Interview: Talking The77 with Ben Cullis, Andrew Sawyers and Anna Everts.

Rob Lake speaks to Ben Cullis, Andrew Sawyers and Anna Everts about The77...

The independent British publication first burst onto the crowded comic scene back in the Spring of 2020. The oversized 68-page anthology is full of new strips by a veritable who’s-who of British comic book talent. It doesn’t stop there though. The77 also acts as a platform for many up-and-coming writers and artists to showcase their work. This alone would deserve a lot of praise but to most The77 is a labour of love. One which both its editorial team, writers, artists and fans are fully endorsed in.

The team behind The77 bill it as “A love letter to the Comics that made us" and it's a line I wholeheartedly agree with. Every issue is packed full of homages and tales that take you back to much more simplistic times. What also makes The77 unique is that its completely funded by crowdfunding via Kickstarter. So far, we’re up to issue 4 and already the anthology has amassed well over £20,000 in funding, which is incredible for a new independent comic book. 

I’ve been a part of two of the Kickstarter campaigns now and it's just incredible how quickly the funding targets have been reached. My “jumping on” issue was issue 3 which was incredibly fully funded within 5 hours of going live. This was backed by 330 backers and had made £5,994.

Fast forward to December 2020 and the funding campaign for issue 4 has just finished. This time around the issue had received slightly fewer backers (282) and funding (£5,778) but still smashed the funding goal in under 4 hours.

To me what makes The77 that something special is that you can see it's a labour of love from the team. Everything from the writing and artwork is spot on and just flows from page-to-page. And every genre is catered for. From the supernatural element of The Screaming Hand to the action-packed sci-fi epic of Division77 – there’s something for everyone.

I recently sat down with The77 Editor and Publisher – Benksy aka Ben Cullis, Artist – Andrew Sawyers and up-and-coming writer - Anna Everts to discuss what makes The77 the second-best British comic of 2020 and what the future holds for the publication. 

Hi Ben, thanks for taking the time to answer some of my questions. First of all, well done in the recent ComicScene poll, it’s great to see a new independent comic rank so high and to also beat the more established publications.

It’s fair to say that The77 has been the break out comic of 2020. What’s this last year been like?

Ben Cullis: Unlike any other that I or anybody else has ever faced in our lifetimes. As a teacher, it's been extraordinary working with young people who have more than any other age group been asked to completely change their lives. It's certainly given my publishing work a sense of perspective and balance. After all - they're only comics.

Crowdfunding has played a big part in this success, as an independent comic book Publisher do you feel that there should be more mainstream support for independent comics?

BC: They wouldn't be independent comics if they got mainstream support. By that I mean when was the last time a comic creator went to a high street bank and secured a loan to start up a title? More worryingly hundreds of LSC's (Local Comic Stores) are in danger of going bust. The77 wants to support them by offering realistic SOR deals and hope that when safe to do so, we all go out and spend money in these book stores. 

Team 77 consists of a wealth of extremely talented creators. What’s it been like managing these ideas? And who would your dream writer or artist be? 

BC: Managing involves good communication and ensuring the team are tight.  Any writer or artist who produces great work, on time and especially during these crazy times deserves all the plaudits they get.

The77 has also showcased and developed work from ideas that have been submitted to you (such as Forgotten Reality by Anna Everts). Will we see any of these stories developed into a full run, or are they more of a one-off to showcase the writers/artists work? 

BC: Every new creator gets a one-shot. If they're available to produce the script or artwork for a series, it will be published within the expanding titles that The77 Publications will be rolling out over the next couple of years.

The fan base of The77 is quite passionate, and with each issue, you and the team hold various open Zoom meetings. I’ve been part of one of these meetings and it was quite fun to hear the ins and outs that go on behind the scenes at The77. How important is it for you to maintain an open relationship with your fans? 

BC: Very, but the notion of a fan base seems very 'American' to me. They are foremost friends, creators and readers. As a publisher, I'm keen on increasing our base of creators, customers and retailers. As we can't meet at conventions, visit stores or have a drink down the pub, Zoom seems the only viable option open to us. So we use it as much as we can.

With some of your strips already being in multiple parts for example; V, The Screaming Hand, Division77 and Undertow. Are there plans to see any of these released as standalone graphic novels?

BC: Any series that gets to 22 pages could be spun off as a one-off collected book if we have the agreement of the creators concerned. We appreciate that readers like to have a single volume collecting a strip that has run over several issues. We want to offer good value, so there will be extra strips included, artwork and other 'behind the scenes' material. Digital content can be edited easily and as long as we have the permission to do so we will reformat strips. Royalties will be paid as creators maintain the ownership of their IP (Intellectual Property). The payments will be small when collected from sites such as 'Comixology' and 'ComicHaus' which host our content but we also run our store, and with Get my Comics distributing our titles to UK stores such as Forbidden Planet International, Wow comics and many more international outlets, these royalty payments will increase and this will benefit all of the creators whose work features. 

And finally, can you tell me of any exclusive content that is coming our way this year? Such as a The77 version of the 2000 AD Summer Special or even an end of year annual? 

BC: Without giving too much away we will have work from industry favourites Mike Collins, Nick Percival, Hal Laren and Charlie Gillespie as well as some fantastically talented individuals who will be new to most readers or are returning to the medium after working in other creative fields. The77 Publications are publishing Steve MacManus' first new title in 30 years, 'BLAZER!' and I am in discussion with him and considering artists as I write this about a second issue that could well feature in our release schedule if the first sells well. You can find out more as we Kickstart between 22nd January and 20th February.

The77 features a wealth of talent from well-known names such as 2000 AD writer KEK-W and former Tharg - Steve MacManus. One long time contributor to The77 is an artist; Andrew Sawyers. Andrew currently is the artist on The Cell which tells the tale of a dystopian future that feels all too familiar to a certain Mega-City Judge. For The Cell, Andrew teams up with established comic scribe: Bambos Georgiou. I spoke to Andrew in regards to both The Cell and his thoughts on The77's first year.

Hi Andrew, thank you for taking the time to answer some of my questions. The Cell is one of those strips that caught my attention from the get-go. We don’t see a lot of what’s going on in the world apart from it's in a pretty dire place and The Cell seems to take its prisoners away from this hell – albeit briefly. What’s the creative process that Bambos and yourself went through in visioning The Cell and its world?

Andrew Sawyers: The Cell is an interesting prospect as it was originally intended as an ambiguous one shot, and the reader was dropped right in the middle of it from the protagonist’ 5T3V3N’s point of view !!!

The dystopian setting initially only serving to embellish the themes of claustrophobia and the tight confines they live in, and the holo projections they infrequently are rewarded within a ‘Cell’ offering only brief respite - the set up was that readers would assume that was ‘The Cell’ when in fact the whole vast structure they live in ironically is in fact ‘The Cell’.

Originally, and the serendipity of appearing in the second issue and not the first as originally planned (illustrating something else) is not lost on me - what happened was, when that was unable to be achieved I got offered the Bambos script...

It was superb, taught and tightly written and very functional - he is a great writer, and his scripts are more directorial or more akin to the visionary stylings of a good cinematographer, very easy to assemble from an illustrative perspective.

I digress, essentially it was a one-shot - but so rich was the tapestry I was inspired to explore the world more and proposed more one-shots, how do they eat, what’s life like from the Police’ perspective - Bambos went further and proposed an even more compelling story arc and we set about worldbuilding over several conversations and breaking down the mechanics of how that would be episodical.

I’m quite gregarious and Bambos is quite amiable and laid back, it’s a creative dream combination and consider him not only a very good friend but as a mentor and often defer to his years as a veteran in the comics industry.

Bambos brings an overall sensibility of pace and control to the story, building the core script and I’ll offer perhaps some more contemporary ideas design-wise and we both play around with dialogue - but essentially what is written is what then gets produced into sequential art.

As regards envisioning The Cell, it’s all been a little off the cuff and quite organically homogeneous - we’ve similar tastes in film and like or respectfully observe particular artists so quickly agreed on visually what we wanted from it.

Personally, it’s all become quite prescient with most of the globe subjected to lockdown, the pandemic, social disorder and environmental disaster - much of this was written well before this truly hit, and it’s bizarre to see the parallels.

When reading The Cell, I get a vibe of both Warhammer 40K and even 2000 AD's Judge Dredd, this is more prevalent when you look at the guards with their cybernetics and bulky looking armour. Did you have any inspiration behind the characters looks? 

AS: 2000ad is a huge influence for me not just artistically but throughout life in general, despite being very dynamic and graphic or perhaps ‘hyper-violent it often had a very strong morality or a cautionary tale to its output - that is possibly very much, is as much an influence as is its body of artwork...

But, I think growing up in and around Southwark and Lambeth, and currently working in the area where many of the artists worked, or at least dropped to in to see the editorial - and possibly being exposed to then, again now to similar social conditions - architecturally, that concrete, patina and grim urban environment has an influence future.

But, you’d be right to reference Dredd and 2000ad, and perhaps some of the 2000ad creators that worked on the 40k stuff...

I think I’ve extrapolated the same design ethos, I was brought up on more militaria themed strips and enjoyed the realism and tangibility of the illustrations and stories.

So when seeing Dredd way back in 1981 despite being set far into the future I could relate to a lesser or greater degree to his designs functionality. The uniformity of the Judges was always a huge appeal, and that ensemble feel was something I wanted to capture when seeing both the populous and the police force.

Things like film, such as Aliens and Robocop, even Blade Runner are quite an influence...

But, the feel, that familiarity probably comes more from artistic influences such as Jock, MacMahon, Dillon, MacNeil and Walker.

The77 has quite a range of writers and artists within its talent pool. How did your involvement with both The77 and The Cell come about?

AS: I think we are incredibly lucky with the established and new creative talent working on The77. It certainly lends a lot of credibility to the magazine - I, therefore, consider myself very lucky as returning beginner to stand alongside them all!!!

It all dials back to 2019, when I threw in with the Everything, Comes back to 2000ad’s Drokktober event - despite not having drawn for 25 years after quitting academia I went all out and was to say very prolific posting my daily submissions everywhere...

Despite being somewhat Neanderthal and rudimentary it caught the attention of several people and this led to some commission work and subsequently The77 and some work for several music releases including Parris Mayhew, a founding member of the Cro Mags !!!    

I was originally asked to draw a story in the first issue but the deadline was too tight and subsequently got asked if I wanted to do The Cell - naturally, a second chance was not to be overlooked, and as it was with Bambos I threw everything I had at the time into it ...

As such I took the opportunity and forged a firm friendship with Bam and set about world-building and developing an ongoing series - I feel overwhelmed, very lucky and can’t quite believe despite what a downturn the rest of the year was that we achieved three episodes so far and put them in print !!!

And finally, 2020 has been an incredibly successful year for The77 and the momentum doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down. What’s been your highlight of this last year, and what can we expect to see from you in the future?

AS: Well, we’ve another episode of The Cell dropping in March, I’ve already started working on that - the first of a two-part storyline which opens up the remaining arc which will form the first book!!!

I’m then moving onto Silver Jubilee with Dave Heeley. The Cell will return at a later date and be punctuated with some one-shots which embellish the story, but Silver Jubilee will be the main gig over the summer and autumn...

Whilst I’ll not say too much about Jubilee it’s thematically going to have classic Captain Britain, V for Vendetta and Night Raven feel - going back to classic British superhero comics of the mid-’80s...

However, during that, I’ll be using any downtime to get the remaining episodes of The Cell finished.

Highlight!!!

Tough question - I’d say getting three episodes of The Cell out in print and the art produced for Parris Mayhew’s (Cro Mags) new project the Aggros !!!

What also makes The77 unique amongst its peers is that both up-and-coming writers and artists can submit their ideas for potential stories. 

One writer who’s had a self-submitted story published is Anna Everts. Anna's story – Forgotten Reality appears in The77 Issue #3. Forgotten Reality is a tale of a man whose lost memory leads him on a trail to find a mythical plant. This journey leads our protagonist to an extremely interesting discovery, one which changes both his, and the reader's perspectives.

I recently caught up with Anna Everts to discuss Forgotten Reality and what’s on the horizon for the talented writer. 

Hi Anna, Forgotten Reality connected with me. Kavan Sakar is an incredibly complex character from the get-go (although we don’t quite see it until the strips ending.) In my review, I mention that both yourself and artist Phil Elliot left me wanting more of Kavan’s story. Will we be seeing a continuation of the story?

Anna Everts: It’s great to hear that you connected with Kavan! But honestly, I didn’t have the second part in mind. I like writing short stories with a mysterious open ending, so that’s exactly what I did for this comic. However.. now that you’ve mentioned it, the idea of a second part is starting to intrigue me. So who knows, maybe we’ll see him again!

With Forgotten Reality, you team up with Phil Elliot, who does a brilliant job in illustrating your work. What was it like seeing these characters and settings come to life?

AE: Forgotten Reality was my debut comic, so it was the first time I saw a comic I wrote come to life. I remember receiving the first page from Phil and just kind of doing a happy dance because it felt so awesome! It was incredible seeing it all become real, and it was Phil who had the brilliant idea to make the last few panels colourised instead of black and white. I thought that was a very cool idea and it worked well in the final product.

Forgotten Reality is also a strip that you submitted to The77. How did this come about and how easy was the process?

AE: So I found out about The77 on Twitter. I was kind of looking for places I could submit my work to, so I did a Twitter search for specific keywords and soon after I found a tweet from The77 about open submissions. But at that point, I didn’t have a 4-page script ready, so I wrote one specifically for The77. Fun fact about that: The plot for Forgotten Reality was born during a long car drive. I tend to have the best ideas while driving a car or being in the shower, haha!

About a week later I submitted my script to The77 and I was over the moon when they approved it. Because I felt like it’s pretty hard to kind of set a foot in the industry without any prior work to show for it. But I’m happy that the amazing team behind The77 saw potential in my work and gave me a chance.

And finally, what can we expect to see from ourselves in the future? And do you have any other stories in the pipeline for The77? 

AE: Currently I’m working on two projects that hopefully see the light of day somewhere during this year. One is a sci-fi superhero comic called Valero, which will be 5 issues long. And the other is a project that I don’t think I can talk about just yet, other than that it’s for an indie press and that it will have 5 issues as well. The77 has asked me for a script for their annual, which is exciting! So I’m not done with The77 yet (and I hope they feel the same about me!).

Thank you to Ben, Andrew and Anna for giving us this look into what goes on behind the scenes at The77. With plenty of new work on the horizons such as Blazer! and The77 Issue #5 coming soon, it's going to be an interesting 2021 for the anthology and the team. 

You can get hold of The77 via The77 online store: https://the77comic.bigcartel.com/

 You can also check out the funding campaign for Blazer when it goes live by clicking here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/the77comic/blazer.

Rob Lake - For more comic book chat, be sure to follow Geek Culture Reviews on Twitter @GeekCultureRev