1. For those new to Starhenge, what is it about? Ha! That's a tough one, as it's... complicated! The premise is that in the deep future there is a galactic battle going on between the sentient living worlds, and the CAST, which are AI robots that regard life as a scourge upon the natural order of things - pretty much a virus - so they want to wipe out all life. The only thing that can stand against the robots are the magical elements of the universe, so the CAST have found the source of magic, that being old earth, and are sending robots back through time to end all magic. The future humans respond in kind, and the Ur-Queen sends Mer-Lin back to the 5th Century to protect magic... There's a girl from our own time, Amber Weaver, who proves to be a linchpin, and who also has to travel back in time to help Mer-Lin. 2. What is the origin and influences on StarHenge, what was the creative process like doing the whole book solo. I've always been a huge lover of mythology, and the stories of Merlin and Arthur. The biggest source of inspiration was Geoffrey of Monmouth's work, in which we first hear about the wizard, and are introduced to a very different Arthur, long before the Thomas Mallory version... It proved a mammoth undertaking, as I was doing almost the entire thing single-handedly, including the lettering and design. But more than that, the story was just so damn complex, so finding a way to make it a fun, accessible read became a real challenge! That's why Amber ended up becoming the 'voice' of the book. Once she became the narrator it all became less ponderous, and much more fun. 3. Following that, what was promotions like with it being a creator own book. It was published through Image, but how was the overall experience different from doing books for Marvel and DC. Solo projects are tough! These days marketing mostly falls to the creator too, but as I was both author and artist it was massively daunting and a huge sap on my time and energy. I think it's the biggest issue creators face these days, unless they have a huge built-in legacy audience. We're all fighting for scraps and attention. It's incredibly hard to get the word out, especially with the advent of AI on top of the already frustrating algorithms online. 4. What are your future plans for Starhenge? Knowing what you know now on doing an indy book in todays market, what would you do differently going forward? I really don't know currently. The digital landscape is going through yet another revolution of sorts, and I'm not feeling very positive about it. We're becoming a legacy medium. Regular people not in the arts don't tend to appreciate the threat of AI to us. It's existential. We just have to dig in, somehow cultivate, respect and grow our audiences. People need to understand that when you support a human artist then you are connecting with not just a machine, but a community. It's a language, not just pictures. And it comes from a place that can only exist because of lived experience. The threat is that we're constantly being sold surface and illusion. We're forgetting how to deeply connect with each other. We'll get deeply invested in artefice now, and things that never lived or felt anything. But what's obvious to fans and creators of traditional art just isn't obvious to anybody raised without an appreciation of it. Those people often can't see or understand the difference, so it's up to us to educate them somehow. But we are a tiny minority in the grand scale of things, and a lot of people simply just don't care. And why should they? It barely registers in their world, their lives. They don't know it, they have never needed it, and so they don't miss it. 5. You’ve have had several amazing milestones in your career. Breaking out with Death’s Head II with Marvel UK. The creation of Madefire. Your DC runs of Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. And now your expanded Starhenge universe. What do you want to be remembered most for? What are you most proud of? Well I'm hoping my best stuff is yet to come, whatever that might be! So perhaps I'd like to be remembered for work I haven't even done yet! I'm very VERY proud of the Conan work I'm currently doing for instance! And my prose work - 'God Killers', 'Paradise Rex Press, Inc.', and a couple of other books due out hopefully this year, 'Caged Aurora' and a book of collected short stories - is material that tends to go a bit under the radar, but is well regarded and I'm very proud of it. I adore writing, so more of that maybe! And just generally, I'm proud to have been a good dad I think! We're a very close family. 6. What are some creators and books that influenced you as a fan and a creator? Too many to really get into, but my shelves creak under the weight of books by Bill Sienkiewicz, Frank Frazetta, Richard Corben, Barry Windsor Smith, John Buscema, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Michael Kaluta, Don Lawrence, Dave McKean, Moebius, Giger, Druillet... I could go on and on! Michaelangelo, the Pre Raphaelites, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema... 7. Currently what are some creators and books you are enjoying. I'm a bit in a legacy mode currently, and Derby doesn't have a comic shop, but I've been collecting the Dark Horse remastered (by Jose Vilarrubia) Richard Corben books. They are glorious! I also tracked down the incredibly rare 'Worms of the Earth' book adapted by Roy Thomas, BWS and Tim Conrad. That blew me away in 'Savage Sword' as a kid! Tim Conrad is hugely under-appreciated. 8. I know you’ve talked about it some before online but what is your views on AI as it pertains to art. How has AI affected you and your art in general? See above! 9. Being a Comic Industry Veteran, where do you see the industry going? Where would you like the industry to go? Man, I wish I knew. I hate to say I'm not terribly hopeful, but I'm not. It shrinks more and more every year as a medium it seems. On the other hand, there are more books and creators doing it than ever. So it may be that it's becoming - not even becoming, maybe it already is! - a boutique medium, a bit like craft beer. The music industry seems similar. There'll be the odd breakout title that hits a zeitgeist, and gets a mega TV series or movie, but comics themselves seem to consider sales as low as 3000 copies a success these days. It's such a tiny number, when you consider that some dancing or singing amateur teens on tick tock have fans in the millions. We're smallfry. I made the mistake of pointing out how sad it was that some AI artists have vastly more followers - in a matter of months sometimes - than many of us, who have been trying to build our followings for sometimes decades, only to be faced with the suggestion that maybe it was because my work wasn't up to much and I shouldn't blame AI. The algorithms aren't geared towards helping us, which is bad, because again, each of us with a few thousand followers is part of a far greater community and collective. I'm stumped on how we address that though. 10. For a new creator wanting to break into the comic industry, what would your advice be? If an aspiring creator wanted to get his book into readers hands, what would you generally suggest? I wrote about that on my SubStack actually! https://liamsharp.substack.com/p/getting-into-comics-and-publishing. It's a big subject, but it's the best answer I have. The reality is, there's no one way in. However any of us get through the door, that route closes immediately behind us. There's no clear path. But certainly self-publishing is the current best way to start, either online or via platforms like KickStarter. Get your work out there, and show you can build and engage with an audience! After that, it's just persistence! |
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