My apologies for taking so long to give your webmaster news for this section, and thanks to him for putting anything he finds up on the site while he's been waiting for me!

• Here at Turmoil Colour Studios we've been working for a long time on Book 2 of Greysuit, which has started as a double episode in the Christmas issue of 2000 AD. The characters are suffering trials and tribulations in book 2 that lead to a violent and brutal climax of justifiable vengeance and filial betrayal. This book will explain more about the brutality that has been inflicted upon Blake in the name of patriotism and nationalism. Script by Pat Mills, pencil and ink art by yours truly and colour by Sally Hurst.

 

• I started the year of our Lord AD 2008 working on a book called Mythical Creatures Bible (Author, Brenda Rosen) for Godsfield Press Ltd (ISBN: 9781841813424. Published: 15th November 2008) which presented all forms of Mythical creatures from Unicorns to Norse Gods from all cultures around the world in an entertaining but well-researched way, and we are ending the year working on the second book that presents even more myths and creatures in a neat pocket-book format, for the same publisher. No publication date as yet.

 

• Along the way this year you might have noticed some publicity around a little movie coming out in March 2009 called Watchmen, and hard to believe but after twenty years we have been doing NEW Watchmen art! Well, movie-related Watchmen art anyway, and to work again with Dave G has been a joy. I had been given glowing reports on how good the movie was looking by Dave, but I still went along in November to a press preview of some finished scenes expecting to be disappointed. But I wasn't, I was blown away by what I saw on screen. As sheer entertainment it was mind blowing and for me, being a small part of the creative team of the book, to see the images I had worked on come to life was magical. The respect that Zack Synder and the team have shown the subject matter was impressive. I felt the multilayered story of the graphic novel now has a companion piece of a multilayered movie, with additional depth to the movie story-telling which I found intriguing. I hope with this movie Alan can finally enjoy one of his adaptations coming out of the Hollywood creative machine, which at its worst can be exploitative drivel but at its best can be pure entertainment drifting into Art.

  
  
  Pencils and Inks by Dave Gibbons, colours by John Higgins

 

• Late last year I was asked to do a couple of fill in issues of The Boys for Dynamite Entertainment, created by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. When I first heard about this deconstruction of Superheroes a couple of years ago (when it was a book at DC Comics) I had no inclination or interest to read it, as much as I usually enjoy Garth's stories, as I am a Superhero fan. I asked Dynamite to sent me all the back issues to get up to speed and what I found was a disgusting, pornographic, violent piss take of Superheroes and their genre... and it is brilliant. It is all the above but it is also laugh-out-loud funny, you do care about the characters, it is an action adventure conspiracy story that grips you. The fact that you do want to find out what happens to these mostly awful people is due to the incredible weird and wonderful imagination and storytelling of Garth Ennis, and Darick Robertson has the perfect balance between cartoon and action figure art. I am now in the middle of drawing issue 28, I finished issue 26 last month which will be in your shops February 2009.

 

• Earlier in 2008 we as a studio worked on a small - but very satisfying - job visualizing for presentation a movie screenplay called Dementamania (see the news page for more detail). An update to this: the film is in pre-production with Samaritan Entertainment and will be shooting in Ontario in Feb 2009.

  During a recent visit to the UK production office at Shepperton Studios, Sally and I talked through the script with the film's director Kit Ryan. Following this meeting I produced art for two scenes of preproduction storyboards. Kit Ryan directed the movie Botched last year, which stared Stephen Dorff, Jaime Murray & Sean Pertwee and was written by Derek Boyle, Eamon Friel and Raymond Friel. The film won The New York City Horror Film Festival's Best Feature award in 2007.

 

• And very personal for me... I have started work on new Razorjack art for a collected edition that ComX are producing for release Spring of 2009. So let me first give a welcome back to ComX who have been consolidating their position after many upheavals and personnel changes over the last couple of years, and to Eddie "The Phoenix" Deighton who has arisen from the ashes and is back on top form as ComX again.

  For me to return to my baby after all these years has been cathartic. Working so hard on a project and seeing so little initial return in general interest and financial terms knocked me back, not only in my bank balance but in creative enthusiasm, I had committed myself to a personal project and put my money where my mouth was. The people that did get to see it appreciated it and it did receive some very insightful critical appraisals and reviews by discerning reviewers. But - in my opinion due to market forces and the dominance of the major companies on the shelves - it did not reach as wide an audience as I had hoped.

  But it was thanks to ComX - who in 2001 saw what I was trying to do and thought it was worthwhile investing in me to co-produce two more issues for them - which allowed me to finish the story. For all of you who did manage to get the first issue of Razorjack from Jack Publishing: I didn't want to leave you hanging waiting for a conclusion (as I had done myself as a fan a number of times in the past when I had supported an independent publication).

  So seeing it with fresh eyes after consigning it to a dark corner in my studio for the last seven years, and going over it again to re-edit it to incorporate the whole story, (the Jack edition with the ComX issues and with the new story section)... Well, I have to tell you in my humble opinion it is a damn fine piece of Fantasy action adventure!

  Seeing it with eyes that didn't just see all its faults and the red ink of my bank balance overdraft. I could see where I got it more right than wrong and the complexity of what I was trying to do with the story made me think, "Damn, I did know what I was doing!" Now with ComX's help and some even fresher eyes, its new package is coming together in a way that makes me feel like a very proud dad indeed! Check out your fan press for more details and buy this completed and re-polished issue of Razorjack in Spring 2009.

 

-- John, stowed away in a crashed Owlship somewhere in the Antarctic, January 2009