He's Only A Writer... Christmas Day Edition

By Tony Lee

Good morning, children. Have you opened your presents yet? Stuffed yourselves stupid? Or perhaps you're just waking up, blearily wiping the sleep of the hungover from your eyes? Ah, bless. Always good to see, you know.

Me? I'm up early and I'm writing a column. Just for you. On Christmas Day. Aren't I nice? Of course I am. What, you want proof? Hold on a second.

The here. The now.

There you go. With date proof. The BBC website seems quite sparse today for news, actually. You'd think it was some kind of public holiday or something... Like the special, Christmas Tigger jumper? My mother made it for me years ago, before she passed away. I still bring it out on special occasions to scare people.

Right then, firstly I'll apologise for any grammar / spelling / format errors - usually this is edited and placed online by my editor extraordinare Jason Sacks, but this time I decided that I should allow him to stay in bed - also due to the fact that uber honcho Jason 'Spirit of Christmas' Brice has offered to post this at some stupidly insane time in the day, New Zealand clock, and therefore to ease his Christmas hassles, I'm coding this one myself. And by that I mean HTML coding, all the italics and bold text and all that. It might look a bloody mess. Who knows. It's stupid O'Clock in the bloody morning on Christmas Day and I'm writing this for you, so cut me some Christmas slack and all that.

So, why indeed am I writing this Christmas column? I mean, I don't need to - my column should have been out on the 22nd, plenty of time before the Christmas excess season, so what's going on? Well, it's all Rich Johnston's fault. He of Lying In the Gutters, the internet rumour column of much note.

A couple of weeks ago, he put a challenge out to all creators to blog / post something on Christmas Day. And I took the challenge up. Unfortunately Rich is a bit of a tool, and thought that I was going to simply post on my Livejournal, and when I pointed this out, he asked for the revised URL so he could eventually change it. Which shows that he also doesn't read this, so it doesn't matter what I say about him.

Actually, I like Rich. He's one of the few people in the industry that I'd class as a genuine real life 'friend', and he's a comics journo I actually trust, believe it or not. Many people in the industry don't, but at his very core is the ultimate fan of comics, and would stop LiTG in an instant if Marvel offered him an exclusive.

Hmm. perhaps someone should try that...

But anyway. I'm listening to Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing about peace on Earth, I have a glass of juice by my side and I'm ready to go. I barely drink you see these days, and I have no Christmas Eve hangover, regardless of the fact that I was at a traditional Christmas Eve party. What, you want proof of that as well? Okay, here you go.

Last night's party, Birmingham.

But what to talk about? Well, there is something I was going to do on my Livejournal, something I do every year, and I thought I'd do it here instead. Basically at the end of each year, I talk about the year in review - I do three separate posts, one talks about each month's Livejournal posts, one answers a set selection of questions about the year, questions that never change over the years, giving an overall view of the changes of my life, and then there is this one. The 'what Tony did' review of the year. The problem of course is that I have a crap memory for organisational things, and can't remember where and when I did things, so bear with me, this is going to be all over the place.

The biggest thing for me this year? I know, some of you are going to say 'Ah, this will be Doctor Who: The Forgotten from IDW, yes?' - but no, it's not. At the risk of sounding soppy (and let's face it, it's Christmas Day, and if you can't do it today, when can you do it) the biggest and best thing that happened to me this year was Tracy.

A year ago to the day, I didn't even know her. She was a friend of a friend, and I met her by chance while commenting on a photo that a friend of mine had put up on his site. When I first started talking to her, I didn't know who she was, what she was really like - all I saw were her modelling and Myspace pictures, and let's face it, the first thing that I thought was that I didn't want any kind of relationship, or girlfriend. I'd only broken up with a long term parter about three months earlier, and girls still smelt of wee at this point. But, Tracy was fun and easy to talk to, intelligent and witty and on the exact same wavelength that I was, and we found ourselves talking a lot by email and Facebook and half a dozen other ways. And I found myself looking forwards to reading her words. And, when we finally met for a drink when I was next in London on the 29th February, we clicked.

We didn't know if we were on a date or not, but within the first hour we knew that we were. And I fell for her, hook line and total sinker which if you know me, is rather surprising.

I'll cut the long story short, that night we started seeing each other. And every day we spoke to each other. We saw each other when we could, and she embraced my comic world with grace and style. As a child she was dragged by her parents to Blakes 7 conventions, so you don't know how much of a kudos I owe her for turning up to a variety of Doctor Who days and conventions over the year. And in October, after talking to my father about my feelings for her, he gave me my late Mother's engagement ring and told me I was a fool if I didn't propose to her. In fact several people did. And in mid October? We got engaged.

We won't be getting married for a little while, but I know how this book ends - so the fact of the matter is I didn't care what chapter I asked her in. She's not here today, I'll see her tomorrow, but from next year, I can't see Christmas Day happening without her. Unless of course she hates my presents.

Tracy Farrow, I don't know how it happened, but you took that cold dead thing in my chest and breathed back life into it. And I love you more than I could express in a simple column. Happy Christmas.

So anyway, let's talk about the year. January was an interesting one, as I was starting three projects, all at the same time - The Prince Of Baghdad with Dan Boultwood, St Spookys with Rob Osbourne and of course Doctor Who: The Forgotten with Pia Guerra, which I announced on this very day exactly a year ago. Added to this I was lettering Hope Falls and finishing Stalag #666. Of these all but St Spookys came out, and that'll be hopefully early in 2009. Hope Falls got amazing reviews but low sales, and we're still waiting for the trade, which Harry Markos promises me should be out in May 2009, so I'll be expecting you to put the word out, children. Prince Of Baghdad came and went in the weekly comic The DFC, and we're still waiting on what's happening with book two. And of course Stalag #666 came out to a few great reviews, a few bad ones, a lot of terrible ones from one or two locations and a letter containing human shit that was sent to a house I no longer lived at.

If I'd known then what I know now? I wouldn't have changed any of these - except for maybe Stalag #666.

Now, I'll add here that people have commented over the year that I was annoyed at the bad reviews I got for Stalag - and this is bollocks. I was disappointed, I genuinely thought it was a story the 2000ad fans would like, and to be honest a lot of the fans did tell me they enjoyed it, and the bad reviews stung a little, but that's the whole point of message boards. If you beat yourself up over every bad review, you'll never leave the house. And I let it get to me. At one point I even called up 2000ad 'Tharg', Matt Smith and asked if we should pull the strip. That's how shaken I was. But it was pointed out to me that there were actually thousands of people who liked it - and to pull it would spoil it for them.

But one thing I've always said is that I want the negative reviews. I'd rather you said something bad than not said at all - because otherwise how can I learn as a writer? There are writers out there who have 'yes men' and never read bad press and they make the same mistakes time and time again. So I'm quite happy not to do that. I'm quite happy to actually listen, and learn from my mistakes.

That said, the 'Poogate' incident almost made me quit comics. How someone can do such a thing is beyond me. How someone can actually have the chain of thought that goes from 'I hate this story' all the way to 'I shall wipe my arse with some copier paper and send it to him' baffles me - and I'll be honest. For what you did, poo-sender, for the pain that you caused someone very close to me who didn't deserve such a thing, if I ever find out who you are? If you ever come up at a convention and say hi, and prove to me it was you?

I'll kick your fucking teeth in. Ho ho ho.

Funny enough, people would tell me that it wasn't that bad, it got me known, editors knew who I was and all that - but answer me this. If you're an editor, and you see that a writer is apparently so bad someone sends shit to his address... Would you hire him?

So, February, and I adapted Antony Horowitz's Night Rise - I love adapting these books and I look forwards to this upcoming February when I will be adapting the newly released Necropolis. Dom Reardon and Lee O'Connor are making me look quite competent on the art side and I'll miss doing this when the series ends. I also spent a lot of time writing scripts for Doctor Who: The Forgotten and working on the independent short film I wrote, The Shoot.

Sarah, Rob, Jordan - Photo by Trish Gaunt.

This culminated in a weekend long, bloody cold filming session in Birmingham, but at the end of the day, the ten minute film we made ended up coming in at close to twenty. It was a good learning experience for me, and we should be seeing it at some festivals in 2009. But, as my first taste of screenwriting, I found myself lacking - and I've been swotting up ever since. Expect to see this sometime in 2009 though, I had an absolute blast being 'on set' and the three members of cast, Sarah, Rob and Jordan were all consummate professionals.

Tony and Mark, writer and director - Photo by Trish Gaunt.

In fact, much of this year has been The Prince Of Baghdad, St Spookys, and Doctor Who: The Forgotten. I was writing and editing all three until easily September. Add to that Stalag #666 which I was writing until the end of June, and between them and the Night Rise adaptation we had just under five hundred pages of script done in this time. And then in July I started work on Necrophim, first the five-issue prologue and then the eleven week main story - another eighty or so pages.

In March I also started to work on the 'sequel' to Robin Hood, called Robin Hood: Outlaw's Return, but after a couple of months of back and forth it was decided to drop this (which was a damned shame as I'd made it work) but instead look at the 'Heroes and Heroines' range that it was part of, and work from that. And in a meeting in London we decided to look at King Arthur, of which Pendragon: The Legend Of King Arthur was born, and Robin Hood was renamed.

I started to talk at schools, thanks to Regie Rigby of Fool Britannia's advice and recommendation, and I found that not only did I enjoy it, I was good at it. I did three days of this in the latter part of 2008, and I've already got four days booked for the first half of 2009.

Tony, talking to children. And not being arrested...

Warrior Nun Areala hung on and hung on and eventually died, and I tried to get Where Evils Dare moving with new artist Jim Boswell. But then we got caught up with the logistical nightmare that was Triple Threat.

At the time I thought it was a great idea. Get three teams to write three interlinked Starship Troopers stories over two months. Markosia had a break in the schedule, and we could do this. I sorted out a team or artists, Scott James, Neil Edwards and Jim Boswell, and the writers were me, then current Starship Troopers scribe Cy Dethan and then non-Disneyed Christian Beranek.

With hindsight? I wish I hadn't bothered. I discovered that I really didn't want to be an editor, was too busy to chase up every small aspect and subsequently missed larger issues, the organisation was a nightmare, one artist was stupidly late, claiming that they'd done the pages and then obviously doing them the night after deadline, throwing the whole book into disarray - but I'm not going to winge. Suffice to say that somehow, we made a comic out of the mess. Somehow we all clubbed together and soldiered through. I discovered people that I'd love to work with again, and people I never want to work with again.

The saddest thing however is that Markosia are stopping Starship Troopers, due to the whole Mongoose license situation - and it annoys me that this was the last Tanners Tigers story. Again, in hindsight? I should have stopped after Damaged Justice.

I adapted book two of The Dopple Ganger Chronicles, which used to be called The Tizzle Sisters. I had the opportunity to write an eight page tale for the upcoming Spearmint anthology This Is A Souvenir with Kevin Colden aptly working on art. Kevin is the creator of Fishtown, out from IDW - one of the best books of last year. Swear to God.

At San Diego I signed the deal with Larry Young to produce a second GN with them called Journal, a kind of romantic comedy, with Bevis Musson on art. And this is progressing beautifully. Dodge & Twist hit a major stumbling block however with Paul Peart-Smith having to take on additional paying work to make ends meet, slowing the book down to an infinitesimal crawl. We hope to have it out this decade though. Paul is crushed, as he knows how important this book is to us all, so we'll just see what happens.

Pia had to drop off three of the issues of Doctor Who: The Forgotten for various reasons, and again she was crushed to have to do this. Doctor Who was her dream gig, and she never got to draw the two scenes she wanted - one was the full, ten Doctors double splash, and the other was the fourth Doctor story. These were drawn in turn by Kelly Yates and Stefano Martino, both amazing artists.

All Ten Doctors - issue #6, out 21st January 2009

Oh, and you can see the full sized version of that HERE.

Stefano got a lot of flack for his stand in issue, people complaining about lack of detail here and there or that the Doctor didn't quite look right, but I stand beside him on this one - Stefano did that full issue in something close to a week or two, barely sleeping, working twenty hour days so that the book would come out on time and the fans would still get their story. And I know the criticisms hurt him as much as the ones on Stalag hurt me. And so I say no - Stefano's art was pretty damned good. Just look at his Judoon if you don't believe me.

I did a Spider Man story that came out in June, a last minute addition that meant that I didn't get placed in the solicits, but kept the tradition of 'a Marvel story every couple of years'.

And so we reach the end of the year, and I'm once more working in the world of the Vampire with Harker from Markosia. This is the book that takes the characters from Dracula and sets them six months later. I'm having a blast writing this one and it'll be finished in the early part of 2009. I'm also writing Lady Action for Moonstone, a new character that I created with Joe Ahearn, Ed Catto and Joe Gentile. I've just finished the first 22 page special, and I think the two back ups I did this year will be in Captain Action issues that are coming up.

And Where Evils Dare? Jim had to drop off it, unfortunately due to other work - the third artist to do so. This bloody thing is cursed, I tell you. First my friend Alex dropped off to leave comics, Sam Hart dropped off so he could do Robin Hood and now Jim has had to drop off as his GN Project Luna: 1947 has been picked up by Markosia. And I wish him all the best luck in the world, as he's going to turn a lot of heads.

But is the book dead? Hell no. I have another artist on the story already, Stefano Martino in fact. He was looking for something to get his teeth into and I just happened to be there at the time. So expect updates on that in the near future.

Books that died / never got anywhere this year included Rough Trade, which I finally had to walk away from, Warrior Nun Areala after nothing had happened for over a year, Imposter (which will return most likely in a year or so when Jim is free again), Conversations With My Mother, which is going back to being a novel, and Crowtown, which I didn't really play much with in 2008. But next year already looks good with my Doctor Who 22 pager The Time Machination, set in Victorian London, Harker, a possible regular gig I can't speak about yet and a Marvel story that again I can't talk about and a whole host of other things. I'll be attending a variety of conventions, and will be in the US at least twice this year. Will this be a better year coming than 2008? I don't know. 2008 pretty much rocked for me, and I can't see how anything else could beat it.

But I'm open to offers.

But finally, one last thing. My favourite comic-related moment of 2008? San Diego. In particular a particular photo shoot. I was showing Matt Gagnon of BOOM! one of the two copies of The Forgotten that IDW had at the show when a Tenth Doctor cosplayer appeared beside us, asking to look at it. When she (yes, a girl playing David Tennant - much better than the bloke I saw playing Rose Tyler...) realised who I was, she invited me to come meet some of the other Doctor Who cosplayers, as they were all meeting for a photo shoot that day. And so I did. And I met some of the nicest and coolest people that I have ever met in a comic convention. And they made me feel totally welcome, as you can see...

Photo Courtesy of Vickie Sebring

Have a happy Christmas, guys. I'm off to open some presents now. I won't be about next week, I'm having a well deserved break, but I'll be back in the New Year with news, rumours and frank conversation...

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© 2008, Tony Lee

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