Conan Doyle is spinning in his grave ...

Like most writers, I can't stop myself writing. It drives me. I write every day. Sometimes it's a book. Sometimes a blog post. Sometimes notes in a diary. A decade or so ago, I was writing comics and graphic novels for indie publishers and even had a go at publishing a comic or two myself. It was all tremendous fun - if a steep learning curve. Writing panel-based fiction is a lot like writing for radio in that you have to include enough for the artist/actor to know what you want from them without restricting their creativity.

I think my favourite script was one that I wrote for Tripwire magazine. They'd decided to run a special edition called Stripwire that would consist wholly of short pieces by a range of comic writers and artists, some industry, some indie. I got together with my good mate James Murphy and we created this rather naughty Sherlock Holmes pastiche (click on the pics to see them larger).


I was reminded of it today as I was rooting through some files on an external hard drive and found the script. To my delight it featured this panel description:

Didn't Mr Murphy do a good job?
The strip went down very well with readers ... but not so well with a few of the more serious Holmes buffs.
But you can't please everyone.