by Zachary Clemente

Tula Lotay (aka Lisa Wood) is a comic artist hailing from the UK. Her work includes Elephantmen, Bodies, and the new Image book Supreme: Blue Rose with writer Warren Ellis. She also consults for the well-regarded Travelling Man comic shop and heads the annual comic arts festival Thought Bubble. I was fortunate enough to speak with Tula about her work in comics, illustration and otherwise.

Comics Beat: How has the convention been going for you so far?

Tula Lotay: It’s amazing! I was kind of expecting it to be super busy, but I wasn’t expecting to be personally busy because I don’t think anyone knows who I am as my comic’s only just come out. I wouldn’t have thought anyone would have read it but it’s gone nuts. I’ve been having signings with Image, DC, and Comicraft; every one has been full up with queues. I’ve never had that before!

CB: It’s exciting, I think. Supreme with Image has Ellis on it, who is a big name; Comicraft and Elephantmen have been around for some time, and you’re working on Bodies over at Vertigo now?

TL: Yes! It’s with Si Spencer and three other artists – Dean Ormston, Phil Winslade and Meghan Hetrick – it’s a murder mystery that spans four different time periods, the same body turns up in each one – it’s a fascinating story and that’s what really appealed to me, plus the character Maplewood who I got to draw, she’s a sassy amnesiac.

CB: What’s the time-frame for all these projects happening for you?

TL: Well, I’ve been working on Supreme since last year actually, but because of Thought Bubble organizing I had to put it on hold for two months which is unfortunate. I’m getting so much illustration work right now, but I can’t just let Thought Bubble go. I needed to make sure that it was all okay last year especially; this year the same thing worries me again but I’m hoping that more people can take on the running of the show and I can just continue to draw. Bodies was similar – I started it about three months after I started Supreme and I’m well ahead on both of those titles.

CB: You’ve been around for a while – running Thought Bubble with Travelling Man, which has been going on for seven years now?

TL: Yeah, Thought Bubble is seven years old. I’ve been with Travelling Man for maybe 11 years and I still act as a consultant for them. I was super proud to see Travelling Man short listed at the Eisners last night.

CB: How do you see your place in comics changing with the new projects you’re working on – the new way people may view you and your work?

TL: I definitely want to continue what I’m doing and make my illustration a priority – it should have been a priority years ago. But I’m doing it now and that’s great. I’d ultimately like to work on my own stories. But I felt I needed a bit more experience before putting it out there. I love that story thought and want to tell it soon. I do love working with great writers that allow me space to explore new ideas and different styles though. Working with Warren is amazing. He’s so good. I’d like to keep learning – I think there’s so much for me to learn still and I think there’s so many ways for me to channel my art so I can maybe simplify it more, tighten it. I’m quite excited about how that’s going – moving forward into the future and becoming more confident so things can be simplified.

I’m a big fan of simpler art that’s done perfectly and I think only great masters can do that, like Toth for instance, obviously I don’t think I would ever be anywhere near his skill, but that’s my goal.

CB: Toth is definitely a name thrown out as very inspiring – along with Moebius and Miyazaki. Who do you look to as inspiration for the direction you want to go?

TL: Oh, there’s so many people I’m inspired by – I’m like a kid in a candy shop wherever I go! My friends joke with me and call it “Lisa’s World of Wonder” (that’s my real name) because I get so excited about everything! With regards to art , I like looking back to a lot of Saturday Evening Post illustrations from the 50s and 60s – I’m really inspired by that kind of stuff. Bernie Fuchs, Bob Peak, Robert Fawcett, Robert McGinnis, Robert McGuire – I love all that pulpy stuff.

Growing up, massive influences that have still stuck with me were people who did more painterly art styles like Kent Williams, Bill Sienkiewicz, John J Muth, Dave McKean; so I think I sort of edge towards that style more often than the typical stuff. But still I adore Steranko, Bernet, Mazzucchelli or anyone who masters their style – I’m inspired by any great artist.

CB: I’m reminded of another artist, in career path and a bit of style; Christian Ward, currently on Ody-C with Matt Fraction.

TL: Oh yeah? How so?

CB: Mostly in style – I see a lot of dashes and touches of affection and emotion that isn’t necessarily just about the figure.

TL: I can see that! Christian’s stuff is amazing and his color is just out there – it’s so intense and just adds to his beautiful lines. So that’s a really nice comparison, thank you.

CB: Even on the career side – he just got on with Fraction, who is a really big name right now, as is Ellis. There’s things going on there…

TL: Yeah, both British too.

CB: I wasn’t going to say it!

[General laughter set to the sounds of the very loud Star Wars display looping in the background.]

CB: Do you see your involvement in Thought Bubble lessening as your illustration picks up?

TL: I have to do that and I’ve been trying to, really. I should probably give it up completely and pass it on, but it’s a business I built from scratch seven years ago and it’s been more successful than I ever could have anticipated. As a business person – doing something like that, succeeding at it, and then just passing it on…that’s not something I can do because it’s something I’ve invested so much time, blood, sweat, and tears into. I’m still planning to continue with things and I still want to continue being Director but I think this year is going to be very telling as to how much I can actually do.

I’ve got some great people that I work with, I couldn’t do it without them. I’m managing to pass on the running of the show more and more, but one of the problems I have is that I’m not great at delegating. I have real issues with it, people are always willing to help but It can be hard to let go of something you’ve built up. But fingers crossed, this year will be okay.

CB: Why do you think Though Bubble has become such a well-regarded show?

TL: There’s definitely a reason everyone says it’s brilliant and that it’s so well-organised….. but … I don’t think I’m well-organized; I didn’t have any experience of event management when I set it up… But I think because I and so many of the people I work with care so dearly about what we’re doing – we make it work. Everyone; guests, exhibitors, and attendees must see that, shining through.

I’d like to think it’s successful because people can see that it’s put on by people who just adore the art form and, we may not always do things right, but we’ll do everything in our power to ensure everyone has a nice time. On top of that, we have the best people working in the industry – in the world – coming to our show – I think that’s kind of spiraled. The incredible talent that comes ends up leaving with quite a nice opinion of us – it gets passed around and it’s sort of snowballed.

CB: It seems like the passion shines though, as with your illustration. Jumping back to Supreme, how did the project come to be?

TL: I think it first came about when Eric Stephenson came to Thought Bubble, Richard Starkings had showed him my work. Eric really liked it and asked for a meeting and was keen for me to do something with Warren at Image. So I started chatting with Warren, since we’ve known each other for a little while. We went back and forth with ideas, talking about movies and music because we love a lot of similar things. Then Warren decided to re-work Supreme and asked if I was interested and obviously I was super interested because I love Warren’s writing.

CB: Without giving anything away, what kind of winks, nods, or references will we see in Supreme?

TL: There’s a lot of [David] Lynch in there. Since the title is Supreme: Blue Rose, anyone who’s an avid Twin Peaks watcher will know what “Blue Rose” means. There’s some Philip K. Dick in there, little nods to Kubrick and Jacques Tourneur, mainly  sci-fi  but a little mystery and horror as well.

CB: That sounds like it would mesh really well.

TL: I hope so. The response so far has been amazing. I can’t answer all the tweets I’m getting! I’m not used to that. But it is really nice hearing people say so many positive things about Supreme - it’s blown me away, really.

CB: Do you have fears or concerns about this change in your career?

TL: Yeah, I think anybody entering into something that’s new can feel a little bit fearful of it and certainly, with creatives, it is always a worry as to whether people are going to appreciate or like what you’re doing especially when you create something you’re so passionate about.

But you’ve really got to be fearless – you’ve got to feel the fear and do it anyway.

CB: Thank you very much, Tula.

TL: Yeah, thank you!

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Thought Bubble 2013 have announced a second list of guests for their convention this year, which, I notice, means the convention has a brilliant gender parity. Of the 21 guests so far announced, 10 are female!

That might not sound like much, but British conventions have struggled with this in the past – last year’s Kapow Comic Convention was widely criticised for not having any females on the guest-list, to which Mark Millar at the time responded:

“The reason the comic guests are mostly male is because the biggest names in UK comics are male.”

Well, this year’s Thought Bubble Convention currently has a guestlist of ten female creators and eleven males (with that slight disparity being caused by Paul Cornell, ironically!) in total. And joining the previously announced Ming Doyle, Emma Rios, Robin Furth, Annie Wu, Isabel Greenberg, Becky Cloonan, Fiona Staples, will be Jordie Bellaire (a colourist, at a convention?!), Hope Larson, and Emma Vieceli. 

So… I think that pretty effectively shuts down Millar’s argument, eh?

Also just announced are Paul Duffield, Declan Shalvey, Antony Johnston, and Francesco Francavilla. A full guest list can be found here.

TweetA sign that the UK creative scene are eager both for conventions and the opportunity to queue, exhibitor tables for Leeds Thought Bubble Convention went on sale yesterday at 1pm, and had sold out by 3pm. This follows a very recent trend in the UK for conventions to sell out exhibitor tables at an increasingly [...]

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After his first novel was published in 1999, when Barry Nugent went on to self-publish his second novel Unseen Shadows: Fallen Heroes five years later, he couldn’t have seen what was coming. Ostensibly the first novel in a trilogy (he’s currently working on the second book, which is tentatively scheduled for next year), Fallen Heroes grew from a novel into a spinoff comic book, which then grew into a series of comic stories, which have now grown into a small empire of audio books, graphic novels, anthologies and more.

As you can probably guess, he’s very gifted at promotion, and always trying new ways to tell his stories. You’ll find Fallen Heroes on Amazon, reviewed all across the internet, and even stocked in stores like Waterstones. The amount of work he puts into getting his work seen is absolutely tremendous. I spoke to Barry at Thought Bubble about how so much came about from just one story, and how he’s seen his original story develop into such a vast array of different projects.

Steve: You’re launching your second Fallen Heroes anthology today, and have just announced plans on a series of graphic novels next year? Can you tell us anything about them?

Barry: We have three graphic novels in the works, all feature-length in size. The anthologies have been made up of four stories, each focused on a diferent character — but these graphic novels will all contain just one long-form story, with a different character the lead each time. The first one is about our character The Reverend – who is a mix between The Shadow and The Punished – and is called Blood Cries Out. It’ll be written by Cy Dethan, with Steve Penfold on art.

We have Swagger and Steel written by Corey Brotherson -  although there’s no artist yet, we’re going through submissions and looking for somebody at the moment. And then the last story is also for next year, and is set 70 years after the novels end.

Steve: How did you move from novels to comics?

Barry: It’s been a journey. It started when Cy Dethan read the book, liked it, and as a result approached me and said he’d like to do a one-shot story as a comic. I said sure, and we talked about which character he wanted to do the story about – he picked The Reverend, and then went about writing the issue. But because Cy knows a lot of people in the industry, word spread around about the project and I started getting emails from other writers and artists asking if they could get involved. It’s been an amazing experience for me, having these guys take my characters and work with them in ways I couldn’t even have imagined.

It’s been a great journey, collecting everything together. Last year we released the first anthology and launched it at Thought Bubble, and after that again I started to get emails from other writers and artists, asking if I was going to do any more. So I said yes — my philosophy is that as long as people still want them, I’m going to keep putting them out. So we started work on this second one.

Steve: Was it tough to assemble the creative teams for the second anthology?

Barry: I was obviously nervous about approaching writers and artists about a full-length graphic novel, because it’s a big job. I can’t pay anyone, so everybody involved is doing it because they love the work – any money we make goes back into printing. I don’t take any money at all. Cy was excited to be asked back onboard, and the rest of the creative team from that first Reverend story also said yes to continuing on with the character, which has been brilliant.

Having them agree to come back gave me confidence to ask other people. I can’t believe how lucky I am to be involved in this – in some ways I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Steve: There’s also [I made a flamboyant gesture across the table at this point] a whole range of other things spinning out of the book too, I see. What other storytelling mediums have you been trying out?

Barry: We now have an audio drama with a full cast, as well as an audio book. I’m releasing a DVD collection of everything we put out this year, with the audio drama as well as the books and anthology. There are also special features on the DVD, such as production art. I sold the rights for a TV series – they did a script treatment, but for lots of reasons it never made it to screens – but I still have the original pitch for the show, which is on here too.

My philosophy is to try and get as this story across on as many different mediums as I can. That’s why I made sure that the anthology stands alone from the book, which stands alone from the comics, which stands alone from the audio drama. There are easter eggs across the different projects, and if you pick up everything you’ll get different flavours of everything that’s going on.

Steve: And the second novel will be out next year?

Barry: Hopefully. The novel is the first in a trilogy, and I’ve been working on the second novel. I’m quite a slow writer, but also with everything taking off, I’m very busy! I try to oversee everything, all the different spinoffs, and that does slow me down. I was originally hoping to launch the second novel today!

But I am getting there – I’m on the third draft now, and after that I’ll send it over to test readers. the story is done, and now I’m getting to the point where I’m happy for it to come out.

Many thanks to Barry for taking the time to talk to me. If you’d like to know more, you can visit his website, or find him on Twitter @fhcomic. Because he plans for everything, he also recorded the Thought Bubble panel he appeared on this year, which you can watch in its entirety over here.  Phew!

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Woodrow Phoenix is one of the two editors who compiled Nelson, a 250-page anthology featuring work from over 50 different writers and artists. The idea of Rob Davis, the Blank Slate-published anthology tells a single tale, as told by a variety of different artists and writers. Amongst the incredible range of creators involved are people such as Roger Langridge, Paul Grist, Kate Brown, Posy Simmonds and Philip Bond.

I caught Woodrow by surprise and cornered him on the morning after he found out Nelson had won Best Book at the British Comic Awards, to ask him a few questions about the book and how it came together.

Steve: Last night Nelson won Best Book at the British Comic Awards!

Woodrow Phoenix: We’re very pleased and thrilled that people whose opinions we respect have seen fit to bestow this honour on us!

Steve: What first inspired yourself and Rob Davis to create Nelson?

Woodrow: Rob had this idea which I thought was a great concept I’ve never seen before. Nelson tells a complete story, as written and drawn by a series of gifted creators. It’s an anthology with just one story. It was such a great concept that I immediately thought ‘we have to do this’! I work as a designer as well as an illustrator, and I knew that something like this would need a strong sense of design, so I felt that was something I could bring to the project.

For example, I designed the cover for the anthology – we wanted something that would stand out and have something immediately compelling. Rob sketched the character, I did the type treatment, we put them together and we literally had the cover design in only a few hours.

Steve: How did you go about finding writers and artists to work on the anthology?

Woodrow: Between Rob and I we know a lot of people who we think are doing different, interesting things in comics, and we reached out to them. We also wrote a list of people who perhaps hadn’t done as much experimental, different stuff, and we wanted to challenge by inviting to work on Nelson. We picked people we wanted to see work, and then emailed everyone on our lists to see if they were interested. We thought it’d take a long time, but surprisingly, almost immediately everybody said “yes!”

Steve: With the now award-winning success of Nelson, are there perhaps now plans for a sequel project?

Woodrow: When we first finished, I vowed to never do something like this again! It was complicated and tiring, but enough time has passed that I’m thinking maybe there is something we could do. Something which would have some of the same features to it. It’s exciting to do something as ambitious and wide-ranging, and I’m considering trying it again.

Steve: Do you have anything else coming up on a personal level? Any other projects on the horizon?

Woodrow: I’m working on something else – a silent comic, where each page is a metre wide. I won’t be finishing it for a while!

I’ve reached a point now where I feel I’ve got all these crazy ideas, and it’s time to start trying them.

I think it’s important for the comics medium that we don’t keep doing the same things all the time. If you think about what we could do, you realise that there are a million subjects and styles we can work in. Rather than confining ourselves to capes we can do whatever we want, and I think we have to start taking that freedom to make work which isn’t predictable, doesn’t rely on old concepts, and isn’t always the same thing. We’ve got nothing to lose! We can afford to just try things out and be different.

Many thanks to Woodrow for his time! You can find more from him on his website, or on his twitter @mrphoenix. Also, if you google his name, you’ll see a picture which reveals he has the most suggestive eyebrows since Roger Moore. True!

By Steve Morris

British news time! We’ll forego the traditional playing of the National Anthem (although feel free to play it on your radio whilst you read this article, life is yours for the taking and nobody can stop you from such things) on this occasion, as we’ll just get straight into the announcement here. Creator/maker Adam Cadwell — yes, he of comics fame – has founded a new awards ceremony, which will be handed out at this November’s Thought Bubble Festival. Hey! That’s my home territory! Fancy that!

The British Comics Awards, a simple title I’m surprised nobody has taken before, will run a little differently to most others within the industry, with only British books allowed to be entered into consideration. Anybody can nominate a comic for consideration (as long as you stay within the guidelines) and the pool of choices will then be evaluated by The Committee — made up of Cadwell, the two main organisers of Thought Bubble (Lisa Wood and Clark Burscough), and a number of other writers and artists. These hoarse-voiced whisperers of fate will then whittle the choices down and hand things over to The Judges, who will then pick winners in each categories. The Judges have yet to be revealed, and if you look directly at them you’ll turn to stone.

The categories are: Best Comic (short-form story), Best Book (long-form story/collection),  Emerging Talent, the Young People’s Comic Award, and the Hall of Fame. Only the first three of these will be open for the public to elect; the Young People’s Comic Award will be chosen by schoolchildren from all across the UK. I’d imagine Phoenix Magazine would likely be a contender here, although surely only a fool would vote against Roger Langridge’s Snarked? Then again, according to every British newspaper there is, apparently children are fools nowadays. We’ll have to wait and see how that one goes. The Hall of Fame Award will go to a creator chosen by the committee, who will presumably be all dressed in dark robes as they ominously chant the name of their chosen victor in an echoing, dark cathedral.

This looks set to be a fun little awards ceremony! Thought Bubble has a reputation for favouring creativity and art above corporate stuff, so the nominees will likely be diverse, unexpected, and filled with incredible talent. Time to start speculating! Who do you think will win each category? Which British comics have been best this year? Why is there no category for “Best British Internet Comics Blogger Writey Person?”