Lee Robson is the writer of the graphic novel Babble and a frequent contributor to many British independent titles, including Zarjaz, Futurequake, the Strontium Dog-inspired Dogbreath, Something Wicked and several of Accent UK‘s themed anthologies. He’s also penned a series of online daily strips featuring 2000AD‘s Judge Dredd for FutureQuakePress, which are collected here.
David Broughton has created his own comics, such as the brilliant Shaman Kane, Spectre Show and Martillo. He has also drawn various comic strips for 2000AD fanzines Zarjaz, Dogbreath and other small press publications.
Here’s an item on how David and Lee tackled a new Strontium Dog story, “No Choice At All” for Dogbreath, published earlier this year…
Johnny Alpha on the trail of an SD Agent gone bad. Art by David Broughton
“Way back in July 2012 I worked on a Judge Dredd story, ‘Big Jimping’ written by Lee Robson for the 2000AD fanzine Zarjaz,” Dave opens.. “When Dave Evans, the editor of Zarjaz and Dogbreath, sent me Lee’s script for Strontium Dog ‘No Choice at all’ I knew it was going to be a great story.”
“There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to come out and say it,” confesses Lee Robson, “But I’m not a massive fan of Strontium Dog. But, when editor extraordinaire Bolt-01 asked me to contribute a couple of scripts to Dogbreath, I stupidly said yes…
“I knew going in that I wanted to take another crack at Durham Red,” he continues. “With my first attempt, back in Dogbreath Issue 27, I never really got the character right, so I wanted to try again, with something more simple and straightforward. Once I started to lay out the foundations of what became ‘Like A Dog’ for Issue 31, one plot beat kept niggling away at me: Durham was set up to become the unwitting star of a “snuff” vid. But who had set her up?
“I knew it had to be another S/D agent, but if it wasn’t a personal grudge (which – spoilers! – it’s not), then it would stand to reason that she wasn’t the only Stront that was set up. And if agents were being set up, then, surely, Johnny Alpha was the man to get to the bottom of it…
“Once I started to connect those dots, ‘No Choice At All’ started to come together…”
A panel from “Durham Red – Like A Dog” by writer Lee Robson and artist Paul Williams, which also appears in Dogbreath 31
Creating the Story
“The idea was to set the story at the same time as ‘Like A Dog’, but also push away from the ‘Western in Space’ approach that I’d tried on my previous attempts at writing Alpha,” Lee continues. “This time, I decided, I’d set the whole thing in an urban environment and have Alpha on the run, because… Well, at the time, I didn’t know why he would be on the run. All I had was the idea of the story starting in the middle of a scene, with Alpha stranded on a ledge while the local police searched the room beyond. I knew I had to somehow connect that scene to the idea of Alpha trying to track down the traitor from The Doghouse, but I really couldn’t figure it out.
“After a lot of frustrating starts and stops, I finally managed to pull the story threads together – albeit very, very slowly – and started bridging all the gaps that would link the story to ‘Like A Dog’. My only problem was, I didn’t have an ending…
“By that, I mean – spoilers! – Alpha gets his man, but, the way the story unfolded, he was still wanted by the local police and trapped in an unfamiliar city, and I was running out of pages (I’d set myself a very rigid eight page target). So, I had to, basically, end it how I started it, in the middle of a scene.
“I was never completely happy with the ending I came up with, I’ll admit, but, by the time I got there, I was just glad to have the thing finished and submitted, and the lads at Zarjaz seemed to like it, so who was I to argue? Looking back it now, though, I kind of dig it…
“I got paired up with Paul Williams for ‘Like A Dog’ and David for ‘No Choice At All’. I’d worked with both of them before (both on Dredd tales for Zarjaz, oddly enough), and I knew both of them would bring their A Game, so I wouldn’t have to worry on that front. It’s fair to say, though, they both surprised me with what they came up with: Paul’s dynamic storytelling knocked me off my feet, and David came up with what has to be one of the best Strontium Dog designs I’ve ever seen, with the villainous Gil Gilman.
“From my perspective, it was an interesting experiment, trying to tell these two stories like that; it pushed me out of my comfort zone in more ways than one, and I learned a lot from trying it – mainly that I should never try it again…”
Strontium Dog Character design by David Broughton
Rough Designs and Page Layouts
“As usual before starting the finished page artwork I read the script a couple of times and then go about creating rough page layouts and character designs,” David says of his approach to drawing the strip.
“Nobody can draw Johnny Alpha as good as his co-creator Carlos Ezquerra. In fact (in my humble opinion) artists hoping to get anywhere close drawing a good Johnny Alpha need to almost mimic Carlos’s style… at least for the face. This is something that I had stuck to when drawing Johnny for previous Dogbreath scripts. This time, I decided to have a go at a little redesign on Johnny’s helmet, his clothes and try and put a little more of my ‘take’ on Johnny’s face.
Rough page layout for page one.
Finished pencils with adjusted panel layout for page one.
Finished inks and greytones for panel one of page one.
Rough page layout for page two
Finished pencils for page two with adjusted panel layout
Finished page inks using Rotring pens for outlines. Then Brush and ink for blocking.
Finished page with greytones which were added digitally.
Rough page layout for page three.
Second rough page layout, this time with more detail to make sure that I could get the dynamic poses that I wanted in the panels
Finished page pencils for page three
Rough page layout for page four
Finished page pencils for page four with slightly adjusted panel layouts
Rough page layout for page five. “I really wanted a larger splash panel for panel four so that David could do justice to the action,” he says.
David decided to have another go at designing the panellayout for page five – this time with a more dynamic panel popping panel five.
Rough layouts and designs for panel five
Finished pencils for page five. David dropped the dynamic panel five idea as seen in the second rough page layout.
Original page pencils for the sex workers
Page layout for page six
Second rough page layout with adjusted panel designs
Finished pencil for page six.
Rough page layouts for page seven
Second rough page layout with adjusted panel designs
Finished page pencils for page seven
Rough page layout for page eight
Finished pencils for page eight
“This was a great script which was fun to draw,” says David. “Lee really knows his Johnny Alpha thats for sure – no matter what he claims.”
Web Links
The amazing cover art by Steve Green. Featuring Matthew Simpson as Johnny Alpha & Kevin Horsham as Wulf Sternhammer who star in the Strontium Dog fan film. Link to the trailer here
David Broughton
• Strontium Dog ‘No choice at all’ appears in Dogbreath #31, which can be bought online via the Futurequake online shop here
• Visit David Broughton’s blog (where this article first appeared) for more information and illustrations at dbroughton.blogspot.co.uk email him at dbroughton@hotmail.co.uk tweet to him on twitter at @DbroughtonDavid or visit his online comic shop at comicsy.co.uk/dbroughton
• You can find Lee on Twitter @lee_robson, and his web-page Imaginary Stories is here
• For more about FutureQuake titles on the Quaequam Blog or go straight to their web site to buy both current and back issues: www.futurequake.co.uk
Strontium Dog and 2000AD © 2016 Rebellion Publishing Ltd.
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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.
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