Sugar Glider Stories 2 creator interviews 8: Moving Day
I really thought that I’d posted this blog already. I hadn’t. Obviously. So here’s the creator interview about Moving Day, with artist Sara Dunkerton.
1. How did you get involved in Sugar Glider Stories?
Sara Dunkerton (SD): Back in March 2011 I received an email out of the blue from Daniel. He introduced the Sugar Glider concept to me and basically said that so far each book had been made by a load of boys! He wanted to address the gender imbalance by introducing some female creators and Small Press Big Mouth’s Lee Grice pointed Daniel in the direction of my blog!
I was fresh out of uni and had only begun to be introduced to the UK small press scene. I was working on the development stages for a 6 page story called “Promises” with writer Matt Gibbs for the Bayou Arcana anthology, and had also just gotten some interest in providing 4 illustrations for Iain Lowson’s RPG, Dark Harvest: The Legacy of Frankenstein! But Daniel obviously liked what he saw and I’m always ready to take a project on, so I leaped at the opportunity!
Of course by the time Daniel contacted me again at the end of July with a few scripts to read through, I was in full flow with a slightly impromptu Dark Harvest comic entry for the Strip Magazine’s Spotlight Competition (with only a week till the competition deadline) not to mention still working on Bayou Arcana!! And Daniel wanted all art finished by the 1st August, leaving me just over a week to do it all… If I wasn’t too busy…
But I’d committed myself to Sugar Glider from the word go, so I told him, “Hell, yeah! I can make time!!”
2. What attracted you to the project?
SD: When I got the scripts from Daniel, “Moving Day” instantly stood out! It just also happened to be the shortest story with only 3 pages! But what a brilliant 3 pages they were!
There was so much personality and insight into the characters, not to mention a great bit of character development, and a real beginning to an interesting and unlikely relationship between Babylon and Mother Goose. It certainly showed that Daniel loved these characters!
I wasn’t the only one who saw this - a fair few of the other artists apparently also wanted to do “Moving Day”! When I managed to convince Daniel that I could make time, he went with me for the story. And I’m so very glad he did!! The opportunity to get a bit of my art seen along side many other fantastic creators, in an already established small press comic was an opportunity I couldn’t miss!
3. Were you disappointed to be drawing a superhero story where everyone is just hanging in their civvies?
SD: Ummm… Not really. I mean initially when Daniel asked me who I thought I’d like to draw for I had a proper look through SGS1 and picked out Star, because his costume is awesome!! But I still had a lot of fun with the characters that I was given to play with.
I suppose technically Mother Goose IS wearing her costume, same for Babylon! She doesn’t have a fixed costume and rather dresses in her punky Riot Grrl style, which was really fun to design for this story! Red Kite also is wearing half a costume; he is so attached to his Super-pants!
So it was really just Barn Owl wearing plain civvies!
But none of that really mattered - the story was about the relationships between the characters and personality clashes within the mentor/pupil teams that had been put together. I mean they’d be spending time with each other out of the field and training rooms, and out of costume. It’s good to see a snapshot of that because it makes them real!
4. Were any of the artists mentioned in the strip personal favourites?
SD: They are all pretty iconic classics; David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Duran Duran. Who hasn’t listened to these guys once in a while!?
I admit though that I’m not so hot on the music scene. I have my favourites and I know what I like and that’s what matters to me. I generally only ever listen to music while drawing and travelling. But out of those artists the one that’s likely to pop up on my playlist is probably Bowie.
Sara Dunkerton, a 23 year old farm girl from a tiny village in Somerset, found her calling as an illustrator and animator during College. She carried this realisation through to university where she graduated last year (2010) at the University of the West of England, Bristol.
Out in the real world for the past year, she has worked on illustrating comics for Bayou Arcana, Dark Harvest: Resistance, Sugar Glider Stories 2 and Into the Woods: A Fairy Tale Anthology, and is loving every second!
Ever with another project eagerly lined up, she has hopes of being able to say goodbye to the boring day jobs and work full time on creative projects professionally.
You can find more of Sara’s work at http://saradunkerton.blogspot.com/
This interview was conducted by Gavin Jones from The Sidekick Cast
Nominate Sugar Glider for the Eagle Awards
You can vote in the Eagle Awards on their website now.
If you like Sugar Glider, you might like to nominate the comic in the following categories:
1. Newcomer Writer (Daniel Clifford)
2. Newcomer Artist (Gary Bainbridge)
3. New Comic
4. British Black and White Comic
Thanks
Daniel & Gary
Sugar Glider Stories 2 creator interviews 7: Contents
It’s been a mighty long time since the last Sugar Glider Stories 2 creator interview. Blame the world for it, don’t blame me. Well, you can blame me if you really want to. But here I am posting the seventh interview late on a Friday night. This time, Laura Swaddle - the designer behind the comic’s contents page.
1. How did you get involved in Sugar Glider Stories?
Laura Swaddle (LS): Gary and I have been friends for over a decade - we went to school and then art college together. Though our paths diverged artistically (he went down a Fine Art route, I chose Graphic Design), we always felt it would be great to collaborate on something. And here it is! Perhaps the first of many collaborations… time will tell!
2. What attracted you to the project?
LS: Well, obviously I’m a little biased in that my best friend is the co-creator! That aside, I read the first Sugar Glider and absolutely loved it - I found it really accessible (not being much of a reader of graphic novels) and it’s always nice to see familiar locations immortalised in print. After seeing fan art popping up on Facebook, it was wonderful to see the Sugar Glider universe becoming something collaborative and accessible in an artistic sense. So, when I was asked to be part of SGS2 it was a no-brainer really!
3. It seems like a lot of work and thought went into your piece, even though it is essentially the contents page. What was the idea behind your page?
LS: To paraphrase Yoda, my ethos is ‘Do it or don’t do it’. So even though, as you say, it’s a small item in terms of the rest of the comic, I wanted to treat it the same way as I would have if it was the front cover. To my mind, the contents page had to represent all the talented contributors - which was no mean feat! I wanted to create something sophisticated yet intriguing, something which did the artists justice and drew in the reader. The bird concept came from the names of the newly introduced Vigilance heroes and the silhouette style gave everything that added air of mystery! Plus, I have a bit of a penchant for drawing birds - so the whole concept suited me down to a tee!
At the age of 6, Laura was asked to design the tickets for the school ‘Fashion Show’. It was then that her enduring love for design began. Over a decade later, after graduating from Nottingham Trent University with a degree in Graphic Design, Laura returned to her native North East and has spent the years following working with some of the region’s leading creatives. She has recently set up her own graphic design and illustration agency. When not designing, Laura can be found crafting, cooking and singing.
* Laura still has copies of the tickets. If you ask her very nicely she may even let you see them…
You can find more of Laura’s work at http://www.lauraswaddle.co.uk/.
This interview was conducted by Gavin Jones of The Sidekick Cast.
Sugar Glider Stories 2 creator interviews 6: Breaking Point
Tonight we’re spotlighting the amazing work of Simon Cavanagh and Gavin Mitchell, the men behind Breaking Point.
1. How did you get involved in Sugar Glider Stories?
Simon Cavanagh (SC): I already knew Daniel and Gary from my few appearances at the Paper Jam Comics Collective, and like many others there, had been extremely intrigued by the work they were doing on Sugar Glider during its inception.
Shortly after the launch of the first issue, Daniel approached me about illustrating a short story to feature in the first Sugar Glider Stories. Of course, I said ‘yes’. The resultant strip was Jackdaw Rising, which was immense fun to do.
After SGS 1 was released, Daniel made me another offer I couldn’t refuse (he has a certain Don Corleone way about him, minus the penchant for horse heads), asking if I wanted to work on a script for Sugar Glider Stories 2.
Gavin Mitchell (GM): I saw a retweet by The Sidekick Cast’s very own Gavin Jones, asking if there were any artists who wanted contribute to SGS 2. After a wry tweet to Daniel and a sketch to prove my worth, I got the gig!
2. What attracted you to the project?
SC: A major draw to contributing to the second collection (besides being able to brag about my work featuring alongside such varied and incredible talent) was getting to work with the character Jackie Dawson, who I had illustrated a strip about in the first issue. Except this time, instead of illustrating her tale, I had to come up with it myself. Which leads nicely into your third question…
GM: Mainly the opportunity to work with other people in the small press community. I’d heard so many good things about Daniel and Gary’s Sugar Glider that I had to jump on board. After getting hold of Sugar Glider and Sugar Glider Stories I knew I had made the right choice. Recently I had the pleasure of meeting the creators in the flesh, which was a surprising joy (it’s always a risk making friends online then meeting them in the real world) and made being part of the anthology a bit more special.
3. Simon, how was it playing with another writer’s toys? Especially when it’s clear that Daniel has a lot of plans for this strip’s protagonist, Jackie Dawson?
SC: It’s a bit like being given the keys to your best mate’s Camaro. You want to take it for a spin, see what you can really do with it, but all the while remaining acutely aware of the level of trust extended to you and all the things that could go horribly wrong if you’re not careful.
I made sure to closely adhere to the character and the nature of the Sugar Glider universe itself, but Daniel graciously left me a lot of room to play around in. Even then, though, I made sure to run my ideas by Daniel first, seeing where I could push or where I had to tone down; I think this kind of correspondence makes for a great creative process - you find yourself working in different ways, trying new things or things you never originally conceived in relation to the piece.
I’m excited to see where Jackie goes from this point, whether I have a hand in it or not. It’s easy to find yourself getting attached to the characters, especially given the amount of work and effort Daniel and Gary have put into their creations - making them far more than just stereotypes and clichés. I think it’s that humanity and characterisation that has made Sugar Glider such a hit, one that stands out in the genre, and it’s something I hope I’ve managed to capture in Breaking Point.
4. We get some clues about the origin of the Sugar Glider costume in this strip, which works alongside ‘Costume’ by Daniel and Lee Robinson. How much info can you give us?
GM: My initial request was to draw ‘Costume’, but Daniel thought my artistic style would best suit the ‘Breaking Point’ story by Simon. A very wise decision. My art compliments the atmosphere of the story and the internal conflict of Jackie Dawson, whereas Lee’s art is fantastic for ‘Costume’. As for info on the actual costume; I’m not sure I can say too much…
5. Gavin, how much of a difference was there working with semi-established characters on SG Stories, rather than ones you had designed in The Pride and Stiffs?
GM: My main priority is to do the characters justice and to make taskmaster Daniel happy. With The Pride and Stiffs I had room to adjust the way a character looks and dresses and create a visual personality, whereas with SGS 2 the characters were already established and had been in a previous published comic!
In a way, having the characters already established takes some of the pressure off - but at the same time, that creates a little bit of self-doubt: “Have I got the character right?”
It wasn’t just the characters that I had to approach differently because this story was more subtle than Stiffs or The Pride, which are quite dynamic in pace and setting. There’s a surprising amount of turmoil in the 4 pages of ‘Breaking Point’!
I had a lot of fun drawing up this story and I hope to contribute more to Sugar Glider and other parts of the small press community in the future.
Simon Cavanagh is the greatest author/artist you’ve never heard of. Countless pieces of his work cannot be found in bookshops and art galleries around the world, nor can they be seen on TV, found in the latest video games or witnessed in all their unprecedented glory on stage. Such is their scarcity that there is some debate whether or not such works even exist. It’s possible some evidence may be found by following him on Twitter (@wizardbiscuits), but it’s probably best not to hold your breath.
A freelance illustrator, currently living in a fenland market town along the A141. He is the winner of the 2000 AD portfolio challenge at Thought Bubble 2011, full time artist on the small press comics Stiffs and The Pride and has contributed to several anthologies. More information/work (and disturbing pictures of his face) can be found on his blog http://gavinmitchell.blogspot.com/ and you can stalk him on twitter @bobgoblynn.
This interview was conducted by Gavin Jones, co-host of The Sidekick Cast.
Sugar Glider Stories 2 creator interviews 5: Vigilance Pin-Up
Two in one day?! Well, this next interviewee was uncharacteristically brief in his answers… Artist of the back cover Vigilance roster pin-up, Martin Eden.
1. How did you get involved in Sugar Glider Stories?
Martin Eden (ME): Daniel was blackmailing me… No, he just asked, LOL. And I’m always happy to help!
2. What attracted you to the project?
ME: It’s always nice to be involved with something like this. Especially, with lots of exciting creators!
3. Do you feel like you’re being pigeonholed as the artist who draws colourful super-team roster posters?
ME: There are far worse things to be pigeonholed as!
4. How did you find drawing so many characters designed by someone else? Especially when you consider that many of these hadn’t been featured heavily before?
ME: It was very difficult at first, as I hadn’t seen some of the characters before. But Daniel was helpful and it was fun working from Gary Bainbridge’s quirky designs.
Martin Eden has been working on small press comics for around 15 years - focusing on his own long-running and critically acclaimed series, The O Men and Spandex, as well as many anthology comics with other creators. Find more of Martin’s work at http://spandexcomic.com
This interview was conducted by Gavin Jones, co-host of The Sidekick Cast.
Sugar Glider Stories 2 creator interviews 4: Burnout
After a brief break to catch up on the million and one things going on at the moment, we return to the advertised feature: interviews with the creators behind Sugar Glider Stories 2.
Today, we’re shining the spotlight on Burnout, a strip written by Daniel Clifford but drawn by the excellent Dinobot!
1. How did you get involved in Sugar Glider Stories?
Dinobot (D): A lovely lass I follow on Twitter, @Bintykins, retweeted a call for artists that Daniel sent out, so I started following him and sent him an email, and the rest is history!
2. What attracted you to the project?
D: I used to draw and self-publish my own comics when I was a teenager, but had to stop when I went to university, as I didn’t have the time to dedicate to them. Seven years later, after finishing my course and settling down with work, I really missed drawing my own comics and wanted to start up again. Around that time, I saw Daniel’s tweet and read up on the Sugar Glider universe. The setting of the north of England really appealed as it’s both where I grew up and where I went to university, so the places in the comics were very familiar to me. It’s about time there were more comics about Oop North! Another thing that appealed was the name - I LOVE Sugar Gliders, and the idea of a girl basing her superhero costume on one made me giggle (in a good way!), and that settled it!
3. Your art is stark, in the best way possible, focusing mainly on the characters. Was this intentional?
D: Yes. When I read the story, it felt like a very character-driven piece. I didn’t want to overload it with highly detailed backgrounds only for the characters’ emotions to be hidden. Star is in a dark place. His world consists of 4 walls and a bolted door, and he misses his family deeply - without them, his world is a void.
4. This strip focused on another side character that we haven’t seen much from. Did Daniel give you much direction on the characters or were you going in blind?
D: Daniel offered a lot of direction that really helped with developing the comic! He was never over-bearing but offered both positive and critical feedback that helped me understand what the characters were going through. Daniel knew exactly what he wanted with the comic, and was great in describing the events in each panel! I’d gladly work with him again. It’s rare you find a writer with clarity, and I have a feeling he’ll be successful in his endeavors.
Dinobot started off life as a dinosaur obsessed child in the wilds of the North Yorkshire Moors who turned into a comic and manga obsessed teenager and eventually grew into a Concept Artist for games after several years of wandering around the jungle of Middlesbrough. She’s since worked in the Games Industry for the past 4 years, working on all sorts of things which has enabled her to draw and paint in many styles, and met some awesome artists who have helped her along the way. Dinobot hopes to continue on her art adventure, and is looking forward to what the future holds!
Find more of Dinobot’s work at http://dinobotillustration.com
This interview was conducted by Gavin Jones, co-host of The Sidekick Cast.
Sugar Glider Stories 2 creator interviews 3: Yesterday, all my troubles…
After the fantastic launch of Sugar Glider Stories 2 at Thought Bubble last weekend, we return to the contributor interviews here on sugarglider.co.uk. This time we’re looking at one of the strips written AND drawn by guest contributors. Aside from creating the characters and acting as editors, Daniel and Gary had no input in Yesterday, all my troubles… However, Selina Lock (writer) and StaticGirl (artist) did.
1. How did you get involved with Sugar Glider Stories?
Later down the line, Daniel invited me to pitch a story for Sugar Glider Stories 2, as he knew I was interested in doing more writing for projects, other than The Girly Comic
StaticGirl (SG): Lee Grice suggested I might be a good fit for one of the stories because of my interest in girl’s comics.
2. What attracted you to the project?
SL: I enjoyed the first issue of Sugar Glider, particularly the Newcastle setting, as I have fond memories of spending time there in my early twenties. I thought it would be interesting to get to play in the Sugar Glider universe and work with some different creators. It was also a chance to stretch my creative muscles beyond the largely autobiographical work I’d been doing recently with my perzine. Plus it’s very easy to get swept up by Daniel’s enthusiasm for his comics projects!
SG: I liked the location settings and the personal relationships. Film-wise it’s Mike Leigh crossed with Matthew Vaughan.
3. Selina, with such a wide and varied Glider-verse, what drew you to tell this particular story?
SL: When I originally indicated I was interested in pitching a story I didn’t really know what part of the Glider-verse to concentrate on, or whether Daniel and Gary were looking for specific stories. I am known for not being a massive superhero fan, so Daniel suggested I might want to take a look at the group of anti-Vigilance protesters, who are due to appear in Sugar Glider 3.
The short biographies of the group were all quite intriguing, but for a short, self-contained strip I thought it would be best to just concentrate on one of the characters. The one I felt drawn to the most was Linda Lyons, due to her tragic back story, and I wanted to see that back story come to life in more detail. I also felt it would be challenging to try writing for the young Linda and the older Linda.
4. Static Girl, Where is the first part of the story set? The locations look very detailed and specific, did you base them on places you know?
SL: I’d set the early story in a very generic London, so it was great to see the detail and care Static Girl put into using more specific settings.
5. Did you enjoy telling a story through different time periods?
SG: It was the main reason for doing it! The 60s and 70s were when British girl’s comics were at their biggest, selling thousand of copies a week. Their illustrators could all draw brave heroines in funky clothes and I wanted to be an artist just like them so drawing this SGS strip set in the 1960s was a chance to do my own little tribute to that style. The modern stuff was a challenge because I don’t normally draw older people and I wanted them to be real people not caricature pensioners. Also, I didn’t know the locations I was drawing and there was not much help in Google Maps! I grew up in a seaside resort though so I mixed that out-of-season feeling with what I could dredge up.
SL: One of the things that attracted me to Linda’s character was the chance to include a more historical settings. I am a bit of a research nerd and find it inspiring to have a specific time period, place or incident to spark ideas off. For example, the 60s setting and knowing that Nigel’s character was an athlete, meant I went off on a tangent by looking at photos of the 1968 Olympic Games! It was also a chance to compare and contrast Linda’s attitude to life and authority in the different periods.
Staticgirl is the secret alias of a bored office worker. Originally brought up in Lincolnshire, the County Time Forgot, she is now based in and around London. She spends most of her free time very slowly drawing, procrastinating thanks to internet kittens and going out and photographing trees because they stand still longer than birds do. She has been drawing the same comic since she was 16 but is only letting people see the last volume (for free!)
Sugar Glider Stories 2 creator interviews 2: Breaking News
2. What attracted you to the project?
3. Daniel, what made you chose this narative to kick off SGS 2? Were you at all influenced by The Dark Knight Returns or even Robocop?
Daniel Clifford (DC): The Breaking News strips aren’t directly influenced by either of those, but I suppose I might have been influenced by something influenced by them. I’ve never seen Robocop and I’ve only just read DKR. We did the same thing in Sugar Glider Stories 1, really - a news broadcast that sums up what has happened in the main Sugar Glider comic. The basic idea is that Susie isn’t a good detective, doesn’t have any spying gear and doesn’t learn about events through magic - so TV and radio show up over and over again in Sugar Glider comics. Because the events of Sugar Glider issue 2 are very important and shocking in the world of story, we’ve got them summed up over nine diverse shows, and George draws them all spectacularly!
George Beedham is 27 years old and lives a double life: By day he’s a mild-mannered office worker and by night he’s a comics drawthor (author who draws) who has been drawing people being kicked in the face for over ten years! He also has a degree in Interactive Design from Liverpool John Moores University. He currently lives in St Albans with an award winning artist (who is also his long suffering girlfriend) and their cat (neither of whom read his comics).
Sugar Glider Stories 2 creator interviews 1: The Vampire Rabbit
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be posting a series of interviews with the creative teams of Sugar Glider Stories 2. This first interview is with the creative team of a strip focussing on Sugar Glider issue 2’s antagonist, Don Quixote. The strip, The Vampire Rabbit, was written by Daniel Clifford and drawn by Michael Smith.
1. How did you get involved with Sugar Glider Stories?
Michael Smith (MS): Daniel put out a request on Twitter for any artists willing to jump on board the comic and I replied. I was very lucky that when another artist pulled out Daniel remembered my work and asked me to get involved.
2. What attracted you to the project?
MS: I really enjoyed both of the first 2 Sugar Glider books; I loved the art and that the story is set in the North East. The writing really grabbed my attention; the characters are fully formed from the start. Also, Daniel’s love for the project was very obvious and that was quite infectious. He really held my hand through all of my involvement. As someone doing this for the first time, that was very encouraging.
3. Daniel, I was pleased to see some more of Don Quixote, was it always your intention to build on the character in Sugar Glider Stores?
Daniel Clifford (DC): I was incredibly excited when Gary came up with the idea of a swordsman for the series, so I came up with a backstory and personality that I thought would be just as fun as that initial concept. By the time I started scriptingSugar Glider issue 2, I was in love with the character - his voice and actions are totally over-the-top and contrast with everything else in the series. Luckily, Gary liked the character as much as I did, which meant that we wanted to do more with him after Sugar Glider 2.
4. Was this always supposed to be published after SG2 and reward the readers of both books?
DC: Aha! You’ve caught us out with this one. Gary really wanted to tie Don Quixote into a certain bit of Newcastle’s architecture - I thought that idea was fantastic. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it to fit into the story ofSugar Glider 2. What we have here is Don Quixote’s actions leading into that story, which includes a nice little tour of Newcastle.
5. Michael, Don Quixote only appeared briefly in Sugar Glider issue 2 - was it difficult to capture his likeness?
MS: Daniel was kind enough to send me all of the information I needed about the character. As well as an outline of the character’s backstory, he also sent me a number of Gary’s drawings - so I knew what I was doing. Daniel had a specific idea of what he wanted to see and he communicated that to me very well, so I hope I did the character justice.
6. The strip includes a mini-tour of Newcastle, did you know all of these locations or did you have to do research?
MS: Living quite near to Newcastle I was familiar with most of the locations, although there were a few I wasn’t so familiar with. As I came to the project quite late on, the research had already been done for me so I was provided with reference photos of all the locations. It really was a pleasure to draw some of the city’s fantastic architecture.
Michael Smith was born in Sunderland, 1980. Claremont and Silvestri’sUncanny X-Men was his introduction to comics, inspiring him to aim for an illustration career. Sugar Glider Stories 2 is Michael’s first published work, he hopes it won’t be his last. Michael has a number of projects currently in-development but the first to be released should be the post-apocalyptic adventure, Uthred and the Giants. Outside of comics, Michael is an Open University student in the second year of a psychology degree.
Find out more about Michael and his work at www.smithysketches.blogspot.com
This interview was conducted by Gavin Jones, the co-host of The Sidekick Cast.
Sugar Glider Stories 2, released next week at Thought Bubble and reviewed here.
