Baillie debuts in 2000AD

By John Freeman on November 7, 2008

Comics artist and writer David Baillie, creator of indie strips such as Writer and Monkey and already a contirbutor to titles such as Judge Dredd: The Megazine, Tripwire and Accent UK’s anthologies Zombies, Robots and Westerns, has his first ever story in 2000AD this week, and tells downthetubes he is “completely over the moon.”

In fact, as a longtime 2000AD fan, he’s so delighted he’s written what he loosely describes as a “bit of a love letter to the comic” on his blog.

“I can chart most of my life through 2000AD,” he reveals, “and remember exactly what I was doing and what was going on when any given story was running. Rifling through my back issue collection when I visit my parents is like picking up and dipping into the diary that I never wrote.”

His Future Shock for Issue 1611 is drawn by another relative newcomer to 2000AD, Nick Dyer, whose past credits include strips for the 2000AD comics fanzine Zarjaz.

David’s most recent book projects include Heart Sense for Heartshield Ltd. and illustrations for Net Media UK’s Sleep Therapy. His latest comics are Tongue of the Dead and RocketBoy.

Elsewhere, animator David Hailwood has animated a couple of Baillie’s Zombies Interviews strips from Accent UK’s Zombies book published last year. “I think they’re really cool, and I believe the plan is to do a couple more, possibly with some UK Indie celeb voices,” says David.
They also feature on Baillie’s blog here.

Finally, David’s autobiographical comic The Belly Button Bubble Chronicles is trundling back to life after a break of a few weeks. “I’m hoping to finish it off before the year is out,” says david, “meaning (fingers crossed) I’ll have drawn 52 episodes in 64 weeks.”

• New updates at http://davidbaillie.net/

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.