Cover art by Paul Hanley. Cover design by Cody Schell.
Selina
Selina has been struggling to write for a variety of reasons, she is halfway through writing a long overdue novella for Obverse Books. She has been procrastinating by making cards, junk journals and indulging in other crafting. She did manage to get a couple of short stories published:
This story came out of a “creative writing workshop run by the ‘Reimagining the Restoration’ project. The workshop introduced members of the public to new research on Pepys’s diary, with a focus on figures from groups that are under-represented in standard historical sources.”
It was an excellent online workshop which inspired me to write this story about Pepys’s maid servant Jane Birch, based on one of the anecdotes in his diary.
Live readings of the stories took place as part of an online event and the writers agreed that the tales should also be made available as a free to read ebook.
Dreamland: Other Stories was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Society Best Anthology Award in 2022.
I was very pleased to have a story in this fabulously weird anthology, alongside some of the best horror/surrealist/sff female-identifying writers around. My story was inspired by a photo I saw of a neon salesman’s sample case circa 1935.
Jay writes – Now that we have the Factor Fiction website back up and open for business again, and seeing that we’ve not posted since 2019, I should say something about what I’ve been up to since then. Well, for starters, the pandemic had a massive impact on my writing. For a long time, I just couldn’t put fingers to keyboard on anything beyond the odd social media post. Any creative writing became like pulling teeth, and all my usual strategies to get me writing failed. So, not very much to report, I’m afraid. There’s a lot of projects in process, but incomplete, and not in a place I can talk much about at this stage.
But, in terms of things I’ve written that you could, should you desire, seek out and read, the lion’s share of my fiction is in my involvement with Obverse Books’ Doctor Who-adjacent Forgotten Lives short story anthologies.
Drawn from what was until relatively recently, a single mention in any TV Doctor Who story (1976’s Tom Baker story The Brain of Morbius), the “Morbius Doctors” were a series of eight faces that popped up on screen during a mental battle between Time Lords. When the Doctor is winning, the images are those of Morbius and his past incarnations, but then the tide turns, and Morbius pushes the Doctor back through his past lives. The idea suggests that when you reach the earliest point in their life, they’ll likely die. An interesting conceit, and a good way of reminding viewers of the actors who played the role over the years. All well and good, but Baker becomes Pertwee, Troughton and “the First Doctor”, Hartnell. And keeps going…
The Fourth Doctor matches wits with Morbius, in the Brain of Morbius.
Eight more unfamiliar male Caucasian faces, some bearded, all dressed flamboyantly. It would later turn out that the models for these figures were all members of the production team. Directors, producers and writers, let loose to play dress-up in the BBC wardrobe. No onscreen explanation offered, but the logic of the story is pretty clear. The First Doctor was not first at all. Reconciling that with The Three Doctors, where Hartnell meets his future selves and cries “So there are three of me now!” suggests that the Doctors we’re familiar with do not remember their lives before Hartnell.
Most of the Morbius Doctors, as they appeared onscreen.
Whether the producers had any intent to revisit the idea or intended it just as a bit of fun, no TV story touched the idea with a barge pole until relatively recently with Chris Chibnall’s “Timeless Child” storyline, and Russell T Davies has referred to it again in the most recent series.
Forgotten Lives was born in order to explore what sort of personalities these pre-Hartnell Doctors might have.
Designed to be tonally different, each could be a bit Doctorish at times, but capable of acting very differently. I tend to think of it as the story arc of Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. At first, very unlike Bond, but as he goes, we see him becoming more familiar, and the soundtrack reinforces it with little stings of the Bond theme at appropriate moments.
Those of us who were chosen to embody these new incarnations had certain strictures placed upon us. Things that weren’t revealed in the show until later couldn’t be used, so while the Doctor’s homeworld could appear, we couldn’t call it Gallifrey, for example. All we had to go on was one or two still photographs of the “actors” in costume and the order in which the incarnations fell. Knowing who they were (such as Producer Philip Hinchcliffe and Script Editor Robert Holmes), there were interviews and promotional appearances to draw on if we wanted to. The actors cast as the Doctor have always added elements of their own personality to their portrayal, so it made sense to me to add little bits of Robert Holmes’ personality into the mix for my 7th Morbius Doctor. For starters, he absolutely had to be a pipe smoker. I wanted my Doctor to be a lone wolf. Doctor Who meets John Le Carre, if you will, he’s an intergalactic spy, an agent on behalf of his people (something the Doctor has done at times), but entirely against his wishes. If he was ever an idealist, service has soured him, much as it did to Alec Leamas in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. As much as he’s working to fulfil his mission, he’s working towards escape from servitude too. In the promotion we did for Forgotten Lives, I was asked to use three words to describe the Holmes Doctor. I said “Ten. Steps. Ahead.”
Parallel to the writing of our Forgotten Lives stories, artist Paul Hanley was producing portraits of the Morbius Doctors, and I was lucky enough to have his interpretation of the Holmes Doctor and his glorious TARDIS console room design to look at while I was investing life into the character, so I could incorporate elements I particularly liked into my story. It made perfect sense to combine efforts and so Paul’s wonderful likenesses became part of the first volume, both interior and as the cover artwork. I’m especially chuffed that HolmesDoc is front and centre on the cover and the Doctors are all in “my” TARDIS.
Cover art by Paul Hanley. Cover design by Cody Schell. The Holmes Doctor front and centre in the blue cape.
Because of BBC copyright, doing anything with these characters has always been the province of fan writers, so the Forgotten Lives books were done as strictly limited editions, with profits going to Alzheimers charities. The book sold well and was warmly received. Those who contributed stories leapt at the chance to tell another, and so Forgotten Lives 2 came about, and then a hardback collection of books 1 and 2. And still, we weren’t quite done. Some time later, editor Phil Purser-Hallard had an overarching story idea for Forgotten Lives 3, and asked if we had one more story to tell that would fit within the frame?
To begin with, I wasn’t at all sure that I did. I’d jumped at the chance to write the regeneration story for my Doctor. I had a very strong vision for how I thought his end would come, and story threads I wanted to pay off, so I didn’t want anyone else to do it. Bad enough if they did it “wrong” (insofar as how I see it), but worse if their idea was better…
Certainly, the Holmes Doctor would have an important place in the Forgotten Lives 3 story, not least because of his position as the penultimate incarnation, but as the Cold Warrior, his incarnation would make sense to be the one in the big third act battle with all the fireworks. The more I thought about it, the more pieces slotted into place. I looked at what I’d done before with the character, which tropes of spy fiction I’d employed and which ones I hadn’t. I drew from John Le Carre for the first story: The Other Side. The second one, as the last Holmes Doctor story, I wanted to go bigger and more cosmic, so Ian Fleming informed the themes of Borrowed Time. For my final (to date) story: Who Needs Enemies, I looked to Len Deighton for inspiration. I’ve made no attempt to pastiche the authors’ writing styles, just imbued some of the concerns that they wrote about into the mix.
I don’t think I have any more tales of the Robert Holmes Doctor to tell, but I’ve said that before!
Since Forgotten Lives 3 was published, Doctor Who has returned to television again with the second age of Russell T Davies and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors. And again, the Morbius Doctors have made a brief appearance. Another artist, Raine Schramski has been working her way through a series of painted portraits of each incarnation. I’ve seen the (already amazing) “rough sketches” that have been published, and enjoying the unveiling of each finished portrait. I’ve a little while to wait until mine takes his turn in the light. So for an idea that started as a bit of fun in a single episode of 1976 Doctor Who, the Morbius Doctors have walked a long road. Forgotten Lives? Forgotten no more, I guess!
I’m slowly working my way back into researching and writing my non-fiction book. As I work I’m coming across little nuggets of information, or images, that are interesting but relevant to my project.
I’ve started sharing these gems on social media and thought it would be nice to round them up on the blog every so often…
From Girl Annual 2 (1954):
This article seems to be promising a lot if it can tell you the secret of ‘How to make a cat your friend and companion’From Karrini’s Charm written by Rosemary Garland and illustrated by H. Tamblyn-Watts. Vampire Easter Island type heads?!
From Girl Annual 3 (1955):
These were mainly to amuse my sister who works for Swim England.Fun?
Children’s Comics – A Guide for Parents & Teachers by George H. Pumphrey
Pumphrey considered many comics to be harmful for children, as can be seen by the further images below. As can be seen he was a proponent of Dr Fedric Wertham’s (now disputed) work in America that contributed to getting comics banned & the creation of the comics code. See: Seduction of the Innocent.
Thanks to writer Stephen Gallagher for letting me know on Twitter that Pumphrey features in the comics history book – Haunt of Fears by Martin Barker that explores the banning of horror comics in the UK and how the British Communist Party were involved!
Photo courtesy of Dave McKinnon & Gary Spencer-Millidge
We asked Dave about his memories of the Independents Days events, as we knew he and Terry had taken part in them in the early days of publishing Sleaze Castle.
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SO MANY things to talk about my time with Terry:
daft antics at University…
working on the SF Soc magazine …
after Uni, EVEN MORE daft antics with the Goon Show Preservation Society (disrupting and upsetting the “old guard” with our radical ideas)…
Alcohol was consumed (but not by Terry)
Terry writing and performing – notably, a pitch-perfect monologue in the style of Ronnie Barker…
us meticulously editing cut-up audio cassette montages…
randomly falling into unprompted unrehearsed “sketches” – I particularly remember the pair of us spontaneously ‘becoming’ Gilbert and George at a party at Bryan Talbot’s house….
but I’ve been asked to recall
Independents Day – 1 and 2 and the Cerebus Spirits of Independence tour
Through Mark and Stephen at Page 45, we managed to piggyback onto a UK tour they’d arranged for the CEREBUS team of Dave Sim and Gerhard – each stop had guest local creators, and we got the Newcastle gig.
There we were: Dave Sim, Ger, with me and Terry right next to them – seemingly sketching, signing and selling as many books as they were!! I mostly recall, however, being horribly nervous and babbling babbling babbling non-stop. God knows what they must have thought of me. Terry, of course, just quietly got on with doing great drawings. Needless to say, alcohol was consumed (but not by Terry).
On the back of that, Page 45 later ran a couple of promotional events – the Independents Days. Amazingly, despite our (my) bad behaviour, we were invited to both.
The first was upstairs in the store – Terry and I, Donna Barr, Roberta Gregory, Gary Spencer Millidge, Paul Grist(?)… as well as a gathering of various notable UK small-pressers in unofficial capacities. My first recollection was of being HORRIBLY HORRIBLY late – we got stuck in traffic for the Nottingham Goose Fair. Cue several panicked, stressed phone-calls to the store – who had an increasingly impatient
queue out of the door and down the street…
A massive day of sales and new contacts. Donna Barr storming down the street, declaiming “Lead! Follow! or Get Out Of The Way” Alcohol was consumed (but not by Terry). During the day Terry and I came down with some sort of hideous throat lurgy, which we managed to pass on. By the end of the day, we could barely talk (or breathe!) – there’s a photo somewhere of me, Terry, Donna, and Roberta slumped against each other in a Nottingham Street – “the sick people of comix”
The following year, ID2 – hugely expanded and relocated to a Nottingham hotel. Me and Terry, and a roomful of UK indie comix greats … and Dave Sim and Gerhard again, from Canada. Another massive day, with great exposure for all of us.
This ended with The Night Of The “Big Tab” – Dave and Ger hosted us all in the hotel bar, saying just to put anything we wanted ON THE BIG TAB. MUCH alcohol was consumed. Terry drank coke, wafted cigarette smoke away, and put up with our rowdy behaviour.
The next day, whilst I groaned and pushed my breakfast around my plate, Terry cheerfully tried to explain Vic and Bob’s Shooting Stars (particularly “The Dove From Above” to an absolutely baffled and very hung-over Dave Sim and Gerhard. I eventually sobered up enough to drive home at about tea-time.
Last Thursday I was supposed to take part in a talk and discussion at work about our favourite LGBTQ+ comic books and graphic novels. Unfortunately, I couldn’t because I’m taking part in the University & College Union (UCU) strike over pensions.
So, here’s a quick blog post covering some of what I planned to say…
Strangers in Paradise, Volume One by Terry Moore (Published 1995)
I’ve always attributed the start of my journey into becoming a comics fan in the late 1990s to reading Strangers in Paradise. At the time superhero comics didn’t appeal and I wasn’t aware of the other genres of comics that were out there. The I read Strangers in Paradise… This had women I could relate to – Francine was curvy, got embarrassed, cried, made regrettable decisions and wanted to be loved. Katchoo was sassy, protective, artistic and had major anger issues! This was a funny, slice of life comic, featuring love triangles and revenge – very different to other comics I’d seen.
We only get a glimpse of a LGBTQ+ relationship in the first volume when we find out that Katchoo is in love with Francine, but over the next eighteen volumes we see a range of relationships and sexualities (against a backdrop of organised crime). Moore continues to portray LGBTQ+ characters in his more recent work like horror series Rachel Rising.
Katchoo longs for Francine’s love.
Pedro and Me by Judd Winick (Published 2000)
This was probably the first autobiographical graphic novel I read (alongside Maus) and autobiographical/biographical comics have become one of my favourite genres. There is something about the medium of comics that brings an extra dimension to life stories that works well for me.
It’s the story of Winick’s time on MTV’s The Real World: San Francisco in 1994 and his friendship with fellow housemate, HIV-Positive AIDS educator Pedro Zamora. I had never heard of Winick or seen any of the MTV series, but it makes no difference as everything you need to know is portrayed in the comic.
Winick reflects on the stereotypical idea he had of an AIDS patient – reinforced by media coverage at the time.
We get a feel for Winick’s and Zamora’s lives before the show, how their friendship developed during the show and the tragedy of Zamora’s death from AIDS. There are many moving moments in the book, from Winick examining the prejudices he had about HIV-positive people before meeting Pedro, to showing Pedro in action as a AIDS educator, to Pedro and his boyfriend Sean’s commitment ceremony (the first to ever be televised in the US) and, of course, the grief following Pedro’s death.
Pedro uses humour to get his message across during his AIDS education lectures
Winick uses black and the image of Pedro’s hospital bed fading into the distance to convey shock and grief.
Stuck Rubber Baby by Howard Cruse (Published 1995)
Stuck Rubber Baby is a fictional comic, but it draws heavily on Cruse’s own life in the American South in the 1960s and includes real events that happened in the fight for Civil Rights. The story revolves around Toland Park, a young gay white man in small town America and how his involvement with the civil rights movement becomes intertwined with his own battle to accept being gay.
Cruse portrays the murder of a black man at the hands of the KKK. Another panel makes the point that they never call the man by his name (Sledge), but only refer to him as Rastus.
Last Tuesday Jay and I nipped over to Nottingham for an evening of comicky goodness. We headed to Nottingham Writer’s Studio for the bi-monthly meeting of Nottingham Does Comics, who kindly hosted us as guest speakers back in June.
This time around, the guests were Magoria Studios co-founders: writer William Starling and illustrator Adam Willis, and Drugs & Wires webcomic creator Cryoclaire (aka Mary Safro).
William and Adam talked about the steep learning curve of jumping into comic creation and setting up Magoria Studios as a comics publisher. They had initially planned on working on a wide-ranging mythological based graphic novel series, but soon realised that it would be best to put out a few short one-shot comics first. Their first publication was a short comic called Filigree.
They’ve been doing lots of work behind the scenes to establish themselves as a business, looking at distribution routes and mentoring new creators. They are hoping to have lots more comics out soon, starting with the younger reader aimed Drones.
Cryoclaire has been publishing her webcomic Drugs & Wires for two years and has gained a loyal following for this alternative past cyberpunk tale. She talked about how the comic came into existence due to posting sketches of the characters and setting online – this led to people asking when she’d be doing a webcomic. On admitting that she wasn’t a writer as such, one of her online friends suggested that they work on the storylines/writing together and she gained her writer Io Black. The two live in different countries and mainly work via online chat and skype.
We picked up the first two printed issues of the comic on the night and the third issue at Thought Bubble a few days later (as we are terrible at reading comics online and prefer good ole dead tree). Highly recommended and if you’re not luddites like us you can read all the story so far online.
There were lots of questions for the speakers and then a chance to natter to other attendees, and it was all highly enjoyable.
We’re hoping to make it to the next meeting on Tuesday 14th November & you should to, as they have an excellent line-up in the form of Corinne Pearlman, Jade Sarson & Sally Jane Thompson.
Five Leaves Graphic
Before the NDC meeting, we also popped into Five Leaves Bookshop for a meeting with my editor and publishers at Five Leaves Publishing. Five Leaves are a radical, literary and political small independent press who have been publishing books since 1996 and running Five Leaves Bookshop since 2013.
One of their latest initiatives is Five Leaves Graphic – an imprint for comics, graphic novels and related books. Their first publication was East of Aleppo – Bread, Bombs and Video Clips, by Brick.
I’m working on a book for them about my own personal journey researching the history of women working in British comics. I’m aiming to give an overview of the many women that have contributed to the industry from the 1860s to the present day. It won’t be comprehensive, as I’ll be concentrating on the stories that interest or resonate with me, but I hope it will showcase the largely ignored history of women in comics. The writers, artists, editors, publishers, letterers, colourists, designers, art editors etc…
Provisional Cover – Illustration by Marie Duval from Judy 1860s
Our visit to Thought Bubble at the weekend proved once again that there can be no denying the huge talent pool of women currently working in comics in the UK!
Fiction | Non-fiction | Poetry | Plays | Artist books | Magazines | Journals
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We’ll have stock of a variety of our publications on the stall. Including:
Cover by Jay Eales
A zine raising money for HOPE not hate and including prose, poetry, comics and more by lots of local Leicester writers.
Two new collections of Lee Kennedy’s autobiographical comics.
We’ll also have a handful of copies of the latest book that includes short stories by Jay & myself:
That night I dream about Whitby.
It’s the place that Effie says I belong to. I’m sitting in a cosy room, with a small window overlooking a storm-lashed town. I can hear the sea, an endlessly restless noise. The fire crackles in the grate and I’m sipping a very sweet and delicious drink from a tiny glass. The woman called Effie is sitting across the room from me, but goodness – she looks ancient. She’s like a wizened old hag sitting there.
Effie is talking in between sips of sherry and she’s making plans. Plans of action, of attack. We’re involved in a kind of… yes, series of adventures. She’s talking like the whole world is depending on our working together to foil not one but several kinds of evil menace.
What a bloomin’ palaver!
Nine brand new stories about Brenda and Effie’s adventures in Whitby by Greg Maughan, Jay Eales, Tony Jones, Andrew Lawston, Matthew Bright, Morgan Melhuish, Neil O’Brien, Nicholas Campbell and Selina Lock, with a prologue by Paul Magrs.
We’re also hosting some friends’ books on the stall:
Purple Prose: Bisexuality in Britain is the first of its kind: a book written for and by bisexual people in the UK. This accessible collection of interviews, essays, poems and commentary explores topics such as definitions of bisexuality, intersections of bisexuality with other identities, stereotypes and biphobia, being bisexual at work, teenage bisexuality and bisexuality through the years, the media’s approach to bisexual celebrities, and fictional bisexual characters.
Filled with raw, honest first-person accounts as well as thoughts from leading bisexual activists in the UK, this is the book you’ll buy for your friend who’s just come out to you as bi-curious, or for your parents who think your bisexuality is weird or a phase, or for yourself, because you know you’re bi but you don’t know where to go or what to do about it.
Plus this novel by local author and fellow Speculator Daniel Ribot:
Ludmilla Vatinashkaya already struggles to balance the challenges of marriage and family with her promising career as a captain in Stalin’s army when she is ordered to direct Vampsov, a covert unit created to fight the most implacable enemies of the Soviet Union: vampires. Astonished and initially skeptical, Ludmilla takes her unit on a thrilling and violent trail of destruction as Vampsov hunts down the blood sucking enemies of Socialism. With the help of Vassily, a dark and brooding creature who denies his very nature for his love of the fledgling Soviet state, they confront the most notorious monster of all in his Transylvanian lair.
Vampsov 1938, brings to life in luscious detail the Stalin-era Soviet Union. Daniel Ribot has beautifully navigated this turbulent page of history to create an an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride that’s hard to put down and impossible to forget.
Upstairs at Firebug (1 Millstone Lane, Leicester, LE1 5JN)
3-5pm, Saturday 3rd December
There will be a panel discussion, raffle and readings, and fine company. Also, cake.
Several local contributors will be taking part in the launch, including Rod Duncan, Jay Eales, Jenny Walklate, Ambrose Musiyiwa, Will Ellwood, Penny Jones & Cynthia Rodriguez.
The cake will be free, but the zine will cost you a fiver.
Do Something is a zine that came about as a result of the EU Referendum and the rise in hate crime that followed.
We sat in shock for a few days, and wondered what if anything we could do. We saw others in our social media feeds who seemed similarly lost. We put out a call to arms to the writers, the artists, the poets and comic creators. The political cartoonists. Many from Leicester, but also from much further afield. We called and they answered. Leicester based novelist Rod Duncan. Political cartoonist for the Morning Star, BlueLou. Mike Carey, writer of X-Men and The Girl With All the Gifts. What we originally expected to be a 24 page photocopied effort ended up a professionally published 72 page beast.
All profits from sales of Do Something go to the charity Hope Not Hate, which sums up the ethos of the project. It may not be a big thing, but as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. We hope that you will join us in adding to the sum of Hope and tipping it away from Hate.
If you are unable to join us for an event, but would like to buy a copy of the zine then please PayPal £6.50 (includes UK p&p) plus your delivery address to [email protected]
