I Wrote A Flash Gordon Comic!

If you look at any dates associated with the release of this comic, you may realise I’m promoting it a smidge late (it came out at the end of, uh, April). However, despite my lack of self-promotion on several projects, I am determined to make partial amends, and will be doing an Exciting Series talking about some creative projects I’ve had out this year. And one of them may even be promoted in a timely fashion! …almost.

So this is Flash Gordon Quarterly #7, my professional comic writing debut, where I contributed the exciting backmatter strip. But I didn’t do it alone! Paul Cornell and I have worked together on podcasts for a decade now, but this was our first serious foray into writing together. And it was an extremely serious story, inspired extremely seriously, by the classic film One Million Years B.C.

A small but very loud part of me expected the co-writing to be a dreadful experience where we’d have horrendous arguments, be appalled at each other’s ideas, and have to end our podcast immediately as we could never speak civilly to one other again. But no, that did not happen. It was, in fact, a surprisingly easy and creatively satisfying process. My main issue was getting over nerves at putting forward my ideas as one of us has several decades worth of experience in comics and one had several months. But Paul was very patient and supportive and promised to tell me if I did make a terrible suggestion. A+ co-writer. Would work with again.

Above, I present to you the second-greatest opening titles of eighties cartoons (the greatest is, of course, Thundercats). This was my magnificent introduction to Flash Gordon. My tiny self adored this show (and wanted to be Jedda), and it shaped my tastes in superheroes, and Flash Gordon is absolutely a superhero. I am, I confess, not terribly into superheroes generally speaking. Flash (and the rest of the Defenders), the X-Men (thanks to the S-tier nineties cartoon), and Michael Keaton’s Batman (and Adam West, but that’s a whole other fish kettle) are my guys. There are some others I quite like, but actual fannishness is reserved for this rarefied group.

So getting to actually write one of them was, well, it was the sort of delight I’d not even considered. And then it happened! And in such a wonderful way. For not only was it a joy to work with Paul, there was also the magic of Georges Jeanty’s magnificent art bringing the world and our words to life. I’m told the feeling of seeing what the artist has created from your words never gets old, which is very pleasing as it’s quite magical.

Flash Gordon Quarterly #7 is available to buy at Mad Cave for $6.99 in physical or digital editions.

(I’m saying professional comic writing debut as I will always consider my first comic to be Here Be Islands, I Presume, part of a series of one-pagers drawn by the rather brilliant PJ Holden.)