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
As writers, they do not draw the comic books as most people usually assume. Instead, their stories are written out from page-to-page, with instructions and Leah’s thumbnail sketches to guide the artist on the visual structure of the story. Those pages are then sent off to the artist to draw and colour.
"People always think we draw the comics," John says. "Either that or they think we work for the Beano!
"We come up with the story and then get that down on paper, along with a list of page notes to plan things out."
Leah adds: "It’s about the artist understanding where you are coming from and being on the same wavelength.
"We don’t expect artists to do things exactly how we say. We want them to translate our notes into the finished work, and quite often they change things here or there, or add something we haven’t thought of.
"When we get the finished pages e-mailed back to us before they appear in the comic, it gives us such a kick. With Who, Ben has got the pages absolutely spot on."
Although the comic book industry in Britain is relatively small, John and Leah agree there are plenty of opportunities for people to get involved in it.
John says: "Comic book writer sounds like such an unrealistic job to a lot of people I’d imagine, but we have been doing it for five years now so it is a career.
"If you come up with ideas for stories, I’d suggest sending them in to a comics publisher, who are always taking submissions for anthologies.
"If your idea is picked up you may get teamed up with an artist and then it goes from there, with a chance to being spotted by one of the major companies."
Leah adds they still submit stories for anthologies, despite being well established.
"People ask us why, but we want to be part of helping people getting a break and it is cool too," she explains.
"The anthologies are like little nurseries of stories, made by people who didn’t know each other before they worked together. That can throw up some really exciting work."
Apart from contributing to anthologies, there is likely to be no shortage of work for Leah and John in the months ahead.
