1. What drew you to comics originally?
I was surrounded by comics and books from as early as I can remember. Both Mum and Dad loved books and as a result they were always buying them for for me.
It was around the age of eight or so that I started to want to create them myself as a job. I had been writing these little stories and doing drawings for them for a few years by this time.
I had been bought an awful lot of British and American comics and I started to notice the work of one artist in particular although at the time I didn’t realise it was the same guy. A Little later I realised it was an artist called Jack Kirby and I knew then I was right to choose a career in comics, although I had no idea how I would do that – I just figured I wanted to write and draw them.
It was the sense of majesty and power and his incredible larger than life storytelling that impressed and influenced me so much. His work was not realistic, but it conveyed a world seen, uniquely, through his eyes and to me it was just magical.
It was around the same time that I discovered the illustrative, painted comic artwork of UK artists like; Don Lawrence, Ron Embleton and Mike Noble and they were the first to influence me towards producing my own painted comics.
2. You have worked on some very notable and well-known titles — any particular positive experience you’d like to share about?
I think getting my first work at Marvel on Transformers will always remain a high mark for me for the obvious reasons, but the jobs I enjoyed the most have always been, The Dreamstone for London Editions, which was based on the animated children’s TV series • Dark Dominion for US Company Defiant Comics • The Dinoswords, which I co-created with James Hill, as well as Dark Crusade, which was co- created with my best friend, Paul Roberts back in the 1990s, and Hot Wheels, which I had also started to write, just before I was told it was sadly folding.
I realise I am so lucky to have worked on so much stuff and enjoyed a career doing what I had wanted to do from being a child.
One thing I can say with all sincerity is that comics have forged a lot of creative friendships and collaborations over the years with people like; John Ridgway, Joe James, James Hill, Barry Kitson, William Simpson, CRISSE, and so many others, too many to mention here.
Working in comics continues to make me new friends with comic creators of all ages and from all over the world, which is fantastic. It also enables me to meet new and old friends/fans when attending comic conventions and signing things and sketching for people.
I think that overall there is a positive vibe most of the time from comic creatives and a lot of fun is to be had in that kind of company.
3. How was the journey working on 2000 AD?
Well, that all started with my best pal in comics, John Ridgway when he asked me to help out with some painted work he was doing on Judge Dredd. Really John opened the door for me and this work lead to me being offered a lot of work for a few years painting what had originally been an inventory of black and white comic pages which now needed to be turned into painted pages when 2000AD went full colour.
I worked on so much stuff in just a few years that when I worked in NYC in 1993-94 the other artists were amazed when one particular day, going into Jim Henley’s comic book store and seeing my name emblazoned on a lot of different books that month from both Marvel and 2000AD, as well as the stuff I was working on for Defiant – there were over a dozen that week.
I was looking in my archives only the other day at some of the work I have done in colour and it seems like yesterday and yet in another way a lifetime ago that I worked on those books. Chopper was the first book that I was let loose on, painting over Colin McNeil’s art whilst working on my own - and that opened up more doors, as it got me work in America.
It was a very busy period for me and there was no Internet back then so everything was scanned and sent to me either in the post or on occasion when deadlines were so tight via Red Star on trains.
One particular job, saw me brought in to meet a mad deadline. It meant me working Thursday and Friday solid to get a six-page job inked and painted and on the train by the last possible moment that it could be sent to the London offices on – so as to get the pages to Alan McKenzie by Saturday morning or the comic would have either gone to print missing six pages or been pulled from the printers costing them a lot of money.
Fun times, but sometimes – quite manic.
4. Please tell us about your current work with Wizards Keep.
I think I am now doing what I set out to do in the first place, producing painted comics. It took me a while to get to this point, but it was something I think I was always destined to do.
The plan had always been to keep my nose to the grindstone, prove my worth, and then present Marvel or some other publisher this kind of painted art. It was on two nights on different occasions during the 1990s at Bryan Talbot’s home, spent in the company of Don Lawrence and later Ron Tiner – where these incredibly talented artists both showed me painted artwork that were “only” portfolio pieces and would never see print anywhere that I became worried about my being able to get Marvel or whoever to publish my stories – and it worried me a lot.
If this work wasn’t going to see print from two giants in the field, at the top of their game, how and why would I do any different?
I left comics for a while for various reasons, editorial constraints, payment issues and similar political ideologies back in 1999 and went working first as a concept artist for Themed Rides and Attractions and later in Feature and TV Animation. It was during this second period that I suddenly realised I missed working in comics – but not the politics. It was then I went back to my original idea as a sixteen year old to create my own publishing company – a vehicle to produce my own books – perhaps painted books.
In 2005 I incorporated Wizards Keep Limited with it’s Wizards Keep Publishing imprint and started working on a project that I had first formulated around 1987, whilst working at Marvel – it was a concept called Worlds End, which fused Science Fiction with Fantasy – my first loves in the field and I coined the phrase “Science Fusion” to market the books.
All of the story elements, synopsis, notes and sketches already existed and so it was quite easy to pull it all together to form the basis of the graphic novel series.
I think they are the high point of my career and show what I should have been doing right from the beginning, but the time wasn’t right.
Luckily the Worlds End fanbase think so too and they help to spur me on to new heights with the books with their kind words and support.
I am working on my third and fourth volumes at the moment. The graphic novels are oversized, case bound, European format books and look gorgeous in that format – the print is high end and a lot of effort has gone into them from me to ensure their quality.
I feel so lucky nowadays to wake up everyday creating my own Universes, without the constraints of other editorial viewpoints. I still have help editing the scripts for the books, but I am ultimately the decision maker as the chief creator of them.
I am finally writing and drawing – and painting some of the stories I wanted to tell all those years ago, exactly as I wanted them told.
You can check out my work at:
You can also follow Worlds End, The Dinoswords and me on:
www.facebook.com/tim.perkins.9843 www.facebook.com/Wizards.Keep.Limited www.facebook.com/worldsendsagas www.facebook.com/thedinoswords
Twitter www.twitter.com/TimPWizardsKeep
Instagram @timperkinswizardskeep
Goodreads
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