'Civic Service'
A Replacement Heroes Adventure
While attending either the Bristol or Birmingham Comic Convention a while back, Dave Evans of Futurequake Press offered me a third
script to draw. Thanking him I asked what it was about - he said '...you know - giant monster/reptile causes chaos in Chicago, hero and his men enter the fray to confront threat and eventually defeat villain'. Again, I said thanks - but have you got anything else to draw, I don't know if I fancy superheroes? Yeah, and me having drawn only two short stories up to this point - whaddaya talking about?
As it happens writer Michael Moreci had created 'The Replacement Heroes some time ago and had pretty much consigned them to comic
script limbo, until I turned up with thumbnails and sketches. If I remember correctly just as we were getting the Futurequake strip going,
events at the time pushed this script back into limbo. The event in question was the 'Reading with Pictures Anthology' project.
Michael explained the 'Getting Comics into Schools, and Schools into Comics' ethos of 'Reading with Pictures' and asked if I was interested in getting Butch and Talbot into the book of the same name. Of course I said yes, and with the help of the editorial team, letterer Jim Cambell and colour artist Chris Beckett, we produced the 6 page 'Civic Service' which became The Replacement Heroes first appearance.