Countdown to Lawless 2025: An Interview with Aly Fell

By Richard Sheaf on May 11, 2025 • ( 0 )

Ahead of Lawless 2025, taking place in Bristol soon, Richard Sheaf catches up with some of the guests at this major event. This time out, it’s artist Aly Fell…

Lawless Comic Convention is a British based not for profit comic convention organised by fans and for fans, with a strong focus on 2000AD. Tickets are available online – they will not be available on the door – so book now

Countdown to Lawless 2025: An Interview with Aly Fell

Creator of award winning graphic novel, A Trick of the Light and its follow up, The Kissing Gate, Aly is an indie comics artist based in Manchester. To the Waters and the Wild is tentatively due out in 2025.

You’ve not been to Lawless before – what have you heard about it as convention? What are you expecting?

Before I became fully aware of it, I’d imagined it was similar to the old Bristol Cons that I first attended about 12+ years ago at the Ramada and the Brunel Train Station, but it’s clearly more focussed than those. I understand it to be very friendly, full of enthusiastic comic folk, which sounds good to me. Also, I believe there may be a bar involved. As for what I’m expecting: I remember seeing stormtroopers directing traffic outside the hotel back then, so I do hope the Judges can step up at Lawless. It’s not all chasing perps: there has to be some neighbourhood work as well.

How did you go about securing an invitation to Lawless? Did you reach out to Su Hadrell to pitch yourself as an attendee or did she get in touch with you directly?

Su asked me via messaging, so I’m very grateful to her. She thought I might be a suitable fit, probably as a result of the Misty gig. I’ve never solicited a place at a convention, it wasn’t something I was aware people did. However I have been asked to do a couple over the years, but that generally wasn’t on the strength of comic work. I’d worked with Matt Dixon, of Transmissions Robots fame, and knew illustrator Anne Stokes (check their work out). Matt and I were both doing fairly ironic and tongue-in-cheek pin-up art, so we exhibited together in Bristol back then. In fact my good friend Matt, who was my ‘gopher’ in those days is returning with me this time, which is very generous of him.

*The proof cover for the hardcover edition of A Trick of the Light by Aly Fell*

*A variant cover by Aly Fell produced for Shane Chebsey at Scratch Comics Publications and Peter Hogans Black Forests*

There’s a strong 2000AD influence at Lawless – were you a 2000AD reader as child? Or did you come to it later in life?

Action (the proto-2000AD,in many ways) was my thing. I remember buying the first issue, which I still have, probably because I’d not long since seen Jaws and the cover had Hook Jaw all over it. There was something nefariously thrilling about that comic. I did read some early 2000AD, but for the most part it passed me by (back then anyway), and I’ve not really any idea why. Most of these things are down to timing, but we’re talking forty years ago and I’d be guessing at reasons, however I did come to it later. I don’t think I’m alone in the fact I “rediscovered” comics round about the time of Watchmen, Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Killing Joke etc. One of the reasons I have a lot of time for Alan Moore.

For much of the 1980s I was drawing – I’ve always drawn – but it was the animation world I moved in. However, I was a bus ride away from Odyssey 7 at the University in Manchester where I met people like Bill Sienkiewicz and got his autograph. That said, John Geering of “Bananaman” fame was one of those who helped me get my job in animation.

If you have one…who’s your favourite 2000AD character (and why)?

Halo Jones. My partner introduced me to her properly and she’s great. Now she is a strip I wish I’d discovered earlier. Why? Female character in a pretty much male dominated scene, both in reality and the comic. And the thing is Halo Jones didn’t feel like a substitute female just doing what blokes do: she felt broader than that.

Aly Fell's line-art for the first page of "The Pub at the End of the Road" by the amazing Gail Simone for the upcoming Misty.

For 2000AD you’ve worked on the Misty special – are there other strips you’d like to work on?

I’m always open, to offers, but these days I’m concentrating on my own stories. Misty was great, because I got to work with some excellent folk, not least Gail Simone. However my style, although mostly digitally drawn, is quite involved and to some extent “old-fashioned”, but it suits what I want to do. If a publisher thinks it appropriate for their project, then great. Although I’ve said this before and believe it utterly true, if you have your own ideas in your head, and like me you’ve reached a certain point in your life, then it is your responsibility to yourself to make them happen as soon as you can, because when else are you going to?

Are there other guests who you’re particularly looking forward to seeing at Lawless and, if so, why?

I tried to emulate Brian Bolland’s beautifully rendered line work when I was an animator, at least to draw my own pieces. I used Rotrings back then and Frisk CS10 board (if you know, you know). I still have about 10 sheets of CS10 and it was the best surface for fine ink work. It had a coating of thin clay and was so smooth, and I always wondered if Mr Bolland used it. I’d like to say hello to him. But I don’t want to pick people out – just wallow in the skills and talent, and absorb the scene… man…

What can folks expect to find on your Lawless table? Sketches? Prints? Original art? Comics?

I’ll be bringing a selection of prints, older pieces, a few original drawings and my publications. I’m embedded in the next book at the moment so I don’t have much new to present until that is finished, but I’ll bring what I can. I’ll be doing sketches. At the last event I attended, someone asked for a Danger Mouse sketch and, suddenly, I was inundated. So I’ll do some more of him and Count Duckula if people ask nicely. I tried to draw Penfold recently and I’m damned if I can remember how to!

What projects are you currently working on? Anything that folks might get a sneak peak of at Lawless?

I’ll bring pages or prints from the new book, the ‘follow-on’ from The Kissing Gate, which came out last year, and its predecessor A Trick of the Light. Provisionally called To the Waters and the Wild, it’s a faery story of sorts, but set in the 1920’s at a school in Devon. It’s also a love story.

Angled Cintiq grab from work-in-progress on Aly Fell’s latest project, excluding dialogue. “Sometimes I prefer my rough pages, if that isn't too egotistical a thing to say,” he explained on Facebook, “but a lot can change between early stages and finals... The story takes its own pace to tell, as I do with drawing it, and is fairly… quiet, which feels like an uphill struggle these days in a world that screams at you.” — Angled Cintiq grab from work-in-progress on Aly Fell’s latest project, excluding dialogue. “Sometimes I prefer my rough pages, if that isn’t too egotistical a thing to say,” he explained on Facebook, “but a lot can change between early stages and finals… The story takes its own pace to tell, as I do with drawing it, and is fairly… quiet, which feels like an uphill struggle these days in a world that screams at you.”

I’d like to bring copies of The Shadow Glass, my first comic from 2015-ish published by Dark Horse. However, I have no copies left and no idea how to get any in the UK, particularly as importing anything from the US right now is absurd. I intend to investigate publishing it as my own edition, perhaps with some judicious editing. There’s an entire sequel that follows the further adventures of Madimi/Rosalind from The Shadow Glass involving pirates, and I do want to finish that one day. However, as I’m now more settled with what I want to do with comics, it may be a while.

Where can people find you on the internet?

My website – darkrising.co.uk – is still in a state of flux, but it does link to other places, mostly the usual ones, as long as they remain conducive in the tumultuous world of unempathic tech overlords: BlueSky, Etsy, Facebook and Instagram.

If there’s anything else you want to mention then please just do so.

Yes, be kind to each other, and don’t use AI. 🙂

• Lawless Comic 2025 Saturday 24th – Sunday 25th May 2025, Doubletree by Hilton Hotel, Bristol | Tickets are available online – they will not be available on the door – so book now | Web: lawlesscomiccon.co.uk | Facebook | YouTube