Pete Wisdom

I’ve been eagerly waiting to be able to talk about this for months now, and it’s finally been unveiled at this afternoon’s Marvel panel at the San Diego Comic-Con. The New Year before last, I made three resolutions, things I wanted to achieve in the next few years, and the first of them has now worked out. I’m going to be writing a comic for Marvel! It’s all thanks to comics writer Mark Millar, a mate and a gentleman, who made the introductions.

Wisdom is the story of X-Men supporting cast member Pete Wisdom, a British intelligence officer who works for MI-13, the department of the weird. He used to go out with Kitty Pryde (the girl in the X-Men movies who can move through solid objects… I’m writing this blog as always for many different audiences, some of whom won’t know any of this stuff). His team are all new characters, including John the Skrull, a shapeshifting alien invader from the 1960s who still looks and acts like John Lennon. And I get to use some of my favourite supporting cast members from various Marvel comics set in Britain.

You won’t need to know a thing about anything Marvel to enjoy the book, it’s entirely self-explanatory and looking for new readers.

The comic is in Marvel’s Max line, so it’s got an 18 certificate, the odd swearword, a dark sense of humour, nudity (infrequent, horny), a bit of sophistication, I like to think, and a lot of beery fighting. I hope the Britain it portrays feels real (especially the bits set in Wiltshire), even when we’re dealing with military missions against Fairyland.

The artist is the great Trev Hairsine, whose photo-realistic style and sense of storytelling and character make me look like I know what I’m doing. The editor is Nick Lowe, who's been laid-back and lovely throughout, and keeps making the best points about story, one of the best execs I've ever worked with in any medium.

Here’s the interview I’ve done with Newsarama, the comics website, about the project, complete with some lovely art (the colour piece is going to be the cover of the first issue):

http://www.newsarama.com/SDCC06/Marvel/Mondo/Wisdom.html

I can’t believe I got away with the helicopter-related double entendre in that interview, but when else am I going to get the chance to say that and it be true?

And here’s Pete’s entry on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Wisdom

I'll go the whole hog and provide the non-comics bods among our parishoners with details of how to order when the time comes. Got to do the audience crossover thing when one can.

I suppose I can't really decare the resolution sorted until the first issue's in my hands, but... oh, this'll do! Off to the bar I go! Wa-hey!