What character in your story are you least likely to get along with? I have many bad guys and unpleasant types in my stories so this question has many answers, but I don’ t fancy turning up in the Apple verse( home of my character Henri the evil goatee bearded apple) as I would imagine I’ d end up in a scenario similar to Gulliver in Lilliput, hauled to the ground by hundreds of small anthropomorphic fruits and either kept as a freak curiosity or in the worst case scenario, Henri would order my dissection in the cause of Apple science!
What do you read for pleasure? I love anything to do with time travel, historical settings and parallel universes. HG Wells and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are my favorite classic writers and I devour anything Sherlock Holmes. I am currently reading Sherlock Holmes: the Spirit Box by George Mann. I am also a huge fan of Marvel and DC Comics among others. Oh and Doctor Who. I don’ t like every one I read but I enjoy a fair few of the Virgin and BBC series of books.
Who are the authors / artists who inspire your work? Returning to my Mythical Creatures / Mythlands characters, that is the concept I have in recent times, most researched and most utilised public domain characters for. I love the Narnia books by CS Lewis( though my version of Narnia didn‘ t really fare too well!), HG Wells and Conan Doyle as mentioned above( Both the actual reborn Wells and Professor Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes are characters in The Heist), some Jules Verne( I do a lot of Victorian style writing- see Children‘ s Story and The Case of the Unofficial Tontine in the OMP- also a bit of PG Wodehouse). I could probably write an essay on who inspires me as I like to read a bit of everything and dip into most genres. As a huge comics fan I like the writing and art of Stan Lee( simple but classic), Roy Thomas, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, George Perez, Chris Weston, John Byrne, Chris Claremont’ s X Men, Neal Adams … again I could list writers and artists for pages.
What is your favourite book? Why?
Too hard to narrow down, but series that have massively influenced me include the 7 Narnia books by CS Lewis and The Time Wars by Simon Hawke. Narnia among others got me deep into fantasy worlds as a child and Simon Hawke’ s time travelling stories were something I picked up as a teen in book stores- both are two stand outs, of maybe hundreds of series that fired my imagination.
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