Design sketch for his assistant.
Quite a few readers seem to consider the Sex Olympics events to have been the most stimulating.
John Wagner phoned me up one day to ask: "Where should we set the Olympics?"
When you've worked with John for as long as I have, after all, he wrote RoboHunter specially for me, then you're not phased by questions like that! At the time there had been some furore about the desecration of some pristine Alpine village by the ravages of hosting the winter games there. So I naturally replied that it should be somewhere ecologically fragile; like a coral attol that is concreted over to build the olympic village. Or somewhere of oustanding natural beauty that could be destroyed.
He responded with a thoughtful: 'Hmmm', in his dour Scotts manner. And went away to write 'The Return of the Taxidermist'. A story that was to run in the Judge Dredd Megazine and to occupy my time for several months. And quite delightful months they turned out to be.
As I recall, there was only one stumbling block that I encountered. And that was with the synchronised swimming event. But then, not many people are T-shirt wearing fans of that discipline. So it's not really surprising. ;) And I did a 'work-around' of the violence anyway. ;)
During this period, I was invited to join my good friend, Don Lawrence, to give a talk at one of the Brighton Universities. At said 'talk' I was approached by a young German student who was a fan of my work. And, as luck would have it, the story called for a young German character. So I was able to vaguely base the designs on my new aquaintance. She developed the habit of phoning me from her bath. And quite extended conversations they usually were. So, as I don't like anything to interrupt my work, I would find myself, with the phone in one hand and a brush in the other, painting elaborate crowd scenes to the accompaniment of the echoing splashes of her bathing. I like to think that she added a certain something to the work. So, let me here say a 'thank you'! ;)
And a big thank you to John for deciding that Taxidermy was an Olympic event. And to Cam Kennedy for creating the original character and not being 'available' ( I presume ), so that I got the chance to work on such a fun story.
Always happy to be a little controversial. ;)
