Ghosts Come Back to Haunt You

MANY YEARS ago, cartoonist Steve Harrison and I created a strip called Spooks in Space.

Spooks in Space was about a group of ghosts who, on finding the castle they'd been haunting for centuries had been bulldozed down by developers, ended up finding a new place to squat. I don't recall social relevance as being involved in any of those themes but if it helps as a marketing ploy I'm willing to tell dirty barefaced lies and claim it was today!

Anyway, The fact that the place turned out to be a spaceship promised intergalactic laughs aplenty if we could sell it to a publisher. Alas, the great British comics industry's humour titles were folding thick and fast so the chances of that become a big fat zero. I moved on to editing various newsstand titles and Steve developed his Reg Smythe style further and produced cartoon strips for newspapers and magazines like The Sport and Fast Car.

Once or twice I would think about dusting the mothballs off Spooks in Space, possibly as a potential animation series, but never did. Then, at the tail end of last year strong>Toxic invited me to submit some story ideas and accepted three of them. As it happened, I decided to hold one back, but Spooks in Space was one I presented and they wanted to use.

I planned to revise the original two single page strips Steve and I had created as a two page flowing story.

However, trying to locate that original script and art was nigh impossible among all the stuff in my loft, so it was reconstructed from my aging memory until at the last minute I found reduced sized copies of the original pages.

Those original strips are presented here, and maybe if Steve or I ever find his character illustrations we might also one day feature those at Speech Balloons.

To view the new 21st century version featuring colouring and lettering courtesy of publishers Egmont buy Toxic #137 that goes on sale today, April 1st.

Bagged inside the regular title you will find something that you must check out, because there tucked away will be your free copy of Crazy Comics!.

Spooks in Space appears alongside strips by great talents like Lew Stringer and Laura Howell.

Readers get the chance to vote for their favourite of the various strips within Crazy Comics! online at www.toxicmag.co.uk/vote. The winning strip will join those strips already running in the regular title. Buy it and enjoy it!