Doc Lazarus

Called into my local bookshop yesterday and had a look at the graphic novels section. I'm afraid it only confirmed what I'm thinking - lots of Thor and plenty of Green Hornet . I've more or less gone off buying comics now as there's nothing that interests me. I genuinely think it's time for something very different.
So Doc Lazarus, the time traveller - a very different sort of Dr. Who I suppose. When I was much younger than I am today the local newsagents in the small market town where I want to school always had copies of Rip Hunter on the counter. Rip was a scientist who travelled through time - why don't Dark Horse bring an anthology of him back, they seem to be doing everything else - and was one of my favourites. So I think he must have influenced how I created Doc Lazarus. He came about through a conversation with the main artist David Dale. David lives in Newcastle upon Tyne although he's originally from my own home town and I got to know him through a comic that he did for an exhibition centre in Belfast - W5. Because of the distance between us and because David's working, progress can be very slow but we're getting there. Doc is English and from 1912, just before the Great War and he has been working on a timecraft using materials which have come back through time with a Traveller escaping a war in the future and which were first used by his father to build the Chronion I. To build the ship Doc has to reluctantly rely on the British Government who see the ship as a weapon in the coming war with Germany and who help him ckabdestinely but who increasingly want a say in its construction. However, somewhere in Germany another time traveller has come back with all sorts of futuristic and the Germans are building their own ship. And of course there is the mysterious Time Dweller who seems to have its own agenda. So with Space 1949 that could be an interesting combination. There is already some artwork up on the blog and there will be more soon.

And yes Paddy, I am the same person who used to script the Scavenger with Dessi Hughes. I haven't seen Dessi in about twenty years I'm sure - he called into see me one night when I was living in Portrush and at that time he was working on a television programme with Jimmy Nail. After that, I lost touch and haven't heard from him since. And yes, I'm planning to go up to the comics event in Derry. We'll maybe meet up. Good to hear from you again - you brought back memories of the magazine in Lombard Street in Belfast.

I think that's it for now. More soon