What went wrong? It was all going so well!

There are as many answers to that as you can find people to answer it. Everyone has their own take. There's a bitter taste in the mouths of a few, a touch of sadness for others. For me, I'd rather not dwell on the bad days, the gradual slide back into obscurity. For a moment there, Marvel UK was carving its own trench though the comics landscape, and making quite a noise about it. And I was there for the best of it.

Whatever Paul Neary was to anybody else, there are few people I personally have to thank more for getting my career off the ground. Before meeting Paul I had assisted the legendary Don Lawrence for a year and worked on some Judge Dredd stories for 2000ad. My knowledge of the US market was mainly based on childhood memories and the breakout titles of the 80s that you HAD to get; Watchmen, Dark Knight, etc. The mainstream superhero titles were not something I really followed at the time as I'd really harboured a hope to make it in Europe doing "Arzach" type stream of consciousness sci-fi/fantasy art. Paul took me under his wing, invited me to do a redesign of Deaths Head, and introduced me to the new wave of mainstream US talent like Jim Lee, Wilce Portacio and Todd McFarlane. Jim Lee in particular caught my eye, and I found myself devouring his work, just eating it up. It had scale, dynamics, and it was attractive. Sleek. I couldnt recall seeing anything as appealing in the mass market for years, other than the odd rare Barry Smith piece. Jim Lee showed me a new possibility through his work, and this new house style owed as much to the inking as anything else. You could do an approximation if you understood it. And I GOT it. It excited me.
It now seems like a very short time between my meeting Paul, and there being a shiny new design for Deaths Head in a Jim Lee-esque style in the pages of "Sales to Astonish". And the orders for a new Deaths Head title jumped from 30,000 to 300,000 almost over night.

The day those figures came in remains one of the all-time highs of my life. A few of us enjoyed a long, euphoric night in the Devereaux Inn, and we almost certainly had a curry at the end of it!

In fact, though, it had been a long year getting there. Paul was gearing everything up, and initially had nothing to offer me art-wise though he was determined to use me for something. He had me do a bunch of covers and promotional pieces. I did a Deathlok cover for Havoc that Bernie Jay coloured up, and some interior bits and bobs, but eventually work on Deaths Head II started. That in itself was not an easy situation as the creators of the original had had their noses not unsurprisingly put out by there being a new team brought in. Dan Abnett, who had formerly been an editor at Marvel UK, was to write it. I was to pencil, and Andy Lanning my old friend and partner in crime with whom Id shared a studio in Islington a couple of years earlier was to ink. Paul gave me some studio space in the old Marvel building in Temple, right at the top of the building overlooking the Thames and the South Bank. I could see St. Pauls Cathedral and the Houses Of Parliament from there, it was extraordinary. So together we set about creating this new character out of the old.

Marvel UK was like a family at this time. I loved being there. We worked hard and we played hard, and often I would stay in the building over the weekends to get my work done. Geoff Senior and I certainly had our share of all-nighters up there usually after wed cut ourselves a bit of slack and dropped into a nearby pub for one too many beers.
Indeed every night was a drink-up. Id either be with Harry Papodoplis, Chris Klar and Helen Carter, or Steve White, Helen Stone, John Freeman, Bambos, Stuart Bartlet, Louise Cassell, my wife-to-be Christina McCormack or any number of combinations of the afore mentioned, plus friends. Or Id be shooting the breeze over far too much wine or Port with Paul. These were happy days some of my very happiest. I learned so much about the industry, and I made some life-long friends. Indeed, in Christina, I found what would later become my ACTUAL family, and the mother of my children.

Time travel is a complex thing to start trying to tell simple stories about. In around ten months I had almost drawn the entire first issue of Deaths Head II twice before we were happy enough to move on to the next issue. It was clear by then it was going to be pretty big, so it had to be right. But just HOW big we could never have anticipated.

Deaths Head II came out, sold out, and went to fifth ink special reprints on both issues one and two. Suddenly I found myself a bit of a star. Wizard had me at number three in their hot new creators section. We were making waves in the US market. We were being taken seriously! I was even flown out to San Diego as a paid-for guest. Nothing in my life so far had prepared me for this, and I was swept up by it. Intoxicated.

Its hard to capture in this limited space just quite how much of an impact this time had on me, and Id be lying if I didnt admit to missing it. For me the Marvel UK offices are still there. The editors, as I remember them, are all in their offices. Theres the old Darlek in the reception. I could, if I wanted, jump into the archaic elevator to the top floor. Go and see whos working in my old studio space. At lunchtime a bunch of us might go and get an enormous burger at the American diner an incongruous silver caravan installed between two Victorian buildings just behind Fleet St.
The studio space had grown by the end. There was a full bullpen. Rodney Ramos, the inker, would come over from the US periodically, and the guitars would come out. He could sing La Bamba properly, being Puertorican after all, and myself and Bryan Hitch could belt out a chord or two. Edmund (Periman) Bagwell, our very dear friend whom I shared a flat with in Richmond, would be there with his marvellously sculpted miniature heads. (He liked to make them for reference.) The amazing Richard Dolan would be there at his easel. Completely colour blind, he would have to read the tubes to know what colour he was painting. Tim Gula, Andy Curry and so many more.

By the time Deaths Head II got to be an ongoing series sales were really peaking. Issue one launched with figures just shy of 500,000. It was a UK phenomenon. To this day, I believe, no other UK export to the US ever did so well. Stan Lee said to me three times in San Diego that year "Oh, you're the guy that did the cyborg! I love that Deaths Head guy!"
Jim Lee asked me to go and join him and his new company Image in La Hola - which I sadly declined. I honestly thought Deaths Head II would continue to grow and retain that level of success. Also I felt a strong loyalty to Paul, and was very much wanting to remain with Christina, who was not in a position to move out there at that time. We still hardly knew each other, but I was smitten.
So that was the year I hired a powerboat and took Christina out into the San Diego lagoon. We hung out with actors in LA, I was a Sheraton Hotel club member barely 23 years old. It was insane, wonderful, and unforgettable. In these much more modest times it feels good to recall having had at least a brief glorious taste of the good life.

Theres so much more to tell. "Bloodseed", my dream project that was meant to hark back to the old Warren comics. Getting to draw a couple of issues of the XMen. The politics and powerplays. The demands from Marvel US to produce more titles than we were able to realistically deliver. But I'll leave that for others. Paul Neary was an inspiration and a dear friend. Marvel UK gave me a base from which to grow.

1991 - 1993 was Marvel UKs Golden Age and don't let anybody tell you different!