Sci-fi – Hugo Boylan

FREE COMIC Death By Service

Well it’s been far too long since I’ve updated my website… I guess that means it’s time for you all to enjoy a FREE COMIC!

If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Facebook you already know that I’ve not been idle all this time, rather I’ve been doing a lot of writing and there will be more on that soon, but not today. Today is all about Death by Service. I’d love to say that Death by Service started life as an ambitious thought experiment on the disposability of human life, the hazards of war, and the prison industrial complex. I’d love to say all that, but while it might have become that after many hours staring at a computer screen and a scribble-filled A4 pad DbS was really born out of my own frustration with another short comic script that wasn’t working. At all.

I wanted to deal with war, yes, and the disposability of human life, but I couldn’t reconcile those themes with my story, my vehicle was broken and I needed a lot of new parts to make it go. Rather than continuing to work on a script that wasn’t going the right way I shelved the project and cannibalised some of the more enticing ideas and used an interesting frame to bring the whole thing together in DbS. What resulted was one of my tightest scripts to date, and a story I feel is up there with anything I’ve put out so far. Saying more would spoil the comic, so I’ll just shut up but in the mean time I’d just like to take a moment to praise Ahmed Rafaat for not only his excellent artwork, but his incredible, infectious enthusiasm for this project. He approached the script with a energy that translated on to the page and brought a great liveliness in the art and storytelling to an otherwise morbid story. I can honestly say he gave it his all and was never shy to suggest a way to improve the pacing of a scene.

OK that’s more than enough from my head.

Art by: Ahmed Rafaat

Letters by: Kerrie Smith

Script by: Some guy

COMING TO THOUGHT BUBBLE: BLACK, WHITE AND GREY

I’m delighted to announce that Rapha Lobosco and I will be collecting our short comics in one shiny collection at Thought Bubble! With letters and book design by Kerrie Smith, BLACK, WHITE AND GREY promises to deliver some strange and thoughtful stories!

BLACK, WHITE AND GREY collects the critically acclaimed MURPHY’S DAY, the award-winning HEAVY BLACK, the action packed DAY JOB, a brand new short story DREAMWEAVER and as a bonus a preview for a new Graphic Novel BLACK NEPTUNE.

Black Neptune, Cover – Rapha Lobosco

One final thank you has to go out to Comic Printing UK for their outstanding customer service, this book may not have come together without them!

Heavy Black Script

Heavy Black was originally scripted in early 2014 as a writing exercise.

Titan Comics had put out a call for 6 page stories dealing with a “lost in space theme”, and that struck me as a great opportunity to play with monster horror and to work on rapid tension building.

In 2015 comic artist Rapha Lobosco approached me for script samples to practice on. He took to Heavy Black and asked if we could produce the short comic for that year’s Comic City Festival. The final edition of Heavy Black deviates from the script in a few ways. For example, we felt that a seventh page would allow for the gravity of Charlie’s decision to stick with the reader. There are several other small differences between the finished product and the script (revealing Charlie’s face immediately and ditching her plasma torch early on being two of the most prominent), I find this is a normal teething process for any collaboration. A script should inspire an artist, not dictate to them.

Script by Hugo Boylan

Cover art by Manny Clark

Letters by Kerrie Smith