| Martin has prepared notes
exclusively for the website. Please choose from the issue numbers listed
below. 1
2 0
3 4 5
6 7 8
9 10 11
12 13 14
15 16 17
18 19 20
21 22 23
24 25 26
27
2.1 2.2
2.3 2.4 2.5
2.6
Collections
Issue 1 Notes
Page 1, Panel 2
A little background on The UK Ultra Knights and their powers:
Ultramind (Ruth Stone) is telepathic; Union Jack (Jack Connor) has flight
and strength; Shadow (Shevaughn Compton) can summon and control areas
of darkness through which she can also teleport; Density (Bill Compton)
can control others' body mass. Doctor O and Starman's powers will be
revealed sooner or later. Density and Shadow are married.
Page 1, Panel 4
A little background on PSI-SQUAD and their powers: Perception (Isabelle
Carlson) could create and control illusions; Spiral (Mark Harris) had
hypnotic powers; Inferno (Scott Smith) was a pyrokinetic; Shine (Mary
Turner) had healing powers; Quest (Rob Connor, team leader) had cat-like
agility and strong precognitive powers (the latter have since weakened);
Ultramind II (Grace Carlson, daughter of Ultramind I) is telepathic;
Astral (Denise Fletcher) existed in astral form, her physical body was
in a coma; Debris (Stuart Carlson) was a telekinetic.
Page 2
I'll tell you what I can about Rob's visions: panels 2 (sort of), 3,
5 and 6 come true in volume one.
Page 4, panel 2
To use the 'F' word or not to use the 'F' word? That is the question.
I want to make the characters as realistic as I can, so part of that
is employing swear words (rather than have them say '$£@* off!'). Put
it this way, in the interests of realism, I had thought about doing
a scene with Abby on the toilet chatting to Rob in the shower (don't
worry, it ain't gonna happen!)
Page 4, panel 3
I was really worried that The Spice Girls reference would make the scene
feel dated, but it's worked out OK as they are still around (at time
of writing!).
Page 4, panel 5
The first of Rob's premonitions from page 2 comes true.
Page 8, panel 1
Note the pictures on Doctor O's office walls: that's Hotfoot from the
USaviors on the left (we'll be meeting her (and them) soon), behind
Doctor O is 'The Superteam' which consisted of Rob, Brainstorm, Vixen
and Seraph.
Page 8, panel 3
A little background info on these ladies: Lorelei can kill with her
touch, Spider can control arachnids, and the Twisted Sisters create
energy blasts which are particularly powerful when they are in physical
contact with each other. None of these ladies' true identities are known.
Page 9, panel 2
Note the portraits of Seraph and Shadow and Density in the background.
Page 12, panel 1
Note portraits of Seraph (again) and Mr Green in background.
Page 18, panel 1
At the risk of sounding like a total psycho, a couple of the people
in this massacre picture are modelled on people I know!
Page 19, panel 4
Sneaky reference in Grace's dialogue to the Tori Amos song 'here. In
my head'
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Issue 2 Notes
Page 5, panel 4
Who's Doctor O going to phone...?
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Issue 0 Notes
Page 6
Greg is a character from the Tori Amos song 'Pretty Good Year'. He's
a bit of a loser, and gets no sympathy from Tori.
Page 14, panel 6
This panel gave one of my mates nightmares!
Page 16 It's too small to read, but Stephanie is reciting the
first lines (in Latin) of Virgil's epic poem 'The Aeneid'.
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Issue 3 Notes
Title
'Violence in Mind' is a lyric from Tori Amos' song 'The Waitress'.
Page 3, panel 1 I struggled for ages to think what Molly would
be singing here. I sat down to draw the page and that Corrs song suddenly
started playing and it fit perfectly. I figure Molly would be a 'Top
40 chart' kind of girl with a crappy little pink stereo.
Page 5 My revenge on bouncers. Scum!
Page 7 I originally wrote and drew a version of 'Frenzy' six
years ago, when I was at college. I redrew the whole thing for this
incarnation, and was surprised that there was only one topical reference
that need to be changed: I altered a reference to 'The X-Files' to a
'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' reference. Sadly, 'The X-Files' isn't
as popular as it used to be, and I don't think everyone talks about
it in pubs anymore!
Page 10 My brother taught me most of these drinking games on
my 21st birthday!
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Issue
4 Notes
Page 1, panel 5 'Sexy bitch' is a phrase from the Austin Powers
films, which were out at the time of O Men 4.
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Issue 5 Notes
Page 6, panel 9
I got bored of drawing that outfit, so decided to get Miss S to change
it!
Page 7, panel 7
Those 'thugs' are some of my workmates at Titan Magazines (Simon, Ness,
Stephen and Oz all designers). I think they got off lightly with a
bit of brain damage!
Page 15, panel 4
This was my small tribute to 'The Invisibles', my favourite comic at
that time. There's another 'Invisibles' tribute on the next page, but
that's a little less obvious.
Page 19, panel 5
Sneaky reference to the Tori Amos b-side 'Samurai'.
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Issue 6 Notes
Page 4
This is the reverse of Issue 3, page 14.
Page 3, panel 9
Another of Rob's premonitions comes true.
Page 18, panel 4
That security guard is my dad!
Page 22, panel 7
Sorry dad!
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Issue 7 Notes
There's lots of stuff going on this issue which I won't go into here,
things like parallel scenes and the significance of Annie and June.
Hope you caught 'em!
Page 3, panel 2
Okay, how many people have woken up in the middle of the night and thought
they'd seen someone in their room, whereas it's just a pile of clothes
or a ray of light or something? Doctor O obviously does... (Or does
he...?)
Page 4, panel 6
Parallelled elsewhere.
Page 7, panel 1
Is Red saying ³Damn² because she regrets what she did to Molly, or simply
because she thinks she's got a cold coming? Y'know, I'd suspect the
latter...!
Page 8, panel 1
Parallelled elsewhere
Page 18, panel 4
³The situation²...?
Page 23, panel 4
Erk! Anathema! She turns up in 7 other (obscure) places throughout this
issue. You'll have to look very closely.
Page 23, panel 8
Who's that then?!!
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Issue 8 Notes
Page 1, panel 3
Hannibal Lector is obviously
from the excellent Thomas Harris novels.
Page 1, panel 4
Maya is a character from Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Red Mars' book.
Page 4, panel 3
This is Rob's old group 'Superteam'. It consisted of himself, Brainstorm,
Seraph and his sister Vixen.
Page 6, panel 1
Pictures on the wall include (from left to right): PSI'SQUAD'S Inferno,
The Usaviors (who I might now call Hardcorps), PSI-SQUAD'S Astral, Grace
and Stuart, Nonna, the Hound and Molly Valentine.
Page 13
This scene was inspired by an edition of the awful daytime TV talk
show 'Kilroy'. The topic was ghosts, and people were basically talking
about their paranormal experiences while Kilroy was being extremely
patronising and sceptical to everyone. Anyway, in amongst all this,
a woman was talking about how she had once been alone in her house and
she was strangled by a ghost of herself. This really freaked me out,
and translated itself into this scene. Sort of.
Page 13, panel 8
Who's said that before?
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Issue 9 Notes
Page 1
Yes, you're right, I can't draw dogs, and I have no idea why I gave
Ruth one!
Page 7
I have no idea what Rob and Abby are saying. I don't think I want to
even go there.
Page 8, panel 6
Does anyone get this? I was watching an edition of the Harry Enfield
show, and there was a sketch based around a yuppies' dinner party, where
they were talking about their lives and saying "I am Bridget Jones",
"No, I'm Bridget Jones". Well, I thought it was funny!
Page 9, panel 1
This is my version of the front cover to Harper Collins'1993 version
of Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None'.
Page 14, panel 1
'And Then There Were None' is probably in my all-time top ten favourite
novels. It's actually very disturbing, and the movie versions have supplied
alternate, 'happier' endings! And don't worry - I haven't given anything
away, plotwise!
Page 18, panel 7
Blathnaid was a monster from a 'Slaine' story in one of the very first
issues of 2000AD I ever read. I loved that story.
Page 19, panel 1
No, I can't draw sheep either, but c'mon I'm not even trying here!
Page 19, panel 5
This is a kind of Jane Austen type book. It's not really based on any
specific one, though.
Page 20, panels 1 - 3
This is Akira!
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Issue 10 Notes
Page 1
Grace is Sylvia Plath in this issue. I had tinkered with the idea of
doing something about Virginia Woolf, and originally Abby was going
to play this (or Sylvia Plath's) part, but I figured Grace would be
the better option. The Grace/Sylvia Plath scenes are amalgamations of
events from her 'Letters Home' and her semi-autobiographical 'Bell Jar'
novel. 'Letters Home' are, as the title suggests, a collection of the
letters which Sylvia Plath wrote to her mother. The scene on page 1
is from the December 15th 1952 letter of 'Letters Home'. The other two
Grace moments on pages 4 and 9 of this issue are adaptations of incidents
from 'The Bell Jar'.
I was really averse to reading any Sylvia Plath, because I thought it
was the sole domain of depressed teenagers, but when I actually read
'The Bell Jar' I found it to be one of the most profound, touching and,
surprisingly, witty novels I've ever read.
Pages 6 and 7
My little 'tribute' to '60s comics (with maybe a hint of Image-ness
thrown in). Imagine Red in The Avengers!
Page 16, panel 7
Okay, so as Abby explained, Malice is quoting from all sorts of different
novels and comics. I won't list all of the quotes' sources as that would
be really tedious, and I've forgotten most of them anyway! A lot of
them are from the novels which The O Men become trapped in, and there's
a line from 'Hannibal' in there, too. There's loads of comic quotes
in there: from Stormwatch, The Avengers, Top Ten, The O Men #1 (ha!),
Doom Patrol (a quote from good ol' Crazy Jane). My fave quote is one
from Ragged Robin of The Invisibles, which appears on the last page
of Issue 8 and continues in Malice's first appearance in Issue 9 ('Feels
like murder every time... doesn't it feel like murder?').
Throughout Issue 9 there are quotes from a novel called 'The Regulators'.
This is a Stephen King novel written under the pen-name Richard Bachman.
It's one of King's best books in absolutely ages it tells the story
of the residents of a street who basically start getting gunned down
one by one by a group of strange creatures. The first 100 pages or so
take place in a 20-minute time frame, and it's some of the most shocking
and fast-paced writing I've ever read. The Regulators' quotes in Malice:Part
2 generally revolve around a character called Marielle following her
progress from getting shot (complete with arm dangling from shoulder
nice!) and then dying (which is supposed to reflect the fact that
The O Men's situation has gone completely downhill).
Page 12
The Sylvia Plath stuff here is a quote from one of her most famous poems,
'Lady Lazarus'.
Page 14
AAAARGH! 'American Psycho'! One of the most disturbing novels I've ever
read!
Page 18, panel 3
Who's said that before?
Back cover
Based on a promo pic for 'The Man with the Golden Gun'. 'Interestingly'
enough, I noticed that Brian Bolland used a similar pose on a couple
of his Invisibles covers. Wonder if he used the same image for inspiration?
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Issue 11 Notes
Cover
Anathema's pose is based on Tori Amos' pose on the cover of her Cornflake
Girl single. You all noticed the (murder scene-type) chalk marks around
Anathema, right? That's basically just to indicate that Anathema's a
bit of a weirdo/sick freak, rather than to spoil the ending of this
issue.
Page 3
You've already seen all this at the end of Issue 10 (without Anathema).
Notice someone's missing. In fact, she's not even in the issue. I only
just noticed that. But there is a reason.
Page 4
These full-page panels occur throughout the issue, featuring each of
the O Men. Note that they all say "oh", they are the "oh"
men after all.
Page 5, panel 2
Grace's powers kick in to tell her that Anathema is leaving them and
that they are safe to talk freely.
Page 5, panel 4
The first of Anathema's many blackouts during this issue.
Page 6, panel 3
There are pills on the floor here. Stephanie has tried to slow Anathema
down with an overdose (but Ana woke up before she could do it).
Page 8
Kelly's first appearance.
Page 9, panel 10
When Kelly says "you chose the wrong side", she's referring
to Rob's nose-ring. Rob got a nose-ring so that he could pull off the
whole undercover thing during the UK Ultra Knights party in 'Reunion'.
I suppose Kelly could always have taken the nose-ring out, but I think
Rob wanted one anyway, and he's going to get more piercings throughout
the series. Kelly's comment here is supposed to make you think she's
talking about choosing battle sides.
Underground sequence, pages 12 -
20
Stephanie is trying to get Anathema away from the O Men, hence the tube
journey. I was really going to go to town with this scene. I wanted
to vent my spleen about how shit the tube is but in the end I ran out
of room. I was going to have Anathema beat up an underground guard (because
he hassled her for a train ticket), and I was going to show loads more
commuters reading John Grisham and Harry Potter books (I hate the way
tube travellers always read the same thing. Yawn. Needless to say I
hid the covers of my Harry Potter books when I was reading them on the
tube.).
Page 12, panel 2
That's me on the right. The bloke on the left is an old workmate.
Page 12, panel 3
I've tried to make Anathema kinda pretty in this issue. I wish I'd made
her pretty from the start, to be honest. I gave her a sort of hooked
nose, and a kind of unpretty look, but I wish I'd made her more of an
unconventional villain from the start - make her a pretty villain.
Page 15, panel 1
...vultures...
Page 16, panels 6-7
This bloke is listening to a Garbage song, can't remember which one.
I don't think it's particularly significant, although I think I chose
it cos the lyrics kind of 'go with' what's happening.
Page 20
...vultures...
Page 22, panel 2
Compare with page 13, panel 7.
General
I was quite pleased with this issue - it's one of my faves I think.
It was originally going to feature Abby, Anathema and Colin in equal
amounts in a story called 'It Never Rains', but I decided to just go
with Anathema. I was quite pleased with the art - I decided to make
it more of a straight-forward black and white style, ie, not do lots
of shading and funny lines all over the place. Still a few dodgy panels
though.
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Issue 12 Notes
General
I had been getting more confident with the whole comic and was seriously
considering printing The O Men in glossy US-format (someone had advised
me that people were more likely to take note of it). The 'Reunion' arc
was the first 'jumping-on point' available for this although it still
was potentially confusing to new readers which is why I did the 3 first
3 pages as a kind of introduction to the series. However, I didn't go
through with the new format thing anyway!
Cover
I'd been playing around with the idea of doing a spotlight cover (a
nice circle/'O' behind the characters), and was all set to do a boring
old standard pose when I decided to play around with shadows a bit more.
Also, I was watching this VH1 programme called 'Making the Band' and
there were lots of strobe effects in the title sequence, so I basically
taped the show and used that for reference. I quite like the cover it
would probably make a really nice t-shirt or giant poster.
Page 1, panel 4
Miss S is listening to Tori Amos' version of The Beatles' 'Happiness
is a Warm Gun'.
Page 3, panel 7
Doc O's whole speech has been for Anathema's benefit to mislead her.
Page 4
Safe and Sound are a gay superhuman couple who will appear later in
the series.
Page 5
The titles for the 'Reunion' arc all refer to parties so here we have
(party) tricks.
Pages 6-7
I don't know who half these people are I just made most of them up on
the spot. I do know that the three people furthest to the right (towards
the middle) are from the right: Limbo (bloke with glasses, he'll probably
turn up in volume 2), my original version of Psiren (girl with hair
in the air, Psiren is the superhero name of Peri, Colin's girlfriend)
and Insomniac (bloke with moustache). Psiren and Insomniac were characters
in the original version of The O Men I drew 10 years ago.
Page 8
I really like this page. (Which makes up for the appalling page 4.)
Abby is still devastated by the death of girlfriend Sam. Snow Leopard
is the creation of my friend Marcus Scudamore, and Mr Green appeared
in my original version of The O Men 10 years ago.
Page 11, panel 1
I don't know what happened to Grace's breasts here. They seem to have
grown.
Page 12, panel 9
Gemma phones her sister.
Page 15
I might talk about Union Jack's first wife later in the series. Puppet
Girl is Molly Valentine's mother. Beelzebub pops up in issue 16/17,
and Sister Slaughter appears as a corpse in issue 16, too.
Vixen:
I came up with the perfect real name for Kelly and then completely forgot
what it was. It was going to be Kat, but I wasn't too keen on that.
I've gone with Kelly, which I quite like, although I don't think it's
that perfect one which I'd thought of.
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Issue 13 Notes
Cover
Who will die? If you look closely, it looks like Mr Green thinks it's
him!
Page 2, panel 4
Who called the ambulance? Stephanie - at the end of Issue 11.
Page 4, panel 6
I didn't really make it clear enough as to what's going on here. Peri
actually lied to Gemma about not sleepign with anyone else.
Page 7
It's a legendary myth that if the ravens of the Tower of London ever
desert the tower a great disaster will befall England.
Page 9, panel 5
These are the ghosts of the two Princes of the Tower - apparently killed
by Richard II (or Richard I, I can't remember. I should know, because
I studied the play - whatever it was - at university). Many people report
to have seen their ghosts in the Tower of London.
Page 10, panel 4
As you'll find out later, Doctor O has just been talking to Molly Valentine.
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Issue 14 Notes
Cover
As usual I was struggling with what to put on the cover, and I was doodling
around with a biro while watching Blind Date (!) and this was the result.
Some people say they can see faces in the backgrounds, but that's not
intentional. There does seem to be something there, though.
Page 1
I noticed that it seemed to be raining in every issue, so thought I
should address it. Rain helps out with backgrounds!
Page 2
Shame I dropped the 5-panel page format for this page it would have
been nice to keep it consistent, but I thought this panel would work
better like this.
Missing scenes
I was going to have Kelly's mom, the original Vixen at the funeral,
but I just didn' t have room for her. I was also going to show what
happened between Miss Scarlet and Kamikaze at the funeral, but for space
reasons decided not to. I think it worked quite nicely in issue 15.
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Issue 15 Notes
General
This issue was quite a funny one I actually didn't have the Molly twist
in mind at all, until very late in the day. The original inspiration
for this issue was the insane idea of Miss Scarlet being head-over-heels
in love - like one of those cheesy adverts with her and her partner
walking along a beach accompanied by lurve songs. And then I wanted
to bring Grace and Red closer together - get a bit of bonding going
on, and then I decided that Red should get dumped (from a great height)
and need someone to turn to. In the middle of all this, I really wanted
Molly to come back sooner than planned, and that somehow brought up
the idea that Molly was responsible for the whole of Miss S's woes -
and it all turned out to be one of the major bombshells in volume 1.
This kinda helped with the whole (fairly) unbelievable thing of Miss
Scarlet spending 2 days shagging a bloke she'd only just met - although
I still wanted Miss S to go through genuine emotions as a result of
it, rather than ones manufactured by Molly.
Art-wise, I really, really wanted to
do a more lifelike style in this issue, ie, use references and get a
bit more realism into it - but I didn't have the time or the resources.
I think the art came out quite well though. Less shading, I think -
cleaner.
Cover
I always struggle with covers - just with what to actually put on them.
I used a promo shot of Amidala from Attack of the Clones as a basis
for Red's pose, although I wasn't that pleased with the drawing. Also,
she has slightly curly hair here, which she doesn't normally have (although,
spookily, I think the hair is a little bit like Molly's).
I then toyed with going for a really iconic image Miss S in the 'Scandal'
pose, 'Basic Instinct' or 'In Bed with Madonna', but it wasn't working
out. I decided to stick with my original as quite a few people liked
it. I wasn't that happy with the actual drawing, but I figured it was
slightly different stylistically to my usual stuff, if nothing else.
Artistic licence.
Title
Originally it was 'Seeing Red', although I thought this was a bit obvious,
and it had only just been used as a Buffy episode title. I changed it
quite late on to 'Kamikaze' I thought it tied in quite well with the
whole notion of Red committing suicide at the end.
Page 1
Red and Kamikaze are in the same position as the lovers in the Rodin
sculpture (even though you can only see them from the shoulders up!).
Molly had a miniature version of the statue, as seen in issues 3 and
7. It's sort of a clue - although you'd be an absolute genius (not to
mention telepathic) to spot it.
Page 5
Colin finds out he is HIV Positive. He also had it in the very first
version of The O Men I did when I was about 20 - plus he was gay (with
a boyfriend called Justin) in that version too.
Page 7
Panels 1 - 4: Miss S really hates asking for help.
Panels 6 and 7:
There's football on the TV because there was football on TV while I
was drawing this page!
Page 13
Panels 9 - 11: Miss S was actually supposed to say something here,
but I managed to miss it out!
Page 15
Panel 4: I just couldn't kill them. Things were getting too grim!
Page 17
Panel 6: My piss-take of DC's Elongated Man - what a bloody stupid
name!!
Page 18
Panel 5: The original script had Red saying that she didn't even
know Kami's superhuman name - but of course she heard it on that news
clip earlier. Luckily, somehow, as I always seem to do, I caught it
at the last minute.
Page 19, panel 4
In the background here is my friend Matt and his girlfriend, Steph.
Steph managed to get herself wings.
Page 22, panels 1-4
Molly's talking about Red/Kami, Abby, and Colin here.
Page 23, panel 4
'uhn' - we're back to the very first word of this issue - but in a different
context here.
Page 24, panel 5
Oh my god, I've just noticed there's a strand of hair here which should
be black!! arrrgh! No matter how many times I check an issue, there's
always something. No one in the whole world would notice/give a shit,
but I bloody do!!
Missing scenes
I was going to do a scene with Ingrid (Union Jack's wife) and Rob, to
show what happened to her after issue 14. However, the issue was already
going over 25 pages, and I didn't want to do any more than that, so
I'll probably do this in a future issue. Ingrid never actually made
it back into the comic, but I managed to get a mention into issue 18.
General problems
What a doofus! After issue 7's punishing 8 panels per page, I swore
I'd never do anything like that again but I managed to do something
worse here. I'd been enjoying the new Catwoman series, and someone in
the letters page pointed out that the artist used a classic 4 rows of
panels per page type thing (something I'd never picked up on before).
So I decided to give the 4-rows of panels thing a go which basically
means I could be drawing anywhere up to about 12 panels per page. Which
is a lot. Luckily it only struck me towards the end otherwise I'd probably
have given up.
I think I spent over 3 months on this issue, and then towards the end
I was so determined to finish it off that I locked myself in the house
one weekend and spent about 30 hours in all getting it done. Blimey.
Almost went mad!!
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Issue 16 Notes
Cover
I struggled with this one for ages (as usual!). I wanted to get a Grace
pic in there, as I'd drawn a nice one on a post-it note and wanted that
on the cover somehow. I was then going to do character shots in a broken
mirror type thing but it wasn't working. Then I decided to do a post-it
note type cover (yes, they're post-it notes it doesn't really matter
if you didn't pick up on that, though!). I overcame my fear of drawing
hands for this one hope it came out okay. (A bit chubby maybe...) It's
Eclipse's hand, by the way.
Concept
The concept for this issue came from the idea of starting off with Grace
(or maybe Abby) suddenly going from one 'scene' straight into finding
herself in a locked room with someone badly injured (Molly) and having
to work her way back to find out what happened.
Then I decided to bring back Eclipse, as I had been doodling her quite
a bit, and was enjoying her new 'look', and Molly got involved too.
Title
It's kind of a little tribute to The Invisibles 'try to remember' was
a recurring phrase in that series.
Page 2, panels 1 and 4
That's Seraph in the picture on the wall.
Page 3, panel 2
Isn't it always the way. You check an issue with a fine toothcomb 10
zillion times before it goes to the printers and you still miss things
you should have finished off or sorted out. Hence the unfinished curtain/window
in the background (the left side of it). Still, this one doesn't annoy
me as much as the mistake later...
Page 4
The secret origin of Molly
Valentine continues...
Page 6, panel 5
You got the Scarlet O'Hara reference, right? Miss Scarlet has 'killed'
(from left to right) Taurus, unnamed hero who popped up in the Reunion
arc, Mr Green, Frenzy, Pain-Killer, can't remember his name, Malice,
Sister Slaughter and Lorelei.
Page 7
In case you're reading these
issues in the wrong order, we last saw the real Blackie, Spider and
Twisted Sisters in issues 1 and 2. This was one of the first pages I
drew for this issue and I was kicking myself that I missed Lorelei off
this page, so I added her on page 6 (I did page 7 before page 6 - that's
the way I work!).
Page 8, panel 5
My vendetta against Magnolia continues. I don't know why I watched
it again a while back and it was okay. I probably should have put Batman
and Robin in here.
Page 8, panel 6
This was the last panel I drew of this issue (you might have gathered
by now that I do it all completely out of sequence). I don't like it!
Page 9, panel 7
Hope you all noticed the Powerpuff-style Miss Scarlet on Grace's t-shirt!
Page 10, panel 5
Miss S is still channeling memories. Here we get a scene from issue
4 had to throw Jeopardy and Eclipse in somewhere.
Maths: '3 more people I don't recognise'
so that would be Jeopardy, Eclipse and... Stuart? Surely Kelly would
have met Stuart... so why wouldn't she recognise him?
Page 10, panel 6, background
Another old image from issue 4.
Page 12, panel 2
So how many times have superheroes been rescued by their teams, and
wound up completely naked and yet no one bats an eyelid. It always seemed
to happen to Snowbird and Jean Grey, didn't it? Oh well, at least Miss
S seems to notice something's wrong.
Page 12, panel 6
Well, I couldn't really keep him naked for what happens next issue.
Page 12, general
A lot of this two-part storyline actually came about from the film Thirteen
Ghosts (the remake). Even though I didn't particularly enjoy it, I loved
the way that the ghosts were all such scary, frenzied beings the way
they attacked was so frightening. I wanted the O Men to be relentlessly
attacked by enemies in this storyline I didn't quite achieve the feeling,
but it's what I was aiming at with the attacks by Rob, the Insect League
and Blackie and co.
Page 13, panel 4
Deliberate mistake #1: The door is on the wrong side when you compare
it to the later panels on the same page. I could have changed it but
decided to leave it. Doubt anyone noticed. I think it should actually
be on the left (if I remember correctly from earlier issues).
Page 13, panel 7
Isn't it always the way. You check an issue with a fine toothcomb 10
zillion times before it goes to the printers... blah, blah, blah...
Redrew Rob here (ponytail, right, with back to us) and pritt-sticked
him in (ah, the age of computers!), but forgot to 'black in' some of
his lower half. Now I doubt anyone else will have spotted this at all,
but it really bloody bugs me! Perfectionist and all that. I think I
went through all 100 printed copies correcting it, as with some of the
other mistakes this issue!
Page 15, panels 9-13
These are some of the last panels I drew for the issue (mainly because
I had no idea how I was going to draw it), but I do like them. I love
panel 11. Very dirty.
Page 18, panel 2
Red and Kamikaze from issue 15.
Page 18, panel 10
Ah, the Insect League! Old enemies from my early drawing days. From
left to right: Dragonfly, Flea, Money Spider, Beelzebub, Arachnid, Mistress
Web and Spidra.
Page 19, panel 3
Deliberate mistake #2. Eagle-eyed readers will spot that the door is
opening in the wrong place (considering it's supposed to be a double-door
thing). D'oh. Let's just think that Grace has slipped out the back door.
Page 20, panels 5 and 6
I hope this is clear. I spotted one foul-up and changed it in panel
5, but then Abby's ³just like you² comment in panel 6 doesn't really
follow ('cos Molly doesn't manipulate memories). Hope it's clear what
I'm getting at in this scene. Again, I may have changed it, I can't
remember, and I don't have the issue to hand, and I just want to get
these issue notes finished!!
Page 21
I love this kinda weirdo
revelation thing in comics. I hope I'm not the only one.
Conclusion
It's not the strongest issue, but I think the second part will more
than make up for that. I was a bit concerned about the amount of set-up
in the issue, so I added the page about Miss Scarlet seeing the murder
of herself (?!) (page 13) to spice things up a bit.
The issue was made:
Between: June and September 2002
while:
Listening to: Coldplay's second album,
amongst other thingsŠ
Watching: Big Brother 3, Help I'm a Celebrity...! 1, Six Feet Under
season 1, Scrubs, and loads moreŠ
Seeing: Reign of Fire, Spider Man (for the third time), Thirteen Ghosts,
loads moreŠ
Eagerly awaiting: Tori Amos' new album (out end October)
Back to
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Issue 17 Notes
Cover
This was probably the first one in ages I didn't struggle with. I knew
I wanted Eclipse on there looking either mad or evil (the shadow-face
thing was inspired by a panel from a Wonder Woman comic drawn by Roy
Martinez a couple of years ago), and I knew I wanted to have some kind
of 'controversial' nipple thing going on.
Frontispiece
This picture of Perception was based on a picture of an actress - can't
quite remember who - maybe Cameron Diaz.
Page 1
I'd been dying to use this Cluedo reference. Some people were confused
as to how Red had managed to change costumes so quickly, but she's changed
them with her powers.
Page 2
Ah, the Insect League - old villains from my younger days. Left to right
they are Arachnid, Beelzebub, The Flea, Dragonfly, Mistress Web, Money
Spider and Spidra. Arachnid turns up in Issue 19 and he will hopefully
be appearing in a solo story of his own in 2004's small press O Men
anthology. We find out that Mistress Web and Money Spider are killed
by the Vicious Circle in Issue 19.
Page 3, panel 5
A reference to the film Eight Legged Freaks.
Page 4, panels 3 and 4
Eclipse speaks dialogue from people's memories - normally people in
her vicinity. These are bits of Miss Scarlet dialogue from earlier in
the series - the first from Issue 10 - I can't remember where the other
one is from.
Page 6, panel 3
Again, Miss Scarlet dialogue from Issue 10.
Page 6, panel 5
There was actually going to be a Jeopardy flashback scene here, but
I didn't have room for it and I thought it would confuse the readers.
It was going to be a memory of her origin, where we'd find out that
Jeopardy isn't the woman - it's the gun - a gun that takes over people's
bodies. The current Jeopardy host was taken over during a mugging.
Page 9, panel 1
When Eclipse is talking normally her eyes go back to normal (instead
of black and white) and her speech goes into capital letters. Unless
I forget, as in Page 8, panel 9.
Page 10, panel 2
I got the idea of AIDS being airborne from the film Outbreak, where
the disease became airborne. The future Rob/Anathema is probably saying
these things just to freak our Rob out.
Page 18, panel 4
Note the images of past-Grace, some of which have appeared in the series.
There's a couple of mad-breakdown Graces in there.
The issue was made:
Between: September 2002 and February 2003
while:
Listening to: Aimee Mann's 'Lost in Space', Poe's 'Haunted', Ryan Adams...
Howie Day 'Australia', and Tori's new album, 'Scarlet's Walk'!!
Watching: Alias, Buffy season seven, Firefly.
Reading: Stephen King's 'Christine'; Mark Z Danielewski's 'House of
Leaves', Stephen King's 'Dead Zone', Angela Carter's 'Nights at the
Circus'
Seeing: Signs, Donnie Darko, 28 Days Later, Iris
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Issue 18
Notes
Cover
This picture of Grace is based on a picture of Sheryl Crow which appeared
in
a copy of Entertainment Weekly magazine. The issue featured loads of
beautiful portrait photos of famous people and gave me the idea to do
all
the Vicious Circle covers as a series of model-type shots. The O Men
are
going to look a million dollars.
Frontispiece
This picture of Grace is based on a picture of Tori Amos from the concert
program to her Scarlet's Walk tour.
Cast picture
I struggled with the cast picture for quite a while, but finally nailed
it
in an hour in bed one Sunday morning. I like it, although I'm slightly
worried they look like a bunch of hairdressers.
Editorial picture
This image was taken from one of my first attempts at the cast picture
for
this issue. It was originally going to go over a double page spread
and this
would have been on the right (along with Abby, who got tippexed out
here
because it was a bad drawing).
Titles
Vicious Circle - it ties in well with the themes of the series, as you'll
discover.
Confrontations - I actually couldn't
remember if it was originally supposed
to be Confrontation or Confrontations. Ah well, it's Confrontations
now.
Page 1
Miss Scarlet's t-shirt logo is my reaction to the FCUK-type clothes.
I hate
Oem - just pathetic. But of course Miss S looks great in it. Grow up!
Page 2
O...strong female character' - Ocos I can't help myself from writing
strong
female characters, so I thought I'd let Miss S take the piss out of
me.
Page 6
Oh god, a dog. Thank the lord I don't have to draw him for long...
Page 7, panels 4 and 5
I love these panels.
Page 10, panel 6
Ah, poor Ingrid (Union Jack's wife). I had planned to include some sort
of
reconciliation scene between her and Rob ever since Issue 15, but there
was
just no room whatsoever. Ah well, back to Sweden for her...
Page 11, panel 8
Beady-eyed readers may spot Rob in the picture behind Doctor O - kind
of
symbolic after the events of this scene.
Page 12, panel 1
Ah, the Cheeky Girls - what's not to love...
Page 12, panel 3
This guy's called Disease. He'll be back.
Page 13, panel 3
Who's that chap then? You know him.
Page 13, panels 8 and 9
Ruth is crouching here, that's why she looks up and behind her in panel
9.
Ah, who cares, the dog's dead, thank god.
Page 16, panel 8
Thanks to the evils of Tippex and pritt stick and general stupidity,
there's
always at least one mistake in an issue of the O Men, no matter how
many
times I check it all. Here I forgot to fill Ruth's cardy in.
Page 16, panel 9
This is kinda my homage to the scene where Drusilla kills Kendra in
Buffy
the Vampire Slayer season 2 - awesome.
Page 20, panel 1
This is the last panel of this issue to be drawn. It was a bit of a
nightmare to be honest - how do you draw everything that's going on
in one
panel a couple driving, arriving at a house, about to get out of a
car,
looking anxious. It took about 5 attempts, attempts which included the
worst
ever picture of Grace.
Page 21, panel 4
You know this place too - it's appeared before.
Page 22, panel 1
Ruth almost gave away a major secret here. She actually did in the original
version, but I felt that she wouldn't make such a revelation at that
moment.
There are several clues in the issue and a couple of readers have guessed
it.
General
I'm pretty happy with this issue. The second part should be a bit more
slow
paced but then things will REALLY kick off in the 3rd part, and from
then on
there's no looking back.
The issue was made:
Between: January and March 2003
while:
Listening to: Tori Amos 'Scarlet's Walk', Joni Mitchell's Travelogue,
and
other things
Watching: Farscape season 4 and other things
Reading: Clive Barker 'Abarat', Philip Pullman and more
Seeing: Tori in concert!
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Issue 19 Notes
Cover
Not based so much on an exact picture from Entertainment Weekly (like
the Sheryl Crow one on Issue 18), but the idea came from a very cool
EW shot of Sonic Youth.
Frontispiece
Based on a picture of Julianna Hatfield.
Pages 1 + 2
I had recently seen The Ring (the US version) and it totally freaked
me out. I really wanted to try and scare the reader with this scene.
Page 3, panel 1
I call my flatmate 'The Actress'. We don't get on...
Page 5
Spider just seems to get weirder as the series progresses.
Page 7, panel 4
Miss S is going to ask Rob what she asks Molly later - but she feels
she can't.
Page 9
I like the way you don't really 'see' Anathema properly in this scene.
Until the next page.
Page 11
Another 'homage' to my horrible flatmate - Glimpse's real name is quite
similar to hers and she looks a bit like her too.
Page 13, panel 4
This actually happened in Issue 13.
Page 17, panels 2 and 3
This couple is my friend Paul and his girlfriend Michelle.
Page 20, panel 1
Mistress Mind was actually an early version of Grace from my early drawing
days.
The issue was made:
Between: February 2003 and April 2003
while:
Listening to: Tori Amos 'Scarlet's Walk', Zwan, The Be Good Tanyas 'Chinatown',
Zwan 'Mary Mother of the Sea', Mary Lorson and Bill Cote 'Piano Creeps',
XFM radio, Aimee Mann 'I'm With Stupid'
Watching: Taken, The Salon (!), Killer Corrie, Farscape season 4
Reading: Philip Pullman 'Northern Lights', Alias, The Tommyknockers
by Stephen King
Seeing: Daredevil, The Ring, Metropolis, Cube 2
Playing: Resident Evil 2
Back to
top
Issue 20 Notes
Cover
Not actually based on anything. I just wanted a Rob/Kelly cover. Originally
Rob had a hideous leather jacket/medallion thing on him (you can see
it on the editorial page of the previous issue) but I decided to change
it.
Page 1, panels 7 - 9
This actually happened to me (no, not being attacked by a team of super-villains)!
It was a summer and I'd had my windows open in my flat for ages, and
one night I looked up at my ceiling and saw a weird daddy-long-legs
thing, and then slowly I started to realise that the whole ceiling was
covered in the bloody things. Weird.
Page 3, panel 1
A reference to the fact that Kelly beat the Twisted Sisters up in Issue
16.
Page 4, panel 4
Obviously a reference to Sixth Sense.
Title
This one's 'Secrets', the next one's 'Lies'.'Secrets and Lies' (the
movie).
Pages 8 and 9
A lot of people think that these two pages are way too rushed, and I
probably agree. To be honest, I had real trouble fitting the whole Colin/Peri
subplot into the story, what with everything else going on.
Page 9, panel 1
You know how sometimes you just look up and see a beautiful sunset or
a weird arrangement of clouds in the sky and you forget your problems
for just a minute? That's what I wanted to accomplish here - although
I'm not sure I pulled it off.
Page 12, panels 3 and 4
This is in the future at a funeral - you probably can't make out that
it's Rob's name on the gravestone. You should be able to recognise Miss
Scarlet and Stuart, we've also got upcoming characters Asylum and CJ,
and I'm not saying who the other 2 are.
Page 12, panel 5
This is another future scene - this time with Doctor O with white hair.
Note the similarity between this and one of Rob's visions in Issue 1.
Page 13, panel 1
That's me, in my old bedroom in Victoria. I'm apologising for having
to kill off a certain character in the future.
Page 19, panel 5
The logisitics of the 'Vicious Circle' story were an absolute nightmare!
Certain people had to be in certain places at certain times for it all
to work. I'm actually amazed that it all came off so well - the only
things I would have liked to work out differently are Anathema rushing
off from the Sahara here (I'd liked for her to have suffered a bit more
in the heat and to have been stranded for a bit longer) and the aforementioned
Colin/Peri thing.
Pages 20 and 21
I think this scene is heart-breaking.
Page 22
You'll see this again next issue.
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Issue 21 Notes
General
Story-wise, I was very lucky that everything worked out and that I could
have a solo Doc/Anathema issue - I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it
- I thought I'd at least have to finish up the Colin/Peri stuff in the
same issue, as a 'b' plot - but somehow it all worked out. I just thought
it would be a really cool, unexpected twist to have a talky issue in
the middle of this big ongoing war storyline. It's the last thing you'd
expect. I wanted Doctor O and Anathema to basically have an issue to
themselves and, essentially, have a fight without actually fighting.
I toyed with different ideas - at one point Doctor O slapped Anathema
across face and she flew over the table early on, and another idea had
Doctor O not actually saying a word until he launched into his climactic
speech.
Cover
I wanted this to be a Doctor O cover, but I just couldn't come up with
an image of him that was cover-worthy. I went for this shot instead
- based on a magazine advert for a perfume.
Frontispiece
Believe it or not, this is based on a picture of John Travolta.
Letters page
The reason I wanted this page here was so that the 'C*nt' pages would
be opposite each other, later in the story.
Page 1
I wanted this issue to be book-ended, featuring other characters, so
that it wasn't too isolated. Here, Doctor O talks to Girl VII from the
USAviors. Originally, I had planned to kick the issue off with Doctor
O contacting parallel universes - but I felt that would be too confusing.
Page 1, panel 5
Otousan is the term used by an android to refer to its creator.
Page 2
A (sort-of) repeat of the final page of the previous issue, with certain
panels enlarged or shrunk as necessary. (So I wasn't just being lazy
- I still had to work on it!)
Page 2, panel 7
'Adam'...?
Page 3, panel 5
'Spare ribs'...???
Page 4, panel 2
The background picture here is of a superhero called Glitter.
Page 7
Basically, the idea here is that Doctor O has tormented Anathema throughout
the centuries - in the Witch Trials, as Jack the Ripper, in World War
II and as Victrix in the Ultra Knights. Some people got confused as
to why Victrix is put earlier on the page - apart from her, they're
all in sequence. There's no real reason for this at all.
Page 8, panel 7
This issue is called 'Lies' even thought here aren't really any lies
in it - and Doctor O makes an interesting comment on lies here. I think
he adopts my own policy on lying - I hate it, I hate having it on my
conscience, so I try to avoid it wherever possible. There are ways of
lying without actually lying!!!
Page 9, panel 3
The 'children' will come into the series in Volume Two.
Page 10
I think it's interesting to play around with people's motives. A hackneyed
plot idea would be for someone to get really sick of all the misery
and pain in the world and have that as his motive. Here, the Doctor's
motive is that he's sickened and surprised by the fact that people *aren't*
shocked by all this death and misery - that it's become so commonplace.
It's a sorry sign of the state of the world.
Page 11 - 12
I had all these things worked out in my head and then when it actually
came down to writing it all, I'd managed to forget most of them and
had to really think hard.
Page 11
I just find it incredible that people move from problem to problem so
much - and I'm guilty of it myself. The way that you can pin all your
hopes on getting a new job and then you hate it when you get it. The
final panel on this page is kind of talking about murderers and paedophiles
- and if you face up to the harsh reality of it, sometimes they are
victims themselves. They've been forged by the people around them. I'm
not excusing what they do, just looking into the psychology of the whole
thing.
Page 12
This idea didn't come into it until very late - the idea of actually
working appearances of The O Men into this Ana/Doc issue. I think it
really works (although, again, I really had to struggle to remember
what the Doctor was supposed to be saying about each of them).
Page 13
I do believe that people have become more selfish and shallow, in general.
More self-absorbed, more self-centred.
I was really worried about this page.
I was worried that the readers would take it the wrong way - that they
might think that what I'm saying is 'hey you bunch of losers, buck your
ideas up', which would be unbelievably arrogant and patronising and
is not what I'm saying at all. With panel 3 I wanted it to be one of
those wake-up calls - you know, how every now and then you'll have this
moment of awareness, where you've been coasting along in life and then
you suddenly realise, 'this is it - i'm living this now, I must make
the most of it.'
Page 14, panel 4
This addresses why the Vicious Circle started with the villains in Issue
19.
Pages 16 and 17
So this is it, the central point of this issue. It's as if Doctor O
is punching her right in the face with that word - and you might have
noticed that it's the first (and probably the last) time I've used the
c-word it in the series. This is what I was aiming for in this issue
- a battle between two sworn enemies, with no violence involved - but
Doctor O's words have the full force of a punch. (Although, if you think
about it, the word 'c*nt', which I think was quite common in Mediaeval
times, wouldn't be all that shocking to Anathema.)
Page 18, panel 2
Note that Anathema did this exact same thing to Rob in Issue 20.
General
I really had no idea how people would respond to this issue - whether
they'd enjoy such an insular issue - but it got some great responses.
It's even about to get a 10 out of 10 in Comics International!
I was so lucky with this issue - my regular printer had a posh new photo-copier
in and he wanted to try it out - so he used the O Men and it got printed
on some very nice glossy paper. It would have cost me over 1000 quid,
but just cost me the usual 60 quid.
Back to
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Issue 22 Notes
Frontispiece:
Based on a gorgeous picture of - guess who - Tori Amos looking exhausted
but happy after a concert. Grace is exhausted but probably not too happy
at the moment...
PAGE 1
Panel 1: The perspective on the building is pretty terrible. I didn't
have a clue. It took me ages, too! The scene of Miss S breaking into
the building was actually inspired by an awesome scene from an early
season two episode of Alias - really cool music, really exciting - Miss
S is pretty much doing what Sydney did in that scene. I don't quite
know how she actually got to the top of the building in order to scale
down it in the first place - but those are just, er, minor details…
PAGE 2
Miss S is expecting heavy security, especially considering the last
time she visited in the 'Frenzy' storyline.
PAGE 3
Note that Anathema hasn't had time to change her dress since last issue.
PAGE 4
Panels 1 - 3 - can you spot Abby in bed with Rob?!
PAGE 6
Panel 9: Grace was originally smiling manically in this panel to show
how much she's losing it, but I thought it looked stupid, so I changed
it.
PAGE 7
Panel 5: What a nightmare panel - so much exposition! I bet you never
knew Stu had been so busy!
PAGE 8
Panel 2: Grace is quite rude here -
it's kind of a sign that she's not herself.
PAGE 9
Panel 3: Note the subtle cricket reference...
PAGE 13
Poor Pathe. I was really reluctant to kill him off, since he was so
popular... but sacrifices need to be made. The fight between Pathe and
Doctor O was supposed to be a lot longer but I had no room for it.
To be honest, Pathe and Colin were always destined to die, from an early
stage of writing the storyline - but when it came to doing it, I had
problems carrying it out. And then Joss Whedon went and stabbed one
of his characters' eyes out on Buffy and I thought 'ah well, if he can
be horrible, so can I'.
Panels 8 and 9: You think Doc O is upset
about Pathe - but he's upset about his shirt...
PAGE 14
One of those happy coincidences - I didn't really know what to do here,
but it became a handy way of giving Colin time to explain himself a
bit, to show where Grace is and also to clear up a bit of a mistake
regarding the Colin/Peri business. I think I messed up on who did what
to whom earlier on, especially since Peri told Gemma (in 'Reunion')
that Colin gave her HIV and I never made it clear that Peri had been
lying. I also think it's interesting that Colin is explaining that he
really hasn't been himself. I never got to grips with the character
- maybe he would have been fun if he'd been himself.
PAGE 15
Panel 4; Strange Little Girls - a sneaky Tori album title reference.
PAGE 18
A bit regrettable that I didn't have room to show Colin's body - just
to ram the point home. Poor Colin.
In the early stages this issue would
have played a lot differently. We'd have followed Miss S to Jeremy Skinner's
building (she'd have been trailed by the Vicious Circle girls) and then
she'd have had a cat and mouse fight with Ana all over Skinner's building.
I don't know why it changed, but I like the new version. It's a bit
more shocking.
PAGE 19
Panel 5: Originally Grace is shouting out a massive 'Colin' but i felt
that was a bit silly.
GENERALLY:
Pretty happy with this issue - it contains a lot of stuff that I've
been dying to do since day one, especially the 'Smack my Bitch up' at
the end.
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Issue 23 Notes
Cover:
What a struggle! It was originally supposed to be a pic of Grace lying
on the floor as if shot (based on a Tori promo pic), but I just couldn't
get it right (I must have tried at least 30 times). Eventually I used
a gorgeous pic of Kiera Knightly on the cover of Time Out as a starting
point. I like that Grace looks quite cold and corpse-like.
TITLE:
I like the title, 'Debris', based on Stu's original codename and the
fact that everything's a right bloody mess.
Frontispiece:
Based on an image from an advert. I did consider having Grace and Stu
on the cover but couldn't come up with a decent image. So Grace gets
the most covers in the Vicious Circle storyline - along with Anathema.
PAGE 2
Panel 1: I wanted this to be like when you wake up and you think all
these thoughts, not realising that they're not all accurate. For instance,
Grace thinks about visiting her mother, who's just died.
PAGE 7
Panel 5: I had this really cool image of Rob just being hurtled backwards
and smashing pictures on the wall. Note in the page's last panel that
the backgrounds are made out of Rob's memories - past panels from the
comic.
PAGE 8
Panel 2: The image that Anathema planted in Rob's head a couple of issues
back.
PAGE 9
Note that a lot of things being described here have turned up or will
turn up in this series.
PAGE 14
Panel 3: I love this panel! Brains!
PAGE 15
Wow, this stuff is so far-fetched, and there's so little room to explain
it all! Note I forgot to fill in the right-hand side of the background
to panel 8!!! Must have been too excited by the goings-on!
Note the mention of Girl-7 here - you'd really have to be on the ball
to catch that and relate it to next issue though!
PAGE 18
I love that Doc O tries to kill Grace with the same gun he used to kill
Pathe. What a sicko. And that he basically sowed his own doom by killing
Pathe in the first place.
PAGE 19
I actually don't know if Pathe is Grace's father or not! He never was
at the start, but it started to seem like a good idea. It's up to the
reader to decide I guess.
When Grace loses it - and the whole
scene from there and when Anathema enters the house - it all very much
stemmed from a Radiohead song from OK Computer called 'Climbing up the
Walls'. Intense, mad... scary. Would be great in a film adaptation!
PAGE 20
The printer actually phoned me up, thinking that half the page had dropped
off. Wouldn't be the first time something had dropped off at the printers,
to be honest.
PAGE 21
Everyone seemed to assume that Doctor O is dead here... I don't know
why!
PAGE 23
Panel 8
The final 'This is fucking ridiculous'
of the issue - note that they were the first words of the issue, and
note who said them. It's kind of important... (And note the bit where
Abby is smoking and doesn't even seem to realise she's doing it...)
GENERAL:
All very intense, I quite like the art - very excited at this point!
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Issue 24 Notes
The Cover
Since we're shifting to America I wanted the book to have an American
look - hence the colour cover. I used my usual pencil crayons on my
first attempt to colour it, but it looked utterly shit when it was printed,
so I coloured it on Photoshop - thanks to Oz for showing me the ropes
and to Matt Ramsdale for helping me out with the flag extending into
the logo (very tricky!).
TITLE:
We've had '24 Hours', now we've got '7 Days', and we'll eventually get
'12 months' and perhaps further down the line, '10 years'.
General
I knew the USAviors would come back at some point, although I didn't
really think about giving them their own issue until quite late in the
day. I thought it was a neat idea to shift the focus completely, to
flesh out the characters a little bit, and, most of all, to piss off
all the readers by essentially taking a bit of a break from the main
storyline just as it's hotting up.
I wanted the issue to be a lean 20 pages for several reasons. First
up, I knew I would be doing a colour cover so it would help to save
costs where I could, and secondly, I wanted to complete the issue in
time for Comics 2004, so the less pages the better! It fits quite nicely,
although I would have liked a bit more room for the Day Two scenes -
more on that later.
The characters
SUGAR - there's actually a Tori Amos song called 'Sugar' but I think
the name comes more from Rogue from the X-Men - when she used to call
everyone "sugah". Sugar is essentially a purer version of
Rogue (the cool Rogue from the 80s, rather than the bland character
of the present day). I hope the readers like her, although the might
think she's a bit miserable!
SUPERBMAN AND MR MUSCLE - I knew I wanted
two expendable, completely ridiculous new superheroes for this issue,
and I actually didn't even come up with them until I'd drawn about half
the issue (bearing in mind that I don't draw in sequence - so I was
leaving spaces to fill them in when I'd eventually invented them!).
I think I eventually came up with them in about 5 minutes.
GIRL 7 - Her name is based on a St Etienne
song called 'Girl VI'.
ELITE, HOTFOOT, GIRL-7 AND UNDERDOG
- Part of the fun of this issue was in maiming the whole team! It would
have been nice to be able to have done a 'What happened to so-and-so'
at the end, but I thought it would give the game away that the world
wouldn't be destroyed in the near future. For the record - and this
is a spoiler warning, so look away now if you don't want to know - Hotfoot
ends up in a wheelchair, elite is in a coma, Girl-7 is reconstructed
and Underdog is definitely dead, but will be replaced by one of his
fellow Underdogs - yes, there are more of them! I'll probably feature
the USAviors again eventually, but I don't have any major plans for
them, except maybe Sugar.
PAGE 1
Panel 3: I was going to name the cosmic being, but I realised I'd already
done a Galactus thing in the Malice storyline, so I left it vague.
Panels 4 and 5: I always thought it
was hilarious how Captain America - who doesn't have any really big
powers - could get into a fight with someone like the Hulk and always
win through tactics - so I thought I'd try it out with Underdog.
PAGES 2 AND 3:
I would really have liked to make this scene longer but I didn't have
the room. I had an absolutely beautiful photo of the New York skyline
which I was going to use as reference but I lost it at the last minute
(after keeping it for 2 years!). I'd actually have liked to get a shot
of Ground Zero but I couldn't find one. Maybe if I get decent reference
pics I 'll revisit the scene and do it as a pin-up in the future or
something.
I wanted to address September the 11th,
something that saddens me immensely. I just found the whole thing so
fucking horrible and I wanted to address it somehow. I wasn't particularly
bothered by addressing where the superteam actually were during the
incident, but I did it anyway. In an early draft of the story, we found
out that Sugar was actually there when Sept 11 happened, but she was
just discovering her powers and was scared to do anything (she actually
confesses this to a priest when she goes home). I didn't have space
for all this, though, so I abandoned it.
Last panel: I like that it's gone dark
here - as if Sugar's been stewing for ages before answering. I also
like the idea of Hotfoot running so fast that she can run up the side
of a building.
PAGE 4:
Panel 1: Trina Trishby is sort of based on an old Marvel reporter called
Trish Tilby.
Panel 2: Henrietta Greenwich is sort
of based on an Avengers government liaison called Henry Gyrich.
PAGE 6
I love it when superteams meet up and then just fight each other!! So
silly and pointless. The panel is based on a panel from the recent JLA/Avengers
mini-series. Note the piss-takes of Vision, Mr Fantastic, Captain America,
Iron Man, Wonder Woman, Superman, Plastic Man, Aquaman, Black Canary,
Hawkman, Martian Manhunter, Fire, Batman, the Flash, some weird bloke
at the bottom and, oh yeah, little Wasp and Antman.
PAGE 7
This is all a bit Clark Kent/Smallville.
PAGE 10:
Kamikaze's Japanese comes courtesy of my Japanese-speaking friend Jonathan
Clements - former editor of the UK's Manga Max magazine, author of several
manga-related books and all-round unbelievably clever bloke.
PAGE 11
Panel 4: I had a lot of fun with the monitors in this picture - it's
a mix of images from Alias, Angel, Kill Bill 2 and The Invisibles.
PAGE 12
I'm not even sure myself what's going on here - it's up to the reader
I guess. You could interpret it as Hotfoot inviting Sugar in for a threesome,
but I kinda see it as Hotfoot being a bit of a bitch. I like the way
that we see elements of the USAviors' characters, but we don't actually
pin them down. I mean, Hotfoot can be a bitch, but she's not a total
bitch.
PAGE 13
Obviously the bottom panels are a reverse of what happened in Issue
21 - the conversation between Doc O and Girl-7.
PAGE 13
Panel 3: The alien butler Javros is a homage to the Avenger's trusty
butler, Jarvis.
PAGE 15
Panel 8
Note that Underdog is shaking his head here. He doesn't actually speak!
I like Underdog though - I see him as my Wolverine.
OVERALL: I'm so evil to change the entire
storyline after the events of last issue, but I thought a change of
pace would be interesting, plus it does update you on where things have
got to too. I wanted to flesh out the USAviors a bit, plus I thought
it would be dramatic, fun and unexpected to decimate an entire superteam.
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Issue
25 Notes
Cover
The cover is based again on an Entertainment Weekly pic - this time
of Courtney Love. Again, I struggled with this one - you can copy a
photograph, but it somehow looks really odd on paper. I almost abandoned
it and went with a Rob or Grace (holding Stu's head) pic instead, but
I thought I'd done enough Grace covers, and Seraph was always supposed
to be on this cover so I persevered.
The story
This was one of the trickiest stories of the Vicious Circle storyline.
Part of this was because plans for the final issues were always very
vague, but the main reason was that I had so much exposition and set-up
to cram in, and this would be my last chance to do this (because Issue
26 is a Miss Scarlet issue and Issue 27 is the big finale). So I thought
it was going to be really shit, and then somehow I came up with the
Now and Then (and Later) story-telling idea and it all came together.
It was only afterwards that I realised that this method was used in
Stephen King's 'From a Buick 8' novel, so I referenced it in Issue 23.
Alarmingly, a week after O Men 25 came out, Bendis used a similar Now
and Then method in an Avengers, but he didn't do the Later stuff and
he didn't really make much of it, so that's okay.
Page One
Seriously, the last few issues have been so unplanned. I knew the USAviors
would be involved, and Grace and Red and Colin and Kamikaze, but I didn't
really know what exactly they'd be doing. I didn't even know that Kamikaze
would rescue Red from this situation.
Page Two
Poor Mr Green. I did like him. In an original version he had sex with
Seraph (still wearing his mask) but I had no room for it here. Note
that his final words are a famous quote from Comic Book Guy in The Simpsons
(just before getting nuked).
Page Three
Panel 1 - note this is quite similar to the dinner party scene in Issue
8.
Page Six
Panel 7 - so Nonna and Doctor O had some kind of connection. Did you
spot who Doctor O was sleeping with in Issue Seven?
Page 10
The flashback scene took place after the conversation at the start of
Issue 18.
With the whole 'now'/'then' thing, it would have been nice to use different
panel-border thicknesses to differentiate them, but Grace's telepathy
scenes traditionally have no frames, so it wouldn't have worked here.
Page 13
Panel 3- Kamikaze hitched a ride on the back of the USAviors jet.
Page 15
Remember when Abby went to see Doctor O at the end of Issue 19…?
Page 16
Panel 3- the t-shirt thing is just a private joke between me and a friend.
Don't you just love private jokes…
Page 20
Panel 1 - Note that this panel is sort-of repeated 3 times over the
next few pages.
Panel 4 - This takes place before issue 15.
Page 24
For this approaching-the-mansion scene - if O Men ever becomes a movie
or an animated series, this bit would be accompanied by the end of Nirvana's
'Scentless Apprentice' from their In Utero album.
I had a vision that it would be Miss S and Kami approaching the mansion
together - kinda cool, like Steed and Emma in the Avengers movie trailer
(when they're in those bubbles), but Kami didn't make it. I only decided
to kill him off so early quite late in the day, but he would have died
on the battlefield in Issue 27 anyway.
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Issue 26 Notes
The cover
Based on a behind-the-scenes pic of Lady Penelope from last year's god-awful
Thunderbirds film.
The title
Originally it was going to be 'Violences', but I changed my mind. I
know 'violences' isn't really a word, but I like it.
The story
As with most of the final issues, this story wasn't really pre-planned
all that much. Plans became a bit vague towards the end of the series
- although I knew what would happen in the final issue. I think a lot
of this issue originated from the fact that Miss Scarlet hadn't done
all that much in the Vicious Circle storyline so far (well, okay she
had done quite a bit, but she hadn't appeared much), plus also I think
Kill Bill had a massive influence. I was quite tempted to call it 'Kill
Blackie'. It's a shame comics can't quite capture manic-ness, as I would
really would have liked the frenzied nature of the attacks to come across
a bit more.
Notes
Page 2 Spider really has evolved in this series. It's
very sub-conscious on my part. It's as if she's taken on a life of her
own.
Page 3, panel 5 Notice the 'o'.
Page 6 I dunno if it's clear or not that the Twisted
Sisters are pinned to the wall.
Page 8 These are kind of variants of the Justice League.
Page 10 Panel 1 Elongation Man from Issue 15 reappears
- a very last minute decision to include him - kind of concludes his
storyline. Note the similarities with the DC version - his wife 'Susan'.
Panel 6 Another illusion. I hope it's clear that these are illusions.
Page 11 So this is what really happened. If you think
about it, Colin was practically dead. Miss S helped him out. She really
did do him a favour.
Page 14 Lorelei has a whole back-story that I'll never
ever get into! She was an abused wifey, who went nuts. Her sister was
having an affair with her husband and she killed them both. She can
kill by touch (I don't know why I came up with that idea) and she doesn't
feel pain (never alluded to in the comic) - hence the fact she's scratched
half her face off.
Page 15 Panel 5 Think about who's really asking these
questions - and, therefore, what that person really knows. Panel 8 'Mur'
- another stupid in-joke.
Page 20 Panel 2 Old incarnations of Miss Scarlet.
Page 23 Panels 1-3 This is a total steal from a Season
Five Buffy episode. Buffy's mom has just died and after the funeral,
Buffy's on her own by the graveside, and Angel just walks up to her
and they hold hands - really naturally. I thought it was so sweet. Miss
S's mini-speech I don't know if it baffled readers or not. I truly believe
that people should make their own minds up about what they read, so
I'm not going to explain it. But you should think about what those 'ghosts'
are that appear in the story, where they're from, what they're saying.
What it says about what someone probably already knows. The answers
are all there to be worked out, but I will definitely explain everything
at some point. Also, on this page, Rob was actually going to say something
else, but I thought it was too early for him to say it. Don't worry
if you have no idea what I'm talking about. You might be able to work
it out, but don't worry if you can't!
Page 24 Panel 5 One of the other superheroes is helping
Rob and Red fly.
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ISSUE 27
The cover
This is partly based on the original film poster for Open Range (I’ve
never seen the film). I just thought it was cool how the characters
looked off into the distance, and it is a nice image for the final cover.
I wasn’t very happy with the pic of Grace and I think Red’s
arm is a bit fat.
The title
I had no idea what to call this one. I had titles like ‘Ground
Zero’ and ‘Full Circle’ in mind but wanted to use
them down the line. ‘Survivor’ came to me the day before
I went to print.
The story
As I’ve said before, I knew the basics of the final few issues,
but not how I was going to tell the story and the little specifics.
A lot of it wrote itself, really. There were some scenes that I have
wanted to do since I started Issue One six years ago – Grace punching
Anathema, Miss S getting shot, etc.
I dunno if anyone notices things like this, but I really like playing
with the storytelling and panel designs of some of the issues. This
one’s 6 panels per page with splash pages for big events.
Page 1
Actually loosely based on the famous Marvel Secret Wars image.
Pages 2, panels 4 and 5
In case you don’t remember, this is Safe and Sound. Panel 5 sees
the death of – er, actually I don’t know who that is. I
think I just made him up back in issue 12.
Page 3, panel 4
I think it’s ‘Fluke’ that bites the dust here.
Page 6, panel 4
This is a lyric from a Tori Amos song (‘Taxi Ride’ from
the ‘Scarlet’s Walk’ album).
Page 9. panel 2
I don’t know why, but I originally had Red send Frenzy after Molly.
Jeremy makes so much more sense!
In case it’s not clear,
Red sent an illusion in to ‘deal with’ Disease and then
put the Miss S illusion out of her misery.
Page 11
Someone commented that they liked the circular effects here. I guess
it ties in well with the themes of the comic but it wasn’t intentional!
Page 12, panel 5
Ana was going to say something like ‘ew, don’t give me AIDS’
here, but I figured she’d said enough anti-‘gay’ things
and, even though she’s the baddy, it was a bit too much.
Page 14
These guys are (the original) Psiren and Insomniac – another brother/sister
duo. They were a bigger part in the original O Men series I made when
I was about 20.
Page 16, panel 2
In case it’s not clear, Abby’s turned into a glass-woman
who can turn things into glass at a touch. Sort of inspired by Chrysalis
from the Wild Cards novels.
Page 18
In the original version, you actually get to see where Rob and Abby
go, but I decided not to show it to tease the readers! I have no idea
where Vortex went. He won’t be back, I don’t think.
Page 22
Yeeeeah! At last, the punch-up!
“I believe in peace, bitch” is another Tori quote –
from ‘The Waitress’ song on her second album, ‘Under
the Pink’.
Page 23, panel 3
“Oh really”. Just a small thing, but this is what Ana said
earlier in the issue.
Page 24
Originally, Grace was supposed to bash Ana thru the mansion in a longer
scene, but I ran out of space.
Page 25
I really wanted this to be a heart-breakingly sad scene. I don’t
think it worked on that level, mainly because I rushed it. Just the
idea of saying goodbye to your loved ones like that. I like Grace’s
expressions at the bottom of Page 26 though.
Page 26, panel 3
This is probably one of the most important panels of this issue. Notice
that it was Stu who talked Grace into making her decision. But if Stu
didn’t exist… It explains why Red is crying in Page 27,
panel two.
Page 30, panel 5
I don’t know what happened here, but Girl-VII isn’t in a
coma, she’s being rebuilt!
Page 31, panel 3
Thurein. I knew someone called Thurein and the name does mean ‘sunshine’.
I don’t know him any more, and it’s kind of sad, but this
was my little tribute. To be honest, this section was hard to write,
but I wanted to continue with it. It’s kinda funny how he’ll
probably never read this issue either.
Page 32, panel 2
That’s Jeopardy, one of Molly’s friends, in case you don’t
remember (because one of my friends didn’t).
Page 32, panel 3
I’m amazed at the amount of upset this panel caused! I mean, knowing
how much I like the character, and what that means about the chances
are of her coming back…
Page 33, panel 3
I guess you could interpret this as something to do with Anathema, but
I like to think she’s reacting to Doctor O.
Page 33, panel 5
That’s my mom!
Page 34
A lot of people thought he was dead, which surprised me a bit! Ah well.
To be honest, I’m quite proud of my little shocks/surprises in
these epilogues.
Ad on Inside back
Volume two! Or rather, season two, as it’s now going to be called.
If you want to know, the people in the background are: (left to right)
Limbo, Diva, Busybody, Liberty (front), Phenomena, Random and Outcast.
They’ve all popped up in Volume One as background characters,
except for Busybody and the final two.
Reaction
Regular readers seemed to love this one, but most said they’d
have to read the whole of volume one again. Some said they found some
of the characters confusing (although I mainly only killed off one-note
characters who didn’t really matter). Most people generally called
me a ‘bastard’. But all in all, I think most people enjoyed
it!
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ISSUE 2.1 NOTES
These issue notes contain plot points and story details, so please read
the issue before you read them.
Cover
Normally when I do an issue, the cover is the last thing that I do,
because, oddly, I don’t really have a clue what I’m going
to do. Strangely enough, the cover for 2.1 was the first thing I actually
did on this issue. For once it’s not actually based on any specific
pictures, but the idea came from the popular cover to Book Four. Book
Four has got a spotlighted picture of the team, and I thought it would
be a good idea to show a similar image of Kelly, completely on her own,
as that kind of reflects the issue’s events. I also liked the
fact that you can’t really see Kelly’s pointy ear, meaning
that non-superhero comic fans might be tempted to buy it without realising
ho ho. I had ideas to use yellow paper for the cover, but felt like
it worked best on white.
As it came close to printing the issue I started to wonder if a team
shot might not work better (perhaps a take on Book One’s cover
– updated), but I went with my original idea (always good to go
with the original idea).
The big changes
As you can see, I’ve gone all digital for the new season. It’s
something I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time, and I finally
treated myself to a new laptop at Christmas. It took a while to get
to grips with the whole thing. Layers baffled me for a while, and it
took me ages to get a font sorted (I wasted a whole day lettering/ballooning
four pages only to find that it just wasn’t working and I had
to redo it all again).
It took a long time and it’s a totally different way of working.
Instead of being free to just doodle and do what I want to do, I have
to do things in stages and leave gaps for the lettering at a later stage,
and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve rushed a
page just so that I can scan it and get on with completing it.
I set myself a deadline for this issue for the Bristol Comic 2006 Convention
and I was really lucky to make it. A week before the deadline, I did
my final corrections and got the issue ready on disk and then my bloody
laptop died! Was very lucky that I got it all done half an hour before
my laptop packed in...
Intro page
This is based on the classic cover to Justice League Issue One, from
back in the 80s.
Wot no Previously?
A lot of people said I should have put a ‘previously’ update
with this issue. I probably should have, but in a way, I just wanted
the issue to speak for itself, and we do kind of get a recap of Issue
27 in the first couple of pages. I’m a big fan of just dropping
into a Grant Morrison run and seeing all these weird names and hearing
about weird events, and getting excited when I can finally piece stuff
together. But maybe I should have done a ‘previously’…
Page One
Here we flashback to the final issue of Volume One, in the middle of
the big Anathema battle. Some familiar faces are dotted around, and
you’ll definitely spot Rob and Miss Scarlet from Volume One’s
team. Will this be the only time we see them in Season Two? Actually,
you should get the answer to that in this issue.
You can also see Phenomena and Diva in the background (they appeared
here and there in Season One) and also Lord and Lady who feature later
in the issue.
Page Two
The battle continues, and on this page it’s directly from Kelly’s
point of view. If you read Issue 27, you’ll recognise the action
here - where Sugar attacks Vixen and her mom, picks them up, flies them
into the air and drops them from a great height.
Page Three
Page Two - I was thinking for ages what I could put in the hospital
room’s picture frame, and the simple weather scene tied in well
with the overall underlying themes of the issue, which I’ll talk
about later.
This is a page which really benefits from Photoshop - where I can just
draw one image for the page and then manipulate it and jump around with
it.
Page Four
I think this is actually one of the very first pages I completed in
this issue.
The title ‘12 months’ is actually following an O Men theme
- we already had ‘24 Hours’ in Issue Seven and ‘Seven
Days’ in Issue 24, and we may get a ‘10 Years’ in
the future...
Page Six
Not much to say here, except that I did feel the scene suffered from
the fact that it’s such a short one. Quite a few scenes in this
issue suffered in a similar way, but I guess it’s the sort of
thing that happens when you’ve only got so many pages to tell
the story. I had to add a very last-minute “oh, you’re going
already?” from Grace, as it might have looked a bit silly otherwise.
I think at one point Kelly refers to Seraph and ‘Mr Universe’
and I think he should be called ‘Starman’. Lol, I can’t
even remember my characters’ own names…
Page Seven
Kelly detects the scent of Doctor O here, which will be clear if you
read the final issue of Season One.
The guys at the end of the page will make sense in the next issue.
Page Eight
Took me ages to find a decent church for reference here. In the end
I spotted a church in Brighton that was perfect and I used that.
Commissioner Jordan is a mix of Commissioner Gordon from the Batman
comics and busty British model Jordan. Officer Montella is a take on
DC’s Renee Montoya.
Page Nine
A lot of these panels are just taken from Issue 27 - the joys of Photoshop
eh?
The dialogue from panel 4 is taken from Issue 27, panel 5 has Kelly
talking to Busybody, pisstake on the shameful over-exposure of Logan
in panel 6, and panel 8 was a last-minute addition to explain why Gemma
doesn’t get involved this issue.
Page 10
Okay, let’s talk about these guys...
As you’ll see, these guys don’t last very long, so I needed
a team that were pretty expendable. In fact, this issue’s ghostly
villains were supposed to be particularly nasty and violent to the new
team - although predictably, I grew too attached to them to be too horrible.
Anyway, here’s a little guide to them...
Diva - At some stage, I really wanted my own Wonder Woman character
and I think Diva is that. Her look is based on Britney Spears in her
‘Born to Make You Happy’ video (I think - it’s around
that period). Of course, she couldn’t just be straight-forward,
she’s kind of an alter ego of a small, dumpy lesbian woman...
Outcast - As is the case with a lot of my characters, the name came
first with this guy. Well sort of. The character has been with me for
a while - predictably called Shadow in older days - but when I was thinking
of characters for the new team, Outcast and Random seemed to be the
right names | 
