Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1179886
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 OCTOBER 2019 5 THIS WEEK BOOKS way you expect' wouldn't work if you didn't care about Dea and Ursus and that little kid lost in the snow... On that note, how would you describe your creative relationship with David Hine? Among your collaborations one can also find an adaptation of HP Lovecraft's 'The Colour out of Space', which was just adapted into a film by Richard Stanley, starring Nicolas Cage... That was our first work to- gether, and it was all kinds of grisly fun, with the central problem of rendering a colour which does not exist in the hu- man spectrum, in colour, on the printed page. Piece of cake! We've developed a way of work- ing, through The Man Who Laughs, and especially with Lip Hook, our tale of rural unease that came out last year, where I'll throw a stream of sketchbook pages and story ideas his way and he comes back, after much sculpting and shaping, with something that has an actual structure and themes and char- acters and such. I'll then draw more, and he'll send photos of imagery he wants to include and it evolves. Lip Hook hap- pened because I described the weird Magdelena Solis Mexican mass murder case to David, and it just seemed like an interest- ing notion to take that tale and relocate it to somewhere in the English countryside, so that we could make it more personal, throw in all sorts of childhood memory and folk weirdness and hazy pop cultural traces. Our next book's at the sketchbook and vague concept stage… Lord knows how long it'll take to be- come whatever it is. Now, The Bad Bad Place is coming out in hardcover. How would you describe this book to those not in the know, and are you proud of your latest collaboration with Mr Hine? The Bad Bad Place is in many ways a sister book to Lip Hook, though it's quite different, like its wonkier, more wayward Siamese twin. It was commis- sioned around the same time and evolved from the same sketchbooks, serialised, chap- ter by chapter in Meanwhile magazine over some years. It's the tale of a newly-built town that suddenly has an old old house appear overnight on the edge of it, and the effect the old house has on the residents. It's a bit madder and broader and more concentrated than our other books. Dave threw out all these challenging images for me to tackle and I'm pretty damn happy with the results. It's fun: dark, creepy, relentlessly tragic, unpleasant fun! Are you looking forward to Malta Comic Con? What kind of atmosphere are you expecting from the event? I've had friends go to the Con over the years and everybody said it was a sweet, friendly one. I'm very happy to be invited. I think it's going to be a blast. The guest list is good, the events include swordplay – which can only be a fine thing – and I'm re- ally looking forward to meeting everybody and exploring a bit. Though I hear, for the guests at least, that a frankly unnecessary amount of karaoke is involved, which scares me. As it should everyone... Mark Stafford will be a guest at the Malta Comic Con, taking place on November 2 and 3 at the MFCC, Ta' Qali. The Con will be open from 10am to 6pm on November 2 and 11am to 7pm on November 3. For tickets and a full programme, log on to: http://www.maltacomic-con. com/ "Cartooning can take you to some strange places, if you let it"