Sta.sh
Not too long ago, I was working on a horror serial for Murky Depths magazine called A Glimpse of Hell. Thematically a mixture of crime and horror, it was essentially one long story made up of three arcs: The Dark Gospel, The Wrath of God and The Last Precinct. To break up these arcs, I wrote a few one-off Glimpses that were intended to simply be fun, action packed incidents. Murky Depths, as a mixture of prose and comic strip, was aimed at an audience that craved more substance in their reading material and so was probably not the best outlet for these kinds of stories. While A Glimpse of Hell had its share of dramatic twists and shocking revelations, I didn't feel it was necessary for every story to be told that way. Sometimes I just wanted to draw a pretty girl with guns fighting monsters.
I decided to write a comic that would allow me to concentrate on the elements that didn't fit so well in Murky Depths. Because I was working on several other projects, it took a while for the strip to take shape. Finally, I came up with Deadlines...
"Nicola Huddleston is a reporter for The Sunday World News, one of Britain's most notorious rags. While her fellow journalists are content to print lies and fantasy, Huddleston actively investigates the most bizarre and terrifying stories, daring to confront the monsters that lurk in the shadows of human comprehension. Motivated by dark memories and armed with a dry sense of humour and an SLR camera, Huddleston lives the stories that no one will ever believe."
The artwork will be intentionally minimalist and the writing will attempt to recapture the instinctual style of my earlier work. That is largely because Deadlines is being written and drawn alongside other projects, a panel snatched here and there. That is why I have decided to follow the example set by 2000 AD's Simon Fraser and present the strip in page-by-page instalments on the Midwinter Creations website. Working in that way will allow me feel the progress of the story almost at the same time as the reader. I love the idea of not knowing exactly where the plot is going. The time consuming nature of comic work means that such spontaneity is rare. It will be an interesting experiment.
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