, but every ounce of my love and support goes their way. There's not a worse way in the world to lose someone, but at least Michael held it off for so many years, years that he treasured in every way.

God bless you wherever you are, Michael Turner.

Of course, even though I've been more busy this week than a busy person from planet busywhizz, I still managed to get a chance to go to the cinema on Thursday to see brand new spanky action movie Wanted, based incredibly loosely on the Top Cow comic by Mark Millar and JG Jones and starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan I don't get to narrate any Penguins? This film sucks! ' Freeman. And the Tony Lee review? A treble thumbs up from this eager kiddie. Lots of bangs and booms and bullets and fights and all that jazz. Much fun indeed and I walked out deciding that I wanted, I really wanted to write something just like it. Lots of exciting adventurous yum yums for my multitude of minion to lap up while they extol my multiple virtues to the world. If only I could write something like that, I'd have much fun over five or six issues, possibly more than a grown man could have on his own, in a dark room, with a computer monitor.

Luckily for me, and in fact lucky for the world's comic readership, I do indeed have such a fun filled smorgasbord of exciting tasty goodness - that is to say that I and Dan Boultwood have such a title - Shotgun Samurai.

About a year ago, Dan and I, while working on the early pages of Hope Falls decided to start discussing what we'd work on next. We'd been playing with an idea for a graphic novel called Dashing Tales - For Young Chaps – a piss take 1940 Almanac for boys and we'd also been considering taking the WW2 team from The Gloom, The Eleventh Hour and updating them, making them a Sterankoesque sixties superteam, but various things had gotten in the way, and Hope Falls became our main focus.

That said, we still needed something as a tension reprieve, and it was in San Diego last year that we came up with what it would eventually be. It was a Thursday night and I was in the Hyatt bar, the usual haunt for comics creators and second rate celebs (I still remember Sam 'I was Flash Gordon you know' Jones in the Hyatt lobby a few San Diego's ago, giving his cell phone out to unsuspecting girls who entered the bar telling them that there was a rowdy bunch in there, and that if they were in any trouble to call him - I remember at the time thinking how cool it was that the hotel had such security - until I saw his SDCC pass, still hung around his neck) and we were playing around with ideas, as you do when you sit at a table with a variety of creators. It's the lower level pissing contest, where you throw the most deranged high concepts at the others and see if they can do better. Or run screaming. Anyway, I was there with Sean Dulaney, Barry Buchanan, Chris Kirby and Kody Chamberlain and we were doing this and I went 'Tarantino does Romeo and Juliet – where they kill every motherfucking last one of them. '

It quickly got forgotten, but in my head of ideas, suddenly I had a germ of a diseased idea. What if we had a modern day Romeo and Juliet? Not the Baz Luhrman one which although modern was still faithful to the original, but what if we just took from the premise and built on it? Two star crossed lovers from different clans who, when told to stop seeing everyone decide instead to kill everyone in the way of their love story?

It was Larry Young who suggested a variety of titles. I'd had the idea of Shotgun Samurai – I wanted something for a title that was catchy, cool and edgy. Larry suggested the story should be sub headed 'Love Hurts – So Kill Everyone'. I agreed. And I phoned Dan from the airport, excitedly explaining the story. Dan was also excited. And a week after I returned, we started to work it out.

First was the location. I'd decided that if we were going to do a gang war, it had to be London. Everyone does New York and Los Angeles. This had to be local for us. And it made it easier for Dan to get reference. So, if we're doing it in London, who were the gangs?

Well, we have Russian Mafia, Gangstas, the Irish Mafia, Italians, Triads and Yakuza in London to name but a few, but we know how much the Triads and the Yakuza hate each other – so it was decided that we'd have them as our Montagues and Capulets. We'd start already into the story, the two main protagonists, Yukio and Mei will already be seeing each other and the seeds of their plan will already have started. As a side bar we threw the Russian / Eastern European Mafia in as well, as the victims of an arms theft involving the Triads and Yakuza. A three-way war. And suddenly our heroes have danger coming at them from all sides.

Issue #1 started with an eight page car chase through London, with Yukio and Mei on a bike, with uzis and guns and people flying through the air to land on bonnets and explosions and cars crashing through barriers and dear God was it fun. And then it stopped.

Not due to anything bad, we had two major publishers already contacting us due to a pitch and a one page teaser. But Hope Falls was taking more time than we thought, an illness in the summer had dropped Dan back a month and as he started to catch up, we started working on a paid job for The DFC and this ensured that there was no gap between Hope Falls and Prince of Baghdad. And then while he was doing that, he was also finishing the colours and inks on the final The Gloom, never before seen, for the web comic and collected trade later in the year.

And Shotgun Samurai languished in the dark. Every now and then we'd look at it again and go 'one day'. Until this week when, walking out of Wanted, I called Dan.

'We've got a story as good and action packed as this.' I said. 'So why the hell aren't we doing it, and making millions while sitting on our private beach?'

And from there we restarted. We're redoing the first eight pages. We're looking at a colourist this time for Dan's work – and we have several trying for the gig and already we have two that are so close we're literally flipping a coin on who gets it, if either of them stay better than any of the later colourists, one is slightly ahead due to speed, but when we have a colourist on board, we have a full team. And at San Diego I'll be speaking to a couple of the publishers who once expressed interest. And in 2009? With luck, and a little bit of talent, Shotgun Samurai will see the light, a five, maybe even six part action packed series.

And then maybe we will get that movie action dollar... or at least a five buck cinema ticket...

I've mentioned in the past that I'm doing a lot of Doctor Who things at the moment, and this week passed the first of them came out at Comic Book Resources.

In it I discuss many things about the miniseries, including large spoilers of plot, and they also managed to get never seen before preview art from Chris Ryall to show, including this rather nice two page splash panel from the first issue...

Yeah. Admit it. You're interested now.

In addition to this, I'm the guest host on Wednesday at DTRN.co.uk, with the Sci fi guys...

As the summer enters full flow, The Sci Fi Guys return to kick start a Summer of Sci Fi on DTRN, this week with their annual Expo Radio Rewind Show featuring special guest Edward James Olmos.

Interviewed as part of this years London Expo Radio Live broadcast (In association with The London MCM Expo) Edward, who has also worked on shows such as Miami Vice, talks to Stuart about life on Battlestar and much more.

Stuart is also joined on the show, which will take a look back at the recent London MCM Expo, by special guest co-host, Tony Lee. Known for his work on titles such as X-Men, British comic writer Tony Lee is currently working on the Doctor Who comic book, The Forgotten for IDW publishing and was also presenter for the comic stage at this Mays Expo.

The show will also feature an exclusive chat from the Expo with 20th Century Fox about the forthcoming X Files movie!

Alongside a review of the recent London Expo the guys will also be talking about all the news and maybe even a few reviews from the worlds of Sci Fi, Cult TV, Comics, Movies, Anime and much more.

Finally, Stuart will also be revealing more about the forthcoming DTRN Summer of Sci Fi and how you can get involved!!

The fun starts at 8pm this Wednesday on www.dtrn.co.uk and will also include all the latest news and discussions on everything from Sci Fi to Cult TV and movies. In the meantime don't forget to check out the forums for all the latest DTRN news and off air discussion.

So don't forget to listen to that. It should be a blast, especially as I'll be over the airwaves live. No editing the naughty words off the pod cast for me here!

Anyway, I need to go lie down, and so I'll leave you – expect each week over the next few days to get even more twitchy as we start the month and counting Count Down to Infinite Convention, as I prepare for the 2008 San Diego Comic Con...