The77 Present Ian Gibson's Lifeboat & John Wagner's The Bogie Man

The77 Present Ian Gibson's Lifeboat & John Wagner's The Bogie Man

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Sir, I'm detecting a subspace message. I'll put it on speakers Subspace dare
to wonder. Hey, this isVienna Salvatory. Bad news is no one
can hear my name and live.Good news is you're listening to Mark Who
forty two. Welcome to Mark Whoforty twos universe here on Subspace Radio Network.

(00:56):
I'm your host, Mark bound Garden, and with me today is my
lovely co host, Vicky Jacobowski.Hi, Vicky, Hi, you know
what I'm about to ask you?What what I always ask must be the
weather must be. One of ourguests is laughing right now. We're all

(01:19):
laughening here. Well, it's it'sit's actually gearing up to be in the
nineties today. But we had massivethunderstorms and lightning last night, but no
fires this time. Hello. Yeah, that's great, Okay, fire season.
So we've got a great show foryou today. The seventy seven publications

(01:41):
are back. We've got Ben Callisand Steve Bull. Hi, guys,
I'm doing guys. Hey, Hey, Ben, It's like I only saw
you yesterday. I know you didn'task me about the weather. Though it's
officially barbecue season here in August County, Rutland. Yeah, I went to
Rutland water and it was a seaof barbecue's smoke. Okay. And Steve,

(02:07):
Yeah, it's been a lovely dayhere. I do do a little
boot count locally actually, so Ihad them guys out. They're all invest
today. It was lovely. Ithink last time I spoke to you guys,
it was slowing where Vicky was.Yes, it was snowing up until
two weeks ago. Wow, okay, and now we skipped spring completely and

(02:28):
we're straight into summer. Nice.Yeah, you don't keep the seasons.
This has been the market when Ifirst moved to this town. This has
been the Markup forty twos Universe weathersegments and now to the show proper hm.
Okay, So we've got Steve andBen on today to talk about some

(02:50):
projects that are going on with theseventy seven publications. And I want to
start with one that is currently goingon that lasts for another a couple of
weeks, Ian Gibson's Lifeboat. Thenyou want to talk a little about that.
Sure, So Steve and I grewup reading Ian Gibson. Steve is

(03:13):
the biggest fan I know Ian GibsonI'll hand this conversation. There were two
him very shortly, but yeah,the Lifeboat Kickstarter is a combination of us
working with Steve over three years andhim getting in touch with us about three
months ago saying, hey, youknow that book I always wanted to get
published, and we've chatted about before, we need to do it now,

(03:34):
and so we've been working at it. And it's proud to say I'm working
with Steve on this. It's hisproject, really, so yeah, absolutely,
it's going to be a fantastic book. Hey, Steve, Well,
first of all, before we letSteve talk, when is the Kickstart room
over eighteenth of June. It's actuallygot so really it's four weeks this weekend,

(03:57):
so by the time of the showgoes out, just about three and
a half weeks. All right,Steve sincurious the expert on Ian Gibson.
Why don't you talk a little aboutthis. I'm not sure about expert.
I just was a little bit fanaticalas a child. So well, that
works, that works. I thinkI think we've covered this before about the
influence of two thousand a D andOur Lives and Will. We started out

(04:20):
with this um and as a child, I was blown away by a character
called Halo Jones, which was writtenAlan Moore, so which is probably probably
the most famous work for Ian Gibsonoutside of the Judge Dread work that he's
done, and another character called RoboHunter, the most notable ones from the

(04:40):
British comics. Yeah, Halo Jonesabsolutely took my breath away, to the
point that as I grew up andhad a family and kids. My first
child, my daughter, her middlename is actually Halo so wow. Yeah,
that was it, and that actuallyinspired be trying to find Ian.

(05:01):
So as a child, I've goneso I lived. I lived in London,
North London, and there's a famousshop called Forbidden Planet. I've been
there there you go. Yeah,yeah, it's a mecca right for anything
comic book. And back in thedays in the eighties, they used to
have comic book signings there at acafe just near Forbidden Planet. So I

(05:24):
was one of those kids down there. Me and a couple of friends would
go down que for a while,meet the heroes, get get our book
signed. So I had many manybooks signed by Ian and Alan Moore etc.
Back then, and then had abit of a hiatus from comics.
Had my family, my first daughteragain, give her the name Halo.

(05:46):
And then for wouldn't it be niceif I could find Ian Gibson and get
a commission of Halo Jones with mydaughter. That was the mission I embarked
on. And it took me downea few alleyways, and I found a
website and got in contact with themback then, which is probably about talking

(06:06):
about two fasand and seven, I'dimagine, so about sixteen years ago,
and he was doing commissions at thetime, and we breed a price and
he liked the idea, and againover the next six months he produced this
lovely commission which has Halo Jones init. It's got my daughter about one,

(06:26):
just over one years old, totallyabout it. And we like animals
that we had the crazy robot dogToby in there, a Halo Jones um
and that's like, yeah, that'slike the conversation UM delivered on the commission.
Tell me if I'm boring you,no God, no, no,
no no, this is a littleaudio show. We're expecting talking and talking.

(06:53):
Yeah, no worries. I mean, we can't do visuals. We
have to do something, so keepgoing. And then and then we'll probably
end up. We'll probably end up, after many conversations and the commission being
delivered, probably end up with maybeten year period where lots of things I
didn't happened in Ian's life, whichprobably included a divorce, etc. And

(07:14):
a few other changes lifestyle wise myself. Again, I was out of touch
with comics for probably that decade,until in a fit of nostalgia on Facebook,
I started to look at two thousandAD groups, etc. And found
Ben's group with a number of othergroups, and quickly quickly realized that it

(07:36):
was the friendliest and nice natured ofthe two thousand AD groups out there,
and started to get actively involved withit. That probably that's probably another story,
just that group on its own.Oh, we'll get to that story
next, No exactly, So thenlet me get to a point during that

(07:56):
group obviously, I end up wedid quite a lot of work, journalistic
work, I think, with alot of two thousand D creators. And
that brought me full circle to IanGibson on Facebook. And I think what
I wanted to do is because ithad been such an important thing for me.
I think as a child growing uptoo often we wait until our heroes

(08:22):
leave this worldly plane before we oneof them. So I wanted to.
I wanted to. I basically approachedhim at it would have been Lawgiver,
which is now Lawless, the conventionthat we were sponsoring at the moment,
and discussed actually creating a Facebook group, which then became the Imagination of Ian

(08:43):
Gibson, and it allowed. WhatIan did is he then sent me downloads
of thousands of images that he hadcreated off of these computer and I would
post these regularly onto the Imagination groupand they'd get we you know, we've
got a few thousand fans. There'sa lot of people who love their artwork,
and he could engage. And Ithink what we see quite a lot

(09:03):
is we see artists really not knowingwhat an influence they've been on people.
Yeah, I think, you know, I kind of coin it as these
guys. The life of an artistis sitting in a room on your own
drawing, trying to hit deadlines allhours, day and night. So it's

(09:24):
only when you go to a conventionor a signing that you realize anybody actually
cares. Right. So through Facebookand this group, it was really nice
actually to see all these people joinin commenting and what he's artwork had meant
to them, posting pictures of theartwork they're done, copying him, the
influences on their style where they've becomeartists, and he engaged with all of

(09:48):
these guys. So that's probably beengoing for maybe four or five years,
maybe even a little bit longer.Now it's just a really good place to
hang out, really appreciate the artwork we've got, you know, the
stuff that you don't see everywhere.So I really at the process. So
you've got the pencils, you've gotunder paint, you've got stuff, commissions

(10:09):
that have been seen and published.And then that took us to conversations about
this this wonderful piece of work,Lifeboat, which had found a publisher at
one point, and then through somemutual agreement, it came back to Ian,
and I think he didn't really wantto let it go. He really

(10:33):
wanted to be a personal and apassion project. And I think at the
point where I first had conversations withhim, we were just starting the seventy
seven, so I guess from hispoint of view he was rightly nervous.
But you know, you don't know, we see a lot of small press
publications and some of them aren't tohigher standards, so he wasn't sure what

(10:56):
was going to be and probably thatwas probably holding him back from making any
agreements with us over the course ofproducing what we're on now. We're on
nine or ten comics plus annuals plusum sides, and I think about seventeen
publications now, and I think whatyou see and hopefully well all the feedback

(11:18):
is and I think we get itright. Um, you know, they're
they're polished, polished publications. Theycould sit on a shelf anywhere and stand
out, not just blend in.Yeah. And after many many conversations,
yeah, he approached he came backto us and said, look, let's
do this. And here we arewith all the artwork, with all the

(11:39):
sketches behind it, with an activeKickstarter and I think seventeen thousand pounds behind
it at the moment, we've aboutfour weeks to go. Yeah. Oh,
I mean, I can't believe.I can't believe, well, maybe
I can't believe how quickly the initialwhat is it, twenty two minutes went
for the Kickstarter ben twelve minutes,twelve minutes, twelve minutes. Yeah,

(12:03):
okay, you know it was funny. Um, you turn the kicks and
are on. I didn't get onthe web for about four hours, so
I then go, hey, Ben, congratulations you got it in four hours
And he's like no, and I'mlike, ah, that was kind of
cool. And you know, um, this looks like an amazing book.

(12:28):
It really does. It really isthat the pages if you see you know,
well, we'll send you some images. If you see the pages up
closed, they're fully painted. They'rethey're as good as anything he has done
at any point in his life.So yeah, it's it's it's a wonderful
book, to the point that I'mactually inquiring about if we can produce um
an oversized edition. So we're lookingat a three just the artwork, um,

(12:56):
no lettering in the way anything,So it's basically a Saw's book.
They really appreciate what's going on.If you weren't able to buy one of
the actual painted pages, cool wow, um um, I would want one
of those, uh those oversized collectoratebooks. Um. Ricky, Well,
I think we should talk about whatLifeboat is. Yeah, because people listening

(13:22):
to this, if they haven't goneto the kickstarter yet, which of course
they should, they definitely should theyshould go to the Kickstarter. Um,
but what is Lifeboat and what isit? How is it different from some
of the other seventy seven publications.Yeah, so it's a standalone story.
So this will be book one,which is actually in three parts. Um,

(13:43):
And it's as I say, it'sa standalone story. Where we do
we will usually have multiple stories tosix, six to eight pages in a
comic. Um, we're going toproduce this as a book, as a
graphic novel. It's going to bea polished piece back. There's going to
be loads of additional information in theirinterviews, some of the pencils that we

(14:07):
talked about earlier, some of theprocess. So it's going to be it's
going to be something that just picksup the passion of the whole project.
So as well as having a twentyfour page comic in there, you're going
to have lots of the back Ifif you really love his work, you're
going to love the book. Um, and if you want to if you
want to know what the actual storyis about, I can elaborate on that

(14:28):
a little bit. Give us,give us give us a two seconds or
okay, two seconds. I coulddo two seconds because of the Lifeboat.
I think I think the first lineof his little synopsis for the background story
is if Romeo and Juliet had madea child, that's that's how that's the
angle. Okay, sci fi.So it's all space based. It's we've

(14:54):
got aliens in there, we've gotpolitics in there, We've got we've got
some harrowing scenes in there, we'vegot family, we've got Yeah, it's
all bundled in there. This reallydoes and it's worth pointing out that I
don't think we've hearked on this enough, but it's all written by Ian as

(15:16):
well and nice. I think whathappens is people kind of they would pigeonhole
people. If you're an artist,you can't really be a writer. You're
an artist, and creators are creators. There's some really good stuff in there.
And if you've read any of theinterviews or anything I've done with Ian
before, what you'll see is hehas a huge influence on the art but

(15:39):
also the stories that he produces,to the point that I don't know,
I'll use the word arrogance, buthe's fallen out with a few companies because
he basically if he doesn't like thestory or thinks it's silly, he'll change
it and turning the pages and it'stoo late to do anything about it.
So right now you've got somebody whowho can right, he can really right

(16:02):
right. It's a great story behindhere as well. I think it's hard
when you've got someone who is creativeand and they're bringing something to life in
words and or in art, andit's really hard, hard when you've got
I mean, let's be honest,they're usually be encounters going oh, let's
do this, this and this becauseit'll bring in more of that, and

(16:23):
it'll do that, and it's itloses integrity and it might be okay,
i'd be even a solid B product, but when you prefer to do A
plus work, it doesn't make anysense and you don't you don't want to
produce that, and it gets reallyfrustrating when people ask you to do substandard

(16:47):
work. And he's got a reputationto withhold, so you know, people
like to say, oh, they'redifficult, or they're arrogant, or maybe
they know what they're doing. Yeah. Absolutely, I think there's a few
cases of that. Now. Iandid lots of work with DC. For
instance, mister Miracle Green Lantern millenniumum, and there's lots of stories that

(17:11):
come out there just because their processwas very different to British comics, which
make you have like a penciler,you'd have an inca, etc. And
it's difficult when you're used to controlin the whole environment of your art,
yes, to then try to dealwith that. And I think, you
know, that's that's probably a reasonwhy he didn't do more for the American

(17:32):
market, um to break him outof being pigeonholed. I'm sure Ben and
Vicky will get this word he's astoryteller. That that word came up a
lot a couple of days ago inan zation or two we were having.
But yeah, it's just it's true. And I think that someone like Ian

(17:56):
is a storyteller and he wants totell a story. He knows what the
story is. So, you know, to have people who are oftentimes not
even creative people themselves, you know, unlike the seventy seven publications where I
feel like everybody involved with it isa creator type person. Too often when

(18:19):
you look at and of course herein America, Marvel in DC and even
dark Horse their businesses first, creatorssecond, and I could see where that
could be seedingly frustrating when you're tryingto get your image across and now you've

(18:40):
had fifty eight people touch it.It's no longer your baby, it's no
longer your creation. And I knowa lot of people that I'm a control
freak myself, so I feel Iunderstand, you know, if I'm gonna
do something and I'm gonna put myselfon the line, I don't want someone
else going, oh, well,you know, do that, do this.

(19:03):
It's like, no, I don'twant purple hair today, thank you.
Really, it's really interesting that yousay, though, because I kind
of I kind of wear a coupleof hats did with the seventy seven.
So one as a creator on thewriting side, I'm also the cover editor
and I edit one of the subeditors, and they did the adle.

(19:23):
Now what happens is I also froman editorial point of view, I've got
a vision of what it needs todo, and I've got to be considered.
I've got to consider commercialism, soyou know, I've got to consider
that the product has to do acertain thing, and it does lead to
some difficult conversations or even some differentdecisions with artists, especially from the covers

(19:45):
that come in. I've had anumber of issues where I'd say artists aren't
particularly don't particularly like what I've done, the decisions I've made, but they've
made to get that art to themesses, to get that book to look
as good as it can to asmany people as possible. Because if it's

(20:07):
not attractive and people don't want topick it up, and people don't want
to buy it, then it doesn'tmatter how amazing or whatever what I'm trying
to get across. If someone elsedoesn't look at it and go, oh,
I want to buy this, thenI have no job. I'm going
to say at this point, Itotally agree with what Steve said and tying

(20:30):
him well, Vicky, you saidthere as well about Ian's kind of decision
to want to control things, wantto have it, you know the best
that he could. You look atthe artwork when you get to go into
the Kickstarter anyone picking up a copyof Lifeboat, It's it's not that it's
Ian's best work. What it isis it's most realized individual style. It's
fully painted, you know, it'snot gone through the hands of a penciler

(20:53):
in color. I was thinking thisthe other day about how many covers he
in actually to do with two thousand, and it's relatively few, considering that
he was a store work the comic. You know, over over fifteen years.
There are some Halo Jones covers,there's a couple of Robo Hunter ones,
but there's not many. And Ithink the reason is is because Ian's

(21:15):
work was only ever shown as asas rendered ink drawing. It was just
literally inking outlines. And most ofthe comic was black and white. You
can't get further from black and whitethan your camera lifeboat. The colors are
insane. His color theory work isjust brilliant. The way he puts supposed
color complimentary. Yeah, yeah,absolutely. And if you take just one

(21:41):
panel, and I've posted a fewpanels on the Twitter what my bully at
the seventy seven on Twitter, Justtake a panel and show that panel as
a piece, right, individual pieceof old They've got depth to them,
They've got background. If you've gota crowd, you see the people in
the background and the crowd. It'snot we're not turning out the quick art

(22:06):
the story. You could enjoy itevery single panel. Sorry to cut you
off, then no, I meanabsolutely. I think when when Steve and
I are talking about this, wetry and put some kind of gravitas onto
what we think the book is.It's not just pured marketing. We call
it Ian's magnus opus magnum opus becausefor him it's the most important book he's
done. Yeah, it's taken himyears and years and years and years.

(22:30):
It might not have hundreds of pages, in fact, far from it,
but the work that he's produced andwhat he's done for it, I think
he wouldn't He wouldn't let it goout to anybody, wouldn't let anyone just
handle it. He spent so muchtime talking to us about even just the
books that we did, on thequality of paper but that we did,
and insisting that a certain letterer wherewe discussed in a previous show elsewhere,

(22:52):
Yeah, and he was the onlyletterer he would have. And Annie is
the most respected, most decorated,awarded letter on this side of Atlantic.
She's, you know, respected byeverybody, and she's worked with Ian elsewhere
and understands what he wants. There'sa symbiosis there. Steve's worked hard on

(23:15):
establishing this understanding with Ian, soIan can I think in some respects.
Just go I can hand over andtrust, okay that this is going to
be a good product. Um.And that's where we are with life Boat.
And I just to say, Steve, you didn't mention it is a
science fiction story. Yeah, yeaspace I think it was a SERI I

(23:37):
think and there was no Actually,it's real, it's it's it's really okay.
So if you're interested in getting helpingthis Kickstarter and getting a copy of

(23:57):
Ian Gibson's life Boat, where doyou go, Ben, You go to
Kickstarter Ian Gibson's Lifeboat. Just googlekickstarter dot comte kickstarter dot com. All
right, wow, deliver anywhere inthe world. Okay, Yeah, I've
got an order. Um, I'veactually put a digital order, but next

(24:19):
month I'm upgrading it to a hardcover. I just wanted to put money into
the pot and then bring it up. You have to have that book.
Yeah, and I definitely would lovefor the table book to come out with
just the artwork. Okay. Sowe're gonna take a break here on Markup
forty twos Universe. When we comeback, we're gonna talk more with the

(24:41):
seventy seven publications. Ben Cullis andSteve Bull, and I think we're gonna
talk about a gentleman named John Wagnerand maybe about Bogeye. We'll be right
back here on Subspeci Radio Network onMark Up forty two Universe. Don't go

(25:03):
Mark this stand by Houston Layer receivingsignals from subspace. You were listening to
Mark Who forty two universe. Welcomeback to more of Mark Who forty twos
universe here on Subspace Radio Network.I'm your host Mark Baumgarden with me today

(25:26):
as ever is my co host VickyJacobowski and our guests from the seventy seven
publications, Ben call Us and SteveBull. Welcome back everyone, and welcome
back to our guests. Hey heysee, see this time I said welcome
back to the guests. So it'snot like to be silence until you realize,

(25:47):
Oh, he was sucking us.I took care of it that time.
I remember to do that. So, um, we were talking about
Ian Gibson's Life Boats Kickstarter campaign andoh, we're going to switch over to
a Kickstarter campion they're doing. That'sgoing to start, I think very very
soon, featuring the work of thegentleman who I adore because he's a co

(26:14):
creator of Judge Dread John Wagner andhis book Bogee Man. Let's talk a
little about that, Ben Okay.So John someone who's been in contact with
us over the last year or two. He has another project, which I
don't think it would be my placeto talk about at the moment, which

(26:37):
will be following this as a Kickstarter. We originally we're talking to him about
that, but then Bogie Man wasclearly in his mind and he came to
us and said, could you managethe Kickstarter? And I said I'd love
to, and also can we coproduce the book? So seventy seven will
be co producing it. Clearly,he's been in contact with us over the

(26:57):
last couple of weeks looking at thesuccess of our current kickstarter and as well
as working with Ian on a lotof projects over the years, he's also
pitching in and he's going to bewriting the forward for for Lifeboat as well,
so he's got a connection there aswell. But yeah, on Thursday,

(27:18):
the twenty fifth next this week.This week, yeah, the bogey
Man launches and it's a fully fledgedKickstarter campaign, video graphics, We've got
the artists involved. It's going tohave two covers, there's going to be
pages. We've got Mike Perkins doingthe hardback edition, so Mike's currently doing

(27:38):
the Batman at the moment. Isthat Mike's actually a personal friend of one
of our guys at the seventy sevenknows Day, Pealey very well. They
used to apparently do comic strips togetherback thirty years ago. So there we
go. Yeah, the Bogeyman isgoing to be fascinating. It's going to
last for about four or five weeks, and John's very excited about it.

(28:00):
So was entrusted with us to producethat kickstarter and help with the fulfillment distribution
and you know, work on workon getting it out to all the people
who are going to back it hopefully. Then I have a question, what
is different between the bogey Man thatcame out in the nineties and this new

(28:22):
book. Sure, so bogey Mandid come out. It's it was released
I think, first of all,in a British comic called Toxic, which
was created her own. Um.There were about five or six separate strips
of bogey Man. John has keptthis edition. It is a collection.
It's called the Incomplete Case Files.He's taking out one strip, which I

(28:44):
think was with a guest artist.Robin Smith is the continuing artist throughout.
They've done a Fresh News. They'vedone a Fresh News strip as well.
And as a collection, it's goingto be bound, as I say,
as a hard bound, and thetrade paperback. It's going to have John's
course, He's going to write anessay about the whole background and workings of
the bergey Man. Robin's going toinclude prelimbs. It's kind of a book

(29:07):
for someone who may have once hadone or two of the books and hasn't
got them. And I think fora lot of us. I remember reading
it. It's thirty years ago.I kind of wasn't really mature enough to
deal with one aspect of it.I found it quite humorous, but it
is quite dark, yeah, youknow, it's it's about it's about you
know, crime and criminal elements ofpeople in the dark and the belly of

(29:32):
you know, Glasgow or another townsimilar. And I think I'm really looking
forward to seeing it and actually readingit as a mature reader this time around
as well. And I think becauseof that, John's decided he wanted to,
as I say, extend the extendthe strips somewhat. So he's included
a new a new story in itas well, And I just felt I
just felt that he knew. Hesaid, it was in getting really hard

(29:53):
for people to just find copies ofit anymore. If you get it on
Amazon or should I say eBay,probably they're really expensive. And I just
think it had never been reprinted,So he was looking for an option to
go to reprint and he wants tobe able to offer that. Will the
glossary be included? Because I rememberat the end of every question? Yeah,

(30:15):
yeah, Okay, So I'm actually, as I'm creating the Kickstarter with
John, I'm not necessarily involved inthe design of the book, but I
in contact with Robin Smith. It'sa question that should be asked. Okay,
I'm going to write that down.Yeah, write it down. Okay,
So what was the glossary for?Was it for a film war references
or was it for Wang and other? Yeah? Because I'm excited to see

(30:41):
this. I'm a huge film warfan. I've seen every Humphrey Bogart movie
that was ever made. Um,I've probably seen every film war movie that
was ever made. I might evenown everyone that's been ever made. Um,
it's my mother's fault. She gotme started, and I'm just like,

(31:02):
I love this story, Vicky.Did you ever see the movie that
they made of the Bogeyman with RoddieColtrane. No. I was reading about
that and I was like, yeah, Okay, now I'm gonna go fun.
You know, I heard it wasn'twell received, but I'm like,
what the heck, I'll watch itanyway. There's very there's very few movies

(31:23):
I won't watch. I'll give everythinga try. But, um, you
know, whether you're talking about um, you know, Maltese Falcon or even
go even back to the German expressionistsand do mum it just to have something
in that caliber, even though okayyou for people who don't know the story,

(31:45):
Um, if I understand correctly,I read a two seconds synopsis,
I might be wrong, so pleasecorrect me. You have a Scottish mental
patient who thinks he's Humphrey Bogra Isthat the short version of it? Okay?
Nutshell? Hey? Then I readwith not hilarious consequence? Is not

(32:08):
hilarious. It's it's dark, it'sgritty, it's ugly. Even with the
forties and the haze code and limitingwhat they could and couldn't show. Um,
it was still really dark. Therewere people getting beat up, there
were bad things happening. You know, you didn't get all the blood you
would get in a movie done today, but it was implied. You know,

(32:31):
there was a lot of bloodless bodiesback in the forties. Apparently so
and um um as if because Ireread the comics recently. Um in John
Wagner fashion, even though it's violentand stuff, there's like humor, there
is there is that underlying humorous stuff. Judge Drede always had it, the

(32:52):
black humor. The yeah, darkhumor is so underrated in today's audience.
I feel like we've gotten away fromthat so much. And then when people
see something that is humorous but ithas that darkness to it, they're like,
Okay, I'm confused. Was ita comedy? Was it a horror
film? And I think some peoplelike Jordan Peel are trying to go back

(33:15):
to that. If you watch hisversion of the Twilight Zone TV series,
it's very Film Awards, very darkcomedy, and you know you're laughing,
and then suddenly you're embarrassed that you'relaughing, because maybe he should be laughing
at this, which then makes iteven better because I love that that sort

(33:37):
of dark psychology and abnormal psychology thatwe humans have so well. So I
think it's an indication of how muchshe must have worked at it at the
time. John Magnet is still interestedin the project thirty years later as respect
for his earlier work to want toput it out there again. It's not

(33:59):
like it's to publishing house going we'rerepeating. You know, we're reprinting something
for the unteenth time. Um.You know, it's the man who wrote
it, it's the it's in fact, sorry, it's the creative duwer who
were who were the driving force behindit, saying yeah, we want to
put our names to the product againand make it and make it available.
So I've got a lot of respect, and I think Um and Steve and

(34:19):
I as well, because we grewup reading these these stories, and at
one point John was literally writing thewhole of the comic that we grew up
reading two thousand. Um. Hiswriting is just he doesn't put spare words
in, you know, he makesbig decisions about how he writes. And
I would say it in a list. I'm just trying to say her paucity

(34:40):
of writing, isn't it Unlike me, I can waffle on Brede just say
three words and you just go,oh, yes, I have to say,
I have to say there is anabsolute art to it because and again,
as much as he's highly decorated inthe writing, so I still think
he's completely underrated as a writer.And Alan, like I just think that

(35:04):
their body of work and what's actuallyin there when you sort of dissect they're
writing, it's absolutely incredible, absolutelyincredible. Oh and also sorry, we
need to mention as well. Ofcourse. The original series was written by
John Wagner and Alan Grant, Agrant for most of American listeners. Would

(35:25):
he wrote some of the best,some of the best Batman. Yeah,
but um, you know, AlanGrant and John Wagner were didn't they ran?
They wrote Judge straight together. Atone point they were writing a lot
of things together. Yes, they'rewriting Monica. Was TB. Grover When

(35:46):
you saw a TB strip? Wasthe both of them? Yeah? Wow?
Oh um long John Silver. Idon't know how many of this is
John Wagner had because at some pointliterally some of these times he was writing
too that he was writing for twothousand Weekly, other other comic books as

(36:07):
well. It was just a youknow, someone with phenomenal output. And
I mean he's written Strontian Dog andHunter and created some of the other best
you know, um British British comicconventions of the last forty years. And
I think it's just great. Wewe we don't see him that regularly.

(36:28):
We catch up once a year,twice a year at various events, and
again we're just so I think Ithink it goes to show how far we've
come that that John's prepared to investwith us, yeah, and in us
putting you know, putting this togetherfor him. I kind of feel like,
just like with Lifeboat, this isagain a passion project. This is

(36:51):
somebody's soul that they want to committo paper. And the fact that I
think you guys are gaining the reputationof respecting and um, you know,
not only are you in awe becauseyou've grown up with some of these artists
and writers, but you guys wantto put out equality product. Definitely you

(37:14):
would be proud of both when youwere young and now you as an adult.
And because you have that love andyou have that respect, I think
I think words getting out there,which is why you have these two projects
where they know you guys will takecare of their their passion and their soul
and you're going to give us somethingthat is phenomenal. And Steve said,

(37:40):
if if, if, if wewas you know, if we could make
money out of this, it's notour reison detra, it's not what we're
about. You know, Hey,everyone needs to make a dollar. But
Steve's got a job, I've gota job. You know, we we
can afford to do it the waywe do it, and we're not trying
to screw every dimead of every page, right, So I think the point

(38:02):
being is that people realize that we'reactually in it for for the love of
the medium es and these people's work. If you feel that, no,
no, you're right, and Ithink we're one hundred percent as well.
We are is a one hundred percenttransparent with everybody we talk to, because
you know, we know that it'sgot to work for both sides. Appsally

(38:22):
has to work for both sides,and both sides have to have the passion
the project. So if something youknow, there's been there's been a lot
of projects this guy. They don'tall make it through obviously, and of
course one side is not feeling itthe same way as the other side or
don't feel you can work together.We you know, we it's easy enough
for us to go right, Okay, I hope you do well with your

(38:45):
project. Um, it's just notgoing to be with us, that's fine.
And equally we've got you know,there's some there's some good stories that
they haven't wanted to go with us, but that's it's got to work for
both sides. And we're finding somebig names now who are really appreciating the
way we do I say do business. We're not making a huge amount of

(39:07):
money out of this. We're justtrying to get I think the progress of
the business is the secondary to theproduct and the put him out, which
should always be like that because itwill follow, which is the opposite of
the American comic right companies. Andwe're talking about wow, um oh,

(39:29):
what else can we mentioned about thisbook? I'm flabbergast at this point.
Um, I really can't wait tosee it. How big is it?
Bennet's absolutely huge? Okay, okay, because yeah, it's many issues to
collect so many money. So we'relooking at two hundred and eighty pages of
strips. Oh, we're looking attwenty to thirty to forty. John's yet

(39:52):
to decide the pagination exactly of features, right, plus covers um. So
I don't know if you guys everbought the Collected Watchmen. Yeah, yeah,
it's going to be that side becauseit's very kidding that many pages.
So it's going to be exactly thesame size because it's going to be standard
US So twixty one seventy what's that? Ten and ten and an eighth by

(40:14):
seven and a quarter. I don'tknow, you guys use some weird measuring
system. So we're two hundred andsixty mil by one seventy mile. It's
American comic size. And yeah,it's going to be you know, an
inch thick, which is bad forme because obviously I'm calculating all of the
shipping. I was going to seethat shipping to the United States are elsewhere
in the world. Wow, letme tell you kind of Okay, keep
chatting, I'm going to bring upI'm going to look online and be able

(40:36):
to tell you some information about thoseprices. I'm sure sure, Okay,
Yeah, on that page count,I think what you're going to find is
that it is going to be onthe kick start. It's a very reasoning
grass product for that page. Andyou actually look at some of the other
stuff that's out on kickstarters are andyou've got this quality you're running through it.
Yeah, it's gonna, it's gonnait's gonna adorn anybody's bookshelf. It's

(41:00):
going to be a beautiful feet Soyeah, I can't wait to get hold
of it. Okay, So thetop cover, and I think everything's getting
signed by John and if you ifyou get the Mike Perkins mic signing books
and everything, you've got Okay,So it's twenty it's just over twenty dollars

(41:21):
for the book, and the postageis around about fifteen dollars cheap. Okay.
So then on the hard back,I'm afraid it's a little bit tougher
to swallow. That's because the bookweighs two pounds. Yeah you know,
um, and we got to shipit across the water. Let's have a
look. Okay. So it's thirtyfive dollars for the hot the hard back,

(41:45):
and the postage. Actually the postageonly comes in at three dollars more.
So you're looking around about twenty twentydollars for postage. Right, that's
so just over fifty basically, yeah, I mean what we are trying to
do is obviously well people would knowthis when they read a Kickstarter. There's
information in there, and I appreciatesome people listening to this might not know

(42:06):
what we're talking about. So Kickstarter, as a crowdfunder, you pledge your
heads, you have to you haveto ship, you have to put your
due to your card details in andthen you're only charged for the project should
it reach funding, and then thatonly happens when the project finishes, and
usually these projects last between four andsix weeks. Now what we've gone what
we've gone for here is we're notdoing international standard international, which is air

(42:30):
freight. We're going to do umsurface mail. Well we're finding at the
moment from the UK. Okay,So mister Bamgarton, you were seeking comics
from the seventy seven? Was ityesterday? It was Friday Friday? There
was a package, nice package witha few weeks ago. Yeah, I

(42:51):
posted those two weeks ago surface mail. So that's how long it took you
to get yours. But it canbe up to four weeks. But and
thank you for the art card.Sh that was nice. You're welcome.
What we're going to do, bythe way, for the packaging for them,
we're going to use those rapping envelopes, the ones we could get unfoldable
that the zip lock across it,and the hard backs are going to be

(43:12):
bubble wrapped as well. We've we'vediscussed this and we want to make sure
that everybody gets a product which isyou know, as good a condition as
we can possibly send it out topeople. It's going to be very important.
And like I say, the hardbacks are going to be signed.
There's going to be extra features aswell, so it will be going on
general release. You know, John'sgoing to be overprinting um and having additions

(43:36):
elsewhere, but you you won't findthem with the extra little bits which a
Kickstarter it gives you. And wherecan you well, I know, the
kickst a kick Well, actually they'relistening to this. The kickstarter campaign could
be on or it's the day ortwo before. Where can they find this
kickstarter campaign? Well, I'm hopingas well that if you've got this radio
show, you'll find that there's somenotes that come with the radio show.

(43:58):
Is that correct? You were listeningto Mark Who forty twos Universe. Welcome
back to more of Mark Who fortytwos universe here on Subspace Radio Network.
I'm your host, Mark Baumgarden withme today as ever is my co host
Vicky Jacobowski and our guests from theseventy seven publications, Ben Callis and Steve

(44:21):
Bull. Welcome back everyone, andwelcome back to our guests. Hey,
hey see, see this time Isaid welcome back to the guests. So
it's not like to be silence untilyou realize, oh, he was sucking
us. I took care of itthat time. I remembered to do that.
So we were talking about Ian Gibson'slife Boats Kickstarter campaign, and now

(44:45):
we're going to switch over to aKickstarter campaign they're doing that's gonna start,
I think, very very soon,featuring the work of the gentleman who I
adore because he's a co creator ofJudge Dread, John Wagner and his book

(45:06):
Bogie Man. Let's talk a littleabout that, Ben Okay. So,
John someone who's been in contact withus over the last year or two.
He has another project which I don'tthink it would be might a place to
talk about at the moment, whichwill be following this as a Kickstarter.
We originally we're talking to him aboutthat, but then Bogie Man was clearly

(45:30):
in his mind and he came tous and said, could you manage the
Kickstarter? And I said I'd loveto, and also can we co produce
the book? So seventy sevens willbe co producing it. Clearly, he's
been in contact with us over thelast couple of weeks looking at the success
of our current Kickstarter and as wellas working with Ian on a lot of

(45:54):
projects over the years, he's alsopitching in and he's going to be writing
the forward for for Lifeboat as well, so he's got a connection there as
well. But yeah, on Thursday, the twenty fifth next this week.
This week, yeah, the bogeyMan launches and it's a fully fledged Kickstarter
campaign, video graphics, We've gotthe artists involved. It's going to have

(46:20):
two covers, there's going to bepages. We've got Mike Perkins doing the
hardback edition, so Mike's currently doingthe Batman. Um at the moment is
that Mike's actually a personal friend ofone of our guys at the seventy seven
Knows Day palely, very well,they used to apparently do comic strips to
go the back thirty years ago.So there we go. Yeah, the
Bogeyman is going to be fascinating.It's going to last for about four or

(46:43):
five weeks, and John's very excitedabout it. So it is entrusted with
us to produce that kickstarter and helpwith the fulfillment distribution and you know,
work on work on getting it outto all the people are going to back
it hopefully. Be question what isdifferent between the bogey Man that came out

(47:06):
in the nineties and this new book. Sure, so bogey Man did come
out. It was released I thinkfirst of all in a British comic called
Toxic, which was creat he owned. There were about five or six separate
strips of bogey Man. John haskept this edition. It is a collection.
It's called the Incomplete Plase Files.He's taking out one strip, which

(47:30):
I think was with a guest artist. Robin Smith is the continuing artist throughout.
They've done a Fresh News They've donea Fresh News strip as well,
and as a collection, it's goingto be bound, as I say,
as a hard bound and the tradepaperback. It's going to have John's discourse.
He's going to write an essay aboutthe whole background and workings of the
bogey Man. Robin's going to includeprelimbs. It's kind of a book for

(47:52):
someone who may have once had oneor two of the books and hasn't got
them. And I think for alot of us. I remember reading it.
It's thirty years ago. I kindof wasn't really mature enough to deal
with one aspect of it. Ifound it quite humorous, but it is
quite dark, yeah, you know, it's it's about it's about you know,

(48:13):
crime and criminal elements of people inthe dark and the belly of you
know, Glasgow or another town similar. Um. And I think I'm really
looking forward to seeing it and actuallyreading it as a mature reader this time
around as well. And I thinkbecause of that, John's decided he wanted
to, as I say, extendthe extend the strip somewhat, so he's
included a new a new story init as well. Um. And I

(48:37):
just felt I just felt that heknew, he said, it was in
getting really hard for people to justfind copies of it anymore. If you
get it on Amazon or should Isay eBay, probably they're really expensive,
and I just think it had neverbeen reprinted. So he was looking for
an option to go to reprint andhe wants to be able to offer that.
Will the Glassary be included? BecauseI remember the end of every question?

(49:00):
Yeah, yeah, Okay, SoI'm actually as I'm creating the kickstarted
with John. I'm not necessarily involvedin the design of the book, but
I in contact with Robin Smith.It's a question that should be asked.
Okay, I'm going to write thatdown yet down. Okay, So what
was the Blossary for? Was itfor a film war references? Or was

(49:21):
it was for Wang and other?Yeah? Because I'm excited to see this.
I'm a huge film noir fan.I've seen every Humphrey Bogart movie that
was ever made. Um, I'veprobably seen every film noir movie that was
ever made. I might even owneveryone that's been ever made. Um.

(49:42):
It's my mother's fault. She gotme started, and I'm just like,
I love the story. Vicky.Did you ever see the movie that they
made of the Bogeyman with Robbie Coltrane. No. I was reading about that
and I was like, yeah,Okay, now I'm gonna go fun.

(50:02):
You know I heard it wasn't wellreceived, but I'm like, what the
heck, I'll watch it anyway.Um, there's very there's very few movies
I won't watch. I'll give everythinga try. But um, you know,
whether you're talking about um, youknow, Maltese Falcon or even go
even back to the German expressionists anddo m um it just to have something

(50:25):
in that caliber, even though okay, you for people who don't know the
story, Um, if I understandcorrectly, I read a two seconds synopsism,
I might be wrong, so pleasecorrect me. You have a Scottish
mental patient who thinks he's Humphrey Bogra. Is that the short version of it?
Okay? Hey, then I readwith not hilarious consequence is not hilarious.

(50:55):
It's it's dark, it's gritty,it's ugly. Even with the forties
and the Haze code and limiting whatthey could and couldn't show, um,
it was still really dark. Therewere people getting beat up, there were
bad things happening. You know,you didn't get all the blood you would
get in a movie done today,but it was implied. You know,

(51:17):
there was a lot of bloodless bodiesback in the forties. Apparently so,
and um as if because I rereadthe comics recently. In John Wagner fashion,
even though it's smiling and stuff,there's like humor, there is there
is that underlying humorous stuff. JudgeDrede always had it, the black humor.

(51:38):
The Yeah, dark humor is sounderrated in today's audiences. I feel
like we've gotten away from that somuch. And then when people see something
that is humorous but it has thatdarkness to it, they're like, Okay,
I'm confused. Was it a comedy? Was it a horror film?
And I think some people like umJordan Peel are trying to go back to

(52:01):
that. If you watch his versionof the Twilight Zone TV series, UM,
it's very Film Awards, very darkcomedy, and you know you're laughing,
and then suddenly you're embarrassed that you'relaughing because maybe he should be laughing
at this Um, which then makesit even better because I love that that

(52:22):
sort of dark psychology and abnormal psychologythat we humans have so well. So
I think it's an indication of howmuch he must have worked at it at
the time. John Wagner is stillinterested in the project thirty years later.
As respect for his earlier work towant to put it out there again.

(52:45):
It's not like it's just a publishinghouse going we're repeating. You know,
we're reprinting something for the umteenth time. You know, it's the man who
wrote it. It's it's in fact, sorry, it's the creative duwer who
who were the driving force behind it, saying yeah, we want to put
our names to the back again andmake it and make it available. So
I've got a lot of respect andI think um and Steve and I as

(53:06):
well, because we grew up readingthese these stories, and at one point
John was literally writing the whole ofthe comic that we grew up reading two
thousand Um. His writing is justhe doesn't put spare words in. You
know, he makes big decisions abouthow he writes. And I would take
in the A list. I'm justtrying to say, support a paucity of

(53:28):
writing, isn't it Unlike me?I can waffle on Brede just say three
words and you just go, oh, yes. I have to say,
I have to say there's an absoluteart to it. Because and again,
as much as he's highly decorated inthe writing, so I still think he's
completely underrated as a writer, andAlan, like, I just think that

(53:50):
their body of work and what's actuallyin there when you sort of dissect they're
writing, it is absolutely incredible,absolutely incredible. Oh, I'm also sorry
we need to mention as well.Subspace dear to under