Catching Up with Old Friends

By John Freeman on April 22, 2004

Dropped in Lancaster’s John O’Gaunt on Market Street for lunch. They do something called a “late breakfast”. How late can a late breakfast be? Whatever. One of Lancaster’s few remaining decent pubs — it’s not tied to any brewery and so has a varied range of beers, whiskys etc. It’s also renowned for jazz, folk and other live music and the bogs have some great cartoons on the walls.

Been catching up with some old comics friends recently — Dave Gibbons, Richard Starkings, Lew Stringer. We all got our break into comics at more or less the same time back in the 1980s and have been sort or reminsicing about old comic marts and drinking sessions. I suspect it’s all a ploy for a major beer session at the British Comics Festival in Bristol, in May.

Like I’m going to fall for that old trick…

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.