Teruo (October 2007)

Aside from the odd experimental page here and there when I was a teenager, Teruo is the first comic I ever drew.  The story of an endangered gangster's moll and the robotic samurai sent to protect her, it was written by, Paul Bowles (hi!), a friend of my brother Stephen (also hi!).

Teruo, page 1

The script had been accepted for Accent UK's Robots anthology and, if I remember rightly, the original artist became suddenly unavailable.  I think Bowlesy* asked me to step in out of sheer desperation, as he had a fiendishly close deadline to meet and he knew I owned at least one pencil.  By coincidence, I had two weeks off work, having crashed out of my new job due to stress, more or less permanently hysterical, and I spent the next two weeks parked happily on the sofa doing nothing but draw. 

I usually find it hard to get started on a drawing. You look at this beautiful white page, with all its boundless potential, and you know you're going to cover it in smudges and mistakes and it will end up hating you for ruining the glorious work it might have been.  Once you're on your way, though, it doesn't matter.  You're in your happy place, down the rabbit hole, where most mistakes can be rubbed out or Photoshopped better, and the ones you can't erase just exist to make you shrug and say, "Okay, fine.  So I'll get it right next time." It's blissful.

Teruo, page 8

(Look at that door, though.  It's appalling.  Is she hiding out in a barn?)

Anyway, I managed ten pages in as many days, loved it, learned a huge amount doing it, and am still proud of it now.  The Robots anthology is available here, and you can follow Accent UK on Twitter too if you don't already.

*I just typed "Paul" and realised I've never heard anyone refer to him by his first name.  Also, this is obviously not the Paul Bowles who wrote The Sheltering Sky.  Just so you know.

All text and images copyright © Marleen Lowe / Accent UK Comics - please do not reproduce without permission