Warhammer Wednesday: Tales from The-World-That-Was

My latest royalty statement arrived from Black Library last week*. What it highlighted to me is that a number of my old Warhammer stories - from what would now be referred to as 'The-World-That-Was' - are still available in eBook format, either alone or as part of larger collections.

If you would like a taste of my old school Warhammer writings, why not check out one of them today?

Hammer and Bolter Issue 9 contains my short story Sir Dagobert's Last Battle, which is one of the best Warhammer stories I think I ever wrote. Sticks and Stones appeared near the end of Warhammer's life, before it evolved into Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.

* Yes, I still earn a few pennies from sales of my BL stuff.

Short Story Saturday: Miracle on 34th and Peltzer

Subscriber copies of the bumper Christmas issue of 2000AD have arrived through festive postboxes the country over today. This year the prog just has a normal number, rather than being numbered after the year, but that aside, it's still 100 pages of festive F, SF and WTF fun.

In previous years, the Christmas edition of 2000AD's sister title The Judge Dredd Megazine has featured a Judge Dredd short story by Yours Truly. This year I have also written a festive Dredd - but it's appearing in Prog 1961 instead! :-)

The story - entitled Miracle on 34th and Peltzer - returns to the same location as last year's You'd Better Be Good For Goodness' Sake but is a very different beast. Rather than being a seasonal ghost story about a festive fiend, this time I've gone for something a lot more comic in tone that harks back to the early days of 2000AD. I hope Tooth readers enjoy it.

 My first short story in 2000AD! :-) Can you tell I'm pleased? ;-)

Liking the font choice here. :-)

And I'm in good company in Prog 1961. The comic also features the work of m'colleagues Dan Abnett, Gordon Rennie, Tiernen Trevallion (who illustrated my short story The Plague Pit in Inferno! magazine and who is hopefully going to be contributing to Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu), Clint Langley (who was responsible for the cover of my first novel The Dead and the Damned back in 2002), and Simon Davis (who illustrated my short story Mark of the Beast in Inferno! magazine).

S is for Simon Davis

Simon Davis will be known to regular readers of 2000AD for his work on strips like Sinister Dexter, Damnation Station and Ampney Crucis Investigates. However, he is also an award-winning portrait painter.

What you may not know is that he provided an illustration for my Badenov's Band short story Mark of the Beast. Simon’s unique style certainly proved a fitting and dynamic choice for the man-versus-beast image, and I only hope that one day the opportunity arises to work with him again. So, on with the interview...

1. How did you start out as a professional artist?

I trained in graphic design and worked as a general illustrator for design companies after leaving college.

2. What was it that gave you your big break and led to what you are doing now?

My first big break in comics was writing to Simon Bisley via 2000AD and receiving great advice and encouragement from him. It took a while for me to be of a standard to be 'publish-able' but thankfully David Bishop gave me a Dark Judges strip to do in 2000AD. I think that must have been the early '90s.

3. What is your preferred method of working? Which medium suits your style best?

I use gouache (an opaque water-based paint) for comics and oil for portrait painting.

4. You have created and illustrated all manner of famous comic book characters. Which are your favourites?

I loved my time doing Sinister Dexter as I feel that was the first time I really got into my stride with an on-going title. It was great to work with Dan too. I really love working with Ian Edginton too and Ampney Crucis is a character I'm really enjoying. It was born out of my love of 'golden age' crime fiction and Ian's got a fantastically generous way of working so if I want to include something in the story, usually he can incorporate it in some way... it's just basically great fun!

5. How does working for 2000AD compare to working for Black Library?

Both are similar in the fact that it's easy-going and great fun. Working in mainly Black and White for Warhammer was a nice change and a good discipline.

6. What is the appeal of working creatively within the Warhammer setting?

It was great because as a student I used to play Warhammer 40k quite a bit so it was great to be able to come full circle and work for Games Workshop.

7. How did you set about illustrating The Mark of the Beast for Inferno! magazine?

It was an illustration I really enjoyed doing... having a figure in the foreground, the beast behind and then the burning effigy behind proved to be a challenging composition.

8. Of which piece of work are you most proud?

Some of my Crucis covers for 2000AD I think worked quite well.

9. Is there anything you haven’t illustrated that you would still like to?

Maybe an Orc story... or something to do with Hellboy!

10. What are you working on at the moment?

I'm concentrating on portrait painting at the moment, a few covers for 2000AD and then more Ampney Crucis.

Thanks to Simon for taking the time to answer my questions. You can find out more about his work (and achievements) here.

Warhammer brought to (e)Book

More and more out of print Black Library novels and short story collections are now becoming available thanks to the miracle of eBooks. My first novel, The Dead and the Damned, is already available but the latest Warhammer eBook release is Way of the Dead.

Way of the Dead was first published in 2003 and features my own short story Mark of the Beast, which in turn features Badenov's Band, who are the heroes (or at least protagonists) of The Dead and the Damned.

If you've enjoyed The Dead and the Damned, and you'd like to read another Badenov's Band story without buying the rest of the collection, you can buy Mark of the Beast by itself here.