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2000 AD 1891 cover by Alex Ronald

The wait is finally over. Black Shuck is here! Written by us, with pencils and inks by Steve Yeowell, colours by Chris Blythe, and letters by our old chum Simon Bowland.

NEW THRILL! BLACK SHUCK // PART ONE 
Scandinavia, 813 AD. Viking raiding parties continue to besiege the coasts of Northern Europe and the British Isles, returning with spoils and slaves. One such attack on the settlement of Dunwich in East Anglia has led to the warrior known as BLACK SHUCK being captured, but his journey back to the court of King Ivar will not be uneventful…

If you haven’t already got your copy, you can order or download 2000 AD 1891 right now. If you have already got it, read it, and enjoyed it, perhaps you’d like to join us for some (only very slightly) spolierish extras below.

• Track 1 on the Black Shuck soundtrack: Black Shuck by The Darkness.

When we started writing the series we didn’t yet know who our artist would be. Because of the subject matter, we found ourselves imagining the whole thing as being done in a very busy, grungy, detailed style by someone from the Frazetta/Bisley Heavy Metal fantasy school and scripted accordingly. I can’t remember now how many parts we’d turned in (three maybe?) before Tharg told us that we’d be working with Steve Yeowell. We were, of course, delighted to have such a huge and influential talent on board but we did then have a moment where we looked at each other and said “Oh, that’s not how I imagined it at all”. Steve’s clean, classic lines and draughtsmanship seemed a million miles from what we’d anticipated but he responded brilliantly to the script and delivered pages which immediately made us see the light.

If you’re interested in how an idea progresses from a pitch to a finished comic then here’s a glimpse of the process that went into bringing Black Shuck to the pages of 2000 AD.

Here’s how the first paragraph of our pitch for Black Shuck read:

Somewhere in coastal Scandinavia, sometime around 800 A. D. It is barely midday but the fishermen who live on the coast are already ashore, packing away their nets. The sea is rough and unpredictable, a storm blowing in. A strange ship is sighted on the horizon just as the sky blackens and thunder cracks overhead. The ship is propelled to the shingle shore by the tempest. A lone figure staggers ashore from the deck – a huge Anglo-Saxon with jet black long hair and matching lengthy beard. His mouth is bloody and he is clutching at a gory wound on his neck. The dark stranger collapses on the beach. Some of the fisher-folk approach cautiously – is he dead? Suddenly, the stranger seizes one of them by the arm and slurs the words “Tell King Ivar he has an heir. I am his son”, before falling unconscious.

Having had the pitch accepted we break things down into short page descriptions. Here’s the description for Page One:

Storm propels ship onto Scandinavian beach. Wounded Black Shuck staggers ashore and manages to say “Tell King Ivar he has an heir. I am his son”, before falling unconscious.

Leah then roughs the pages out based on that description. The artist never sees our roughs, they are just a guide for our writing. Here are Leah’s original roughs for Page One:

Here’s the first page of the script, typed up from Leah’s roughs:

Black Shuck #1

“The Black Sea”

(6 pages)

 Okay, just a few notes before we launch into the first script. The series is set in 813 AD, (mostly) in Scandinavia. We want the Vikings, their clothing, buildings, furniture, etc to be as historically accurate as possible without being too slavish (because, obviously, we’re taking some liberties). That means no horned helmets, please. It’s pretty easy to find Viking stuff online and in libraries; we haven’t built up a definitive list of reference ourselves yet but hopefully we’ll all have more to share as the series progresses.

 Page One

This is a six panel page with two tiers – three panels on each tier. This is a colour page.

 Panel One

            This whole top tier is one large image divided into three by the panel borders. The image is that of a dark, broiling mass of clouds with forks of lightning tearing through them above a turbulent sea. We are in a natural bay with a rocky, shingle beach in the foreground. We can see the dark shapes of the hills and mountains over in the right background (Panels Two and Three). Heavy rain lashes down. Here in this first panel we can see a small boat in the distance being propelled across the bay by the storm. The boat has a single sail which is tattered and torn by the storm, and is only big enough to be used as a fishing boat by three or four people at the most (although it’s too far away to see that here). There is one time/location caption and two captions in a suitably Norse font.

 Cap: Scandinavia. 813 AD.

 Cap: A mighty storm swept in on ebon wings, roaring thunder and breathing lightning before it.

 Cap: The sky grew dark as the starless night, and the sea beneath churned blackly.

 

Panel Two

            Here we have the ragged boat beached in the centre of the panel, driven up onto the shingle shore by the force of the storm. The boat looks like it has barely survived its voyage. There are two Norse font captions.

 Cap: They saw the ship first caught upon the shingle, thrown there by the weltering waves.

 Cap: A scrap of sail, no oars to pull. All hands were lost it seemed.

 

Panel Three

            Here we can see that a huge, muscular man with long black hair is lying face down on the shingle beach, as if he has crawled a few feet from the boat and then collapsed. In the right background we can see a small group of Danish fishermen approaching along the beach with burning torches, coming to investigate the shipwreck. There are two Norse font captions.

 Cap: As they approached, the north-wind whistled fierce in their faces.

 Cap: A woeful figure lay on the shore, breaths ragged as the cloth on his back.

 

Panel Four

            This is a shot with the collapsed man’s hands sticking up into shot from the foreground. The Danes are looking down at him/us in alarm with their torches held high. There is one balloon from the collapsed man.

 Balloon: The Dene?

 

 Panel Five

            This is a lighting flash illuminated shot of the man on the ground – this is Black Shuck, our main character. He’s a huge muscular Anglo-Saxon with jet black long hair and a lengthy beard. He has a great gory wound on his neck as if he’s been attacked by an animal, and there is blood around his mouth. He is reaching towards us with his extended hand, looking menacing despite being quite obviously nearly dead. He has one balloon.

 Black Shuck: King Ivar… has an heir.

 

Panel Six

            This is a shot from Black Shuck’s POV as he begins to black out again. We can see the Danes looking shocked, perhaps two of them are looking at each other in surprise. The edges of the shot are black, as if our eyes are closing and we can only focus on the centre of the panel. There is one tailless balloon from Black Shuck.

 Black Shuck: I am his son.

We did try and keep the script more concise than usual for this series, aiming to keep things quite neat and simple.

Here are Steve Yeowell’s pencils and inks for the page:

As you can see Steve has made changes to the layout, reducing the number of panels and altering some of the shots slightly. He’s a pro and he knows what he’s doing. We don’t argue.

Finally, here’s the coloured and lettered page:

Looks pretty good, even if I do say so myself. 🙂

Hope you’ve enjoyed this little bit insight into the process but, more than that, we hope you’re already looking forward to next week’s Black Shuck.

Cheers.