Leah Moore and John Reppion: Comic genius
Jan 26 2009 by Neil Macdonald
Husband and wife comic book writing team Leah Moore and John Reppion _320
The result of Leah’s dream sees The Doctor and Martha Jones visit the Whispering Gallery on the planet of Grått, where paintings of the dead can speak and emotions have been outlawed.
Leah and John are both delighted with how the comic has turned out and said writing a Doctor Who story has fulfilled a long-term ambition.
John, who is from Liverpool, says: "We are both fans of the show and a friend of ours, Paul Cornell, has written for the television programme, so it was a no-brainer when this opportunity came along.
"Writing such a strong and well-established character that everyone knows so well was a pleasure, because there is always tons going on below the surface with the Doctor."
He adds: "On top of that, David Tennant’s Doctor is so full of energy that he often finishes his own sentences, which we found was a great device for driving the plot on without involving another character."
Leah, who is originally from Northampton, says: "It was fun to stick that in and the Doctor is nicely angsty too. He’s got issues, which gave us more material to work with and include.
"There was a sense that we’d better not mess this one up, given what an iconic character the Doctor is, but the more challenging things are, the more we enjoy them, so we had a lot of fun writing it."
Comic books are in Leah’s blood. Her father is Alan Moore, considered by many to be Britain’s greatest ever comic book writer, who penned Watchmen, which is currently being made into a film, and V For Vendetta.
Leah and John, both 30, work together in the spare room of their house, discussing the story ideas together before agreeing on a way forward.
John says: "We are definitely stronger together as a writing team, because our abilities complement each other. Leah is really good visually, with dreaming pages a great example of that, whereas my strengths tend to be plotting stories out and seeing the wider picture."
Leah says: "When people get our scripts they can’t tell who has written what because we mesh together so well.
"It takes us a bit longer to finish stories because we talk things through until we agree, but once we get going we rattle through it. We never really argue, although if we do have a cob on we might not do much work that day!"
