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Iain Banks, Captain Britain and Gordon Brown
‘The good news: no more six in the morning phone calls from Gordon ... The bad news: he's coming round in person.'
It’s been quite a week. On Monday and Tuesday, I was in Manchester, recording my BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Iain M. Banks’ 'The State of the Art'. I’ve never been involved in radio drama before, and it was a very pleasurable experience. We had a cracking cast, in the form of Sir Antony Sher as the Ship, Nina Sosanya as Sma, and Paterson Joseph as Linter (with Brigit Forsyth, Graeme Hawley and Conrad Nelson playing all the other parts). The power of some of that voice acting! And such nice people in person.
Unlike in television, there’s a place in studio for the writer of a radio play. I sat next to the lovely Nadia Molinari, the producer/director, present to discuss the lines with her or the actors, and cut to order. The most flattering thing of all was the level of attention to the meaning of the text. A wonderful team of sound effects, audio and organisational people occupied the studio, clearly a very professional outfit that it was a pleasure to hang out with. I am in the background of one scene with all of them, laughing and clinking glasses. The result will be an Afternoon Play sometime early next year.
But on the second morning, suddenly something else started to happen. I was woken in my hotel by a call from BBC Radio Scotland and then Radio 5. I did interviews before breakfast. All day there were news agencies and broadcasters leaving messages on my phone, and in the breaks I managed to get back to quite a few of them. At lunchtime, I rushed upstairs at BBC Manchester, and plonked myself down in front of a video camera to be on News 24.
All this was about the appearance of Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the first issue of my Marvel comic, Captain Britain and MI-13. Most of the interviewers assumed he was going to be a superhero, but I managed to plug our selling out the first edition, and Leonard Kirk’s lovely art, and came away from most of them with a score draw, I think.
The newspaper coverage was quite reasonable to the strip, the Telegraph in particular printing a nice chunk of it. I’m told the Today programme and many DJs also mentioned it, as did The Daily Politics. By the time we got to BBC Breakfast News on the Wednesday, with my mate Graham Kibble-White on to discuss it, I was kind of accepting of all this as just something weird and mad that happens sometimes. (And okay, so the guys from new weekly comic The DFC rather hijacked that item, but they were up and dressed and deserve it. And hearing impressionist Jon Culshaw read the dialogue as Gordon was rather splendid.) Prime Minister’s Question Time in the Commons passed without a mention, but I do wonder about Have I Got News For You this weekend.
But you know what finally made me go ‘oh, that was an extraordinary week’? My work has influenced a political cartoon. The one at the top of this blog, by Mac.
That makes me feel really rather giddy.
And I should take the space here to thank my agent, Simon, who’s been having a wonderful time prodding all this into motion with a nudge here and a whisper in the ear there. Publicity like this is really his great art form.
The new edition of Cap issue one (with another new cover) should be in your local comic shop next week, along with, on Wednesday in the US, Thursday in the UK, issue two! No major political figures featured, sorry. Well, no human ones. Seven pages of lovely finished artwork can be found here:
http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=16686
And from 1pm on Saturday 21st June, I’ll be signing both issues at Cheltenham’s Proud Lion comic shop:
Phew. It was a lovely week, but it’s left me panting, rather. Until next time, Cheerio!
Edit:And the New York Times just joined in, complete with JFK meeting Superman!
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes
Labels:
Captain Britain,
Gordon Brown,
Iain Banks
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Hee. (Metro also covered it) Go you, indeed. Do we know which bit on Radio 5? Wondering if I can hunt it down on their listen again bit.
Really looking forward to 'The State of the Art'. It would be interesting to know how you found writing for radio four, was it very similar to writing for Big Finish or were there stricter guidlines?
I suppose it's very different anyway as it's an adaptation instead of something wholly your own creation.
Well done with all your publicity - I wonder if you're on You Tube yet...
A "well-done" to Simon for getting publicity in every media format, including the NYT, the top paper here in the US. Not too shabby. I hope you get him something fabulous for "professional agents day"!
I'm not a comic buff, but I'm interested if regular comic-books are hurting as the Japanese comic gain in popularity. Many teens(esp.girls) who would never look at Superman or Spiderman are big fans of manga.
Thanks all. It was the Nicky Campbell show last Tuesday. I'm not quite sure how to answer, Rob: what do you mean by guidelines? They're both for audio, so there are a lot of similarities. We should have such a day, Heather. I think manga has opened up bookstores and given comics a boost that way. I think there success shows that comics in general are still popular with teens.
Congratulations, Paul. All well deserved.
See you again soon, I hope.
Is it just me, or does Gordon Brown remind anyone else of Terry Jones from Monty Python playing a boring Prime Minister?
Anyhoo, good to see you're getting all the good publicity. Be sure to let it go to your and start acting like a deranged Hollywood starlet. ;)
Awesome.
I've only just got my copy of #1, and I must say, it was very exciting and very fun. I've no idea where you're going with the plot, and that's quite a good thing. Excellent stuff; you're going to have me buying all of your comics work, now. Bring on FF: True Story.
Thanks very much. I already do act like a deranged Hollywood starlet, but at my age nobody notices. I hope you like FF, Bill.
You might like this one. (Or, knowing your political leanings, not...)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1024763/What-SUPERGORD-did-Our-superhero-leader-sequel.html
Sadly Paul, nothing on Have I Got News For You, though I remain hopeful the extended version on Saturday will turn up something!
Not that I can claim too much credit but when the issue came out I tipped the wink to a friend who's a relatively well connected political blogger in the UK and the bugger not only posted about it but apparently sold the story to The Times (and possibly the Telegraph) which I think helped start the chain of stories!
Brilliant news, I saw a piece on CNN while just sat in a cafe the other day.
Still reeling from the cliffhanger of issue 1. I was praying you would be the saviour of the Cap Britain character after so many years of abuse and generally crap developments. Say it ain't so and that everything will be as it should be in the long term, with BB leading the way as he should. We haven't had a decent portrayal of Cap since the last Marvel UK series back in the '80s.
We did get a bit in the extended Have I Got News as it turned out. And I'm glad you're reeling, Kimota, for reeling is the point. Cheers.
Dear Mr Cornwell,
Although you turned down my generous offer of work I bear no grudges.
I was very sad to hear of your recent car accident and I hope you are feeling much better.
I prefer to ride around in a traction engine - it is much safer. I find that other road users get out of my way when hearing the full force of my steam whistle.
Today I embark on an expedition to investigate the strange anomaly in the Lost Clinkers Cooling Tower.
Wish me Luck!
Regards
Uncle
http://talesfromhomeward.blogspot.com/2008/06/expedition-diary-extract-1.html
Always good to hear from you, Uncle. The trouble with traction engines is that once set in motion they continue, unfortunately.
That's really great! Congrats!
-Erik
Ta!
I've still not managed to lay my hands on a copy of issue 1 :o( Is there anywhere where we can purchase Captain Britain online or get a subscription? I have shouted at my local magazine/comic retailers but they won't listen...one of them said "Are you sure you don't mean Captain America?" Of course I'm bloomin well sure I don't want Captain America. I think they also thought it was a bit strange that a 20 year old female was requesting a comic...
I'm sorry to hear that. You could try Forbidden Planet International:
http://www.forbidden-planet.co.uk/acatalog/Captain_Britain_And_MI__13__4.html
Who offer a subscription starting with issue four, but who need you to order a minimum number of titles also. Or you could find your local comic shop:
http://csls.diamondcomics.com/
If you're in the USA. I think you should tell us the name of your store. If they're on the Diamond Distributors system, and few comic shops aren't, they really have no excuse!
Sorry, the box chopped off the end of my link there, but I'm sure you can find your way from what's visible.
Not quite HIGNFY, but a segment of the satirical news game show Good News Week here in Australia used this in a segment tonight.
One team had to guess who was next in the sequence (the sequence started with Superman), and the hidden person was correctly identified as Gordon Brown.
Cameron