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Pond Life by Martin Conaghan #11 – Making Historika

One of the deeper aspects of the comic book industry that I've been keen to cover is the creation of comics themselves – ie. a glimpse into the physical process of putting the thing together and watching it all spring to life.

I've already offered up some basics on obtaining an endorsement for your comic when it's all back from the printers and out on the shelves. I looked at the importance of getting the right logo and I've broadly covered the fundamentals of writing and artwork – in addition to the practicalities of writing a comic-book script and attending conventions.

I've also looked into getting your comic promoted, and recently, I discussed pitching your work and setting a good example.

So, this week, I have two special treats for Pond Life readers; a glimpse into the 'evolution of a comic' and a sneak peek at a project I've been working on for Markosia Comics.

First, some history: around 1996, I pitched a series to 2000AD with artist Mike Perkins (Marvel's 'The Stand', Captain America) which was based around a concept of creating a central female character that could feature in stories set at any point in history (past, present or future) without overly utilising the gimmick of time travel. Mike and I worked up some ideas, design concepts (including a mock 2000AD cover) and character background sketches, before sending in the idea for a series entitled 'The Brubaker Chronicles'. Unfortunately, 2000AD had a surfeit of female characters at the time and the idea was rejected and I forgot all about it until about two years ago.

After dusting it down and completely reworking the concept, I approached Markosia Comics and the proposal was accepted immediately, on the proviso that it was cut down somewhat and developed into a broader pitch that could incorporate scope for a potential television series or movie. I fleshed out the character designs with artist Stephen Daly – who has worked as art director on movies such as Laws of Attraction and The Count of Monte Cristo – and work on the script commenced. 'Historika' – as the series became known, was born – with the lead character a fiery blonde named Veronkia Green. Vicky Stonebridge was tapped as an inker/colourist and work began in earnest. One of the key components to the story required each chapter to be illustrated in a different style from the others, due to the setting, time period and script requirements – which presented something of a major challenge in almost every department.

Unfortunately, Stephen had to drop out due to other work commitments, and an up and coming artist, Mark Simmons, was drafted in earlier this year. Mark was never shown any of Mike or Stephen's original concept designs or artwork, yet has managed to produce a collection of beautiful art that almost matched perfectly the material Stephen produced (I'm not sure what this says about my script, but it was fairly encouraging). Vicky is still on-board as colourist and designer Scott McCall has produced a series of concept logos for the cover.

You can see some samples of the various artwork, designs and logos below.

Historika has become something of a labour of love, not just for myself – but for the artists who have been involved along the way. In many respects, it feels like it's been in development hell for a long time; not only is it a complex and often disparate concept, consecutively jumping forward to a different time period with every new chapter, but it requires extensive research on the part of myself and Mark to ensure the settings, characters and real-life historical events seem authentic. All of which takes time – which, ironically, is a key aspect of the over-arching story.

So, with the wind behind us and a willing audience, we should hopefully see the book reach the shelves in the next nine months or so – and I'm absolutely certain you'll love it. It's exciting, complex and has a spectacularly surprising ending that I'm fairly sure has never been done before. I can't wait to see it evolve further.

In the meantime, drop us some comments on what you think of it so far – it'll certainly spur us along to complete it.

Martin Conaghan is a journalist and broadcaster at the BBC and a freelance comic book writer. The views expressed here are his own. He is also the writer of Burke & Hare.

Are you a small press publisher, writer or artist? Do you have something you think might be worthy of mention on Pond Life? If so, tell Martin about it at pondlife@copydesk.co.uk

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