Having the opportunity to write & draw a story about anything I wanted--and seeing it appear in a unique format next to the work of artists whom I respect--sounded like a lot of fun. For the past few years, I’d been seriously considering the idea of drawing a weekly adventure webcomic, and here--finally-- was my chance. When I was a kid I loved reading newspaper comic strips like Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes and Steve Canyon, and was itching to draw one of my own. Now I just needed to figure out what kind of story I wanted to tell...
I have a soft spot for noir crime fiction and superhero comics, but was already working on those kinds of stories for other publishers... so I looked to my bookshelf for inspiration. I saw John Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, Smiley’s People, A Call For The Dead, Olen Steinhauer's The Tourist, Greg Rucka’s fabulous Queen & Country novels and comics, as well as Tom Rob Smith’s Agent 66 (among others)… the choice was suddenly clear:
An espionage story.
There is something about protagonists in spy stories that really appeals to me. They are ordinary people faced with difficult decisions, torn between loyalty to their country and their own conscience. To me, that's what makes Alec Leamas, George Smiley, Jim Prideaux, Milo Weaver, Tara Chace, Tom Wallace, Paul Crocker and Leo Demidov some of the most interesting, endearing and complex characters to ever come to life on paper.
I already had a lot on my plate when I agreed to join Aces, but whenever I'd get a free minute, I’d fill up pages in my sketchbook or jot down story ideas in notebooks… and the result of all that scribbling is RUN, a futuristic, wordless story about an agent whose cover has just been blown behind enemy lines .
On June 10th, RUN will be released in Volume 5 of Aces Weekly and will appear in three-page installments over the next seven weeks. If you’re interested, you can subscribe to Volume 5 for $9.99/£6.99/€7.99 on the Aces website. I’ll be joining artists Val Mayerik, Jim Hudnall, Bambos Georgiou, Mychailo Kazybrid, Dave Hine, Shaky Kane, Batton Lash and others to bring you nearly 200 comic book pages in just a few short weeks.
See you in the funny books!
