Coming Home...

By Tony Lee

So I write this on a Friday morning, sitting in a cafe in Euston while waiting for an 11:30 AM meeting with a book publisher. It's an editor I've never met before, although we have spoken several times on the phone and swapped emails, but I'm in the strange position where he knows me more than I know him.

Yesterday I had a drink with fellow writers Simon Guerrier (and his brother Tom), Jason Arnopp and James Moran at the Young Vic where scantily clad young lovelies rehearsed lines and skipped around us, making us feel old and rather broken. Well, they made me feel that way. Later that night I went to Borough High Street where, as over a hundred Millwall fans watched a playoff game in the bar downstairs, I sat with Tracy and watched a lecture on the haunted stories of the London Underground. Later today I hope to have a drink with Lee 'Budgie' Barnett just off Oxford Street. Tomorrow, I have a signing in Leicester Square.

I have an Oyster Card, now. I feel like I'm home.

It's a weird feeling, actually. I was born in West London and spent many of both my formative teenage years and my early twenties in the centre of the city. Camden on a Sunday, sometimes Regents Park when it was really sunny, days spent in Covent Garden or sitting with a coffee on Dean Street, a drink in the 'Blue Posts' while voiceover artists hurried around, taking in a show or two while I was there, sitting on the South Bank with a paper, watching the world go by – these were the days of my life. I grew up here, I lived here, and I had most of my landmark achievements here, some good, some bad, all shaping who I became.

About ten years ago, I started spending more time in Birmingham; about a hundred miles north – I'd met a girl and soon I'd moved away from London. But still it called me back. Whenever I arrived for a meeting in Euston, I'd pop on that tube train and, the moment I hit the street I felt like I was home. That I belonged. The city recognised me, and I was secure in her arms. Amusingly, in all the countries I've visited – and I've stood on every continent bar one, Antarctica, so that's quite a few countries - I've only ever felt this way in one other place, Manhattan, New York City. The moment I hit Times Square, I know I'm home. It's obviously the 'city folk' gene deep inside of me. I almost moved to New York about four years ago, too. But I didn't. Instead I stayed in Birmingham. And visited London like an out-of town mistress.

And now, almost a decade since I left, I'm returning to London. In about three months, to be honest. And as much as I'm going to miss Birmingham and some of the people there, I'm going to enjoy coming back to London for a variety of reasons, one of which is the comic creator camaraderie that you have here.

The Midlands have some of the best creators around, people like John McCrea, Phil Winslade, Liam Sharp, Laura Howell, Hunt Emerson, Alan Moore – the list goes on – but because it's 'The Midlands', the creator meetings become far and few between, with many miles between us all. But in London it's more centralised, there's a writer or an artist within a stone's throw of you anytime you step foot in the place – and believe me, I've thrown a lot of nice, heavy stones. And whereas in the Midlands there are occasional meet ups of creators, in London it's a regular, monthly one with scattered additional meetings almost every other week. And that's just the comic guys.

Being a writer is a solitary position. It has to be. You're transcribing your thoughts onto paper, or most likely a computer screen – and the last thing you want is to be hassled by people while you're doing that. As I said, I'm currently in a commuter hub, and I haven't made eye contact with anyone since I got here. I've just sat here and typed. It's what we do.

But when we finish, when we sit back and go 'that's done', we're incredibly sociable. We have to be. It's coded into our survival network. And by that, I mean writer survival network. Because writers need to see society to write about society. You need to have interaction to write about interaction. When I was a teenager I wrote stories, but they were always lacklustre, missing something. And it was my English teacher Miss Polityko who pointed out that they were lacking because I didn't have the experience to know what to write to fill in those gaps. I needed to go out, see the world, experience things. And it was true. I was paralysed when I was twenty one, lost three months of my memory – and that experience alone has fuelled so many of my tales. I've lived on the street briefly, I've been in love, I've fallen out of love, I've suffered a death of a loved one, I've witnessed amazing events across the globe – and each of these have pushed me that little bit further.

But as I said, although writers are solitary by choice when they face the keyboard, they need to speak to people when they're not. This is why many writers get out of the house; some even have offices they write in – to force them to interact. And writers always seek out other writers to talk to, as we all know the pitfalls, we all know the secret code of writers, the one where we can talk ambiguously about a particular project's pitfalls, and know that the people listening understand the true conversation. We talk about agents. Of structure. Of old friends. In a way, it's the same as when three pilots get together, or when some doctors sit down at a conference. We sit and we talk work. Why? Because we love our work. We love writing. It's not a job, it's a vocation. To want to be a writer, you must want to write with every fibre of your being. You must have a passion that will fuel the days where you work until the early hours of the morning, wrestling with a scene that's <not quite right. Where you spend hours a week working and then have a new idea on your day off that you just have to start right now. If this is you? Then you are a writer, and you too will understand the strange writer camaraderie that exists in that surreal, hidden world.

Now don't get me wrong. I talk to Tracy a lot, and she's helped me through some of the biggest moments of writer's block that I've had on certain projects. She's grown up with books and her insights are usually spot on the mark, but she's never written a comic, and sometimes you just need that connection. And in London, as I said, there's a support network of hundreds.

But I think the thing about London for me is that I started my career here. I know that when I have my coffee with Lee, sorry – Budgie later today, I'll most likely walk down to Oxford Street along Rathbone Place, passing the building where, twenty two years ago, I started my writing career. Because Dennis Publishing used to be there, and Your Sinclair was published there – and in May 1987, I had my first ever games review printed. It was my first ever paid gig, and I was sixteen years old. And walking to my meeting later today, I'll pass the BBC Broadcasting house where I made my weekly visits during my tenure as an un-commissioned 'Weekending' writer in my early twenties. (For the US readers, this was a weekly Radio 4 satire show I wrote for – it was satirical sketches of the week just passed)

My history is in London. But at the same time my writing history is there too. I pass the pub where I used to do lectures. I see the bar where I held my twenty-fifth birthday. I see the comic store where I signed my first comic book, X-Men Unlimited #1. I walk past the building that used to be a comic store, the one that my brother Kevin took me to when I was around seven years old, Dark They Were And Golden Eyed, and bought me my first non-handed-down comic. I walk into the shop where I will be doing a signing tomorrow.

I have lived in a lot of places during my life, including Birmingham, Rotherham and Cardiff at points – but London is my home. And I know that the day I move in, the day I return to being a Londoner –

I'll want to leave again...

---

Now, book plugging – and not one of my own. My very good friend Neil Kleid has a new book coming out, and anyone who knows how much I rave about the excelled Brownsville knows that this is just as good, if not better. And you should all buy it. Here was his email to me...

Hey, Just wanted to drop you a line to let you know about my new graphic novel, THE BIG KAHN, shipping to comic book stores this July from the good people at NBM Publishing. It's my second big book and I'm fairly excited about the story. It's a family drama in the vein of HBO's "Six Feet Under' but focusing on synagogue rather than funeral home. Please have your friends, family and co-workers preorder a copy to get an amazing book with amazing art. Have a look, share and enjoy:

THE BIG KAHN
by Neil Kleid & Nicolas Cinquegrani
6 x9, 176 pp., trade pb., B&W with color cover, $13.95
ISBN: 978-1-56163-561-0
Diamond PREVIEWS Order Code: MAY090988

This July, explore a family secret so well-hidden, even the family didn't know about it until it was too late.

Rabbi David Kahn has lived a forty-year lie: he is not, nor has he ever been, Jewish. When at his funeral, the "rabbi's" grifter brother reveals the truth, it forces the Kahn family to struggle with grief and betrayal as their congregation examines their every move and they question their very faith. Rabbi Avi Kahn, the heir apparent whose future is on the line, spirals into a tryst with his rebellious sister Lea's non-Jewish roommate. Lea rethinks the religion she's run from, religion strong enough to alter her father's life, while Eli — the youngest Kahn — inherits his father's long-forgotten legacy. Somehow, with the help of the uncle he never knew and his slowly re-awakening sister, Eli attempts to return faith and order to his family, community while reinstating his father's good name.

Neil Kleid, Xeric Award winning author of Ninety Candles and NBM's Brownsville, and illustrator Nicolas Cinquegrani offer The Big Kahn, a graphic novel drama about loss, lies, belief and renewal in this sequential exploration of a family secret so well-hidden, it questions the very nature of faith. Hitting shelves this July, The Big Kahn, a 176 page black and white graphic novel, is currently available to preorder via Diamond Comics Distributors (Page 271, Order Code; MAY090988) and through bookstores (ISBN 978-1-56163-561-0) at the low price of $13.95.

Dean (The Alcoholic, Street Code) Haspiel had this to say about The Big Kahn: "Does honoring tenets of a religion admonish the dishonor of heritage? Does the wisdom of experience overrule the righteousness of blood? Profound answers are discovered in the subtlety of behavior and the struggles of the heart in this modern dilemma of difference versus acceptance."

A ten page selection from the book is available for preview at the NBM website.

An interview about the book is available at Comicon Pulse.

Thanks for listening and I look forward to your thoughts on The Big Khan.

---

And that's it for the week, I know it's not been that much of a story about being a writer, but it's about the city that made me a writer. And that, my friends is something special.

Next week, we might be a day late again as we'll be writing from the MCM London Expo…

Until then, see you n seven.

---

Discuss this column at the Only A Forum forum.
© 2008, Tony Lee

---