White Dwarf #114 (June 1989) mentioned development on a Warhammer Comic which was to feature stories about Sigmar Heldenhammer himself, Captain Black of the Dark Angels, Redd Harvest from Dark Future, and of course Thrud the barbarian. Was this the same comic you were brought in to edit?

No, we were slightly after that and mostly started from scratch. John Ridgway’s Sigmar was going to be in, it was real classic high fantasy. The comic we were putting together, at least from my point of view, was trying to create something as exciting as Warrior had been back in the day. It would have been magazine format too.

The #114 ‘Culture Shock’ news item said that the comic would be published by the summer of 1989, but it didn’t make it; do you happen to know why it was delayed at that point?

That was before my time but I’d imagine they met the same problems we faced. At the time middle-management had a stranglehold over the creative process. I was part of Andy Jones’ team and his whole purpose was kind of an outlier at the time, coming up with amazingly creative products to expand the GW universe. Andy was trying to setup the albums at the time for instance as well as watching over the comic and new book line. He was one of the best bosses I’ve had in publishing and really stuck his head out for us all in his team.

You and Ian Abbinnett got started editing a Warhammer Comic by the time of White Dwarf #128 (August 1990) which also mentioned that you were working with writers and artists at the time. Are you able to share who else was involved in that book?

One of the things that makes me feel sad is just how good the lineup was going to be. We had Colin MacNeil working on an Orks strip with his brother, Roddy. Bill King and Kev Walker creating a Gotrek strip. It would have been one of Kev’s first strips. At a time when he’d just done his first Rogue Trooper strip for 2000AD. Andrew Currie adapting Deathwing with myself, while Simon Coleby was working on a Space Hulk story. Carl Critchlow created some new Thrud stories with Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning.

The suggestion from White Dwarf was that the comic was almost ready to print, but much like with the GW Books line it seemed to suddenly disappear from view. This was during the run up to the management take over of the company; were these things linked? Are you aware of any other reasons that the comic never saw print?

We never got close to print when it all fell apart. I think if we’d manage to hold on a few months to when Rick Priestly took charge we’d have been able to get it out. I didn’t get to know Rick that well but had a lot of time and respect for him. He seemed to know his stuff. And obviously was a master of all things GW.

Were any of the strips or issues completed before the plug was pulled? To your knowledge did the material get used anywhere else?

I think the Sigmar strip eventually saw the light of the day*, unfortunately I think a lot of the top creators we brought into the company got disenchanted with the delays and changes and went on to get work elsewhere.

In 1997 Games Workshop’s Black Library imprint would begin publishing comics in their new Inferno magazine, followed later by Warhammer Monthly - a dedicated regular comic book. If you have read any of those publications, how closely do they resemble the earlier attempt at a Warhammer Comic?

They were great and a few of the creators we brought into the company were involved but the Black Library was a different beast. The Black Library did a lot of good stuff. I think by then the bosses had learned from the past mistakes.

Did you work on any other projects during your time at GW? What was it like to work there during such an important era of the company’s history?

Didn’t do anything else GW related apart form a bit of game testing but at the time myself and Ian had a regular strip in Deadline and in the aftermath of leaving Adrian Smith, Steve Tappin and Paul Bonner went freelance and we all worked on strips for Toxic (that never saw the light of day). Somewhere out there is a wonderful page of painted artwork for a strip Paul Bonner was going to do with Ian Abbinnett. I started a strip called T-Bone with Stephen but it all got caught up in Toxic’s collapse.

I really appreciate you taking the time to look at these Alan. I’m fascinated to hear more about the work and what may have happened to it. If you have any recollections of the stories I’d love to hear those too (long shot I know!)

Looking back it was bad timing on our part due to the power middle management had at the time. Made some good friends there though. I ended up sharing a house with Bill King for a while. Lots of talented people there. Oddly enough Bill took Ian and myself out for a coffee the first week and predicted exactly what would happen creatively. Glad they managed to get the thing off the ground eventually. It was my first full time editorial job and set up a good grounding for everything that followed from Marvel through to Eaglemoss and then running my own company. Got quite a few good stories from that era but I’d need to be exceptionally drunk to share them…

*I have been unable to find a full version of the Sigmar comic available publicly, however some art samples were visible in White Dwarf #114 and in the UK Comic Art Convention programme for 1989 [JS]

December 2023