He’s been vocal about his love of comics for years, but up until now Jonathan Ross had never created one himself. But all that will change in spring 2010 with Turf, a 1920s gangland-based, four-issue series from Image Comics, with the superb Tommy Lee Edwards delivering the art.
“This has been building for a while. But it’s my friendship with Mark Millar and his constant encouragement that have really been the key,” Ross tells SFX exclusively. “I have always loved films and novels set in this period, especially early Cagney and Bogart movies. And the idea that if they had been mixing genres back then we might have seen a gangster movie with supernatural elements is what got me fired up.
“Also, I loved [Jack] Kirby’s black and white Days Of The Mob magazine, and that run of the Fantastic Four when they found themselves on the gangster planet! I have some of the pages in my stupidly large collection. It’s the mix of the period – brutal and stylish – that seemed to be such a natural fit with vampires. And then the aliens just insisted I put them in.”
Ross reveals more about the genesis of Turf in an exclusive Red Alert interview in the new issue of SFX, #190, on sale Wednesday 18 November. Join our Twitter feed so you get a reminder when the new issue comes out.
