Spot the Difference!

Back in 1995 I self-published three issues of a comic called Yampy Tales which featured reprints of Combat Colin strips plus (in issues 2 and 3) a new Brickman adventure. The splash page of the Brickman strip showed how chaotic and grim Guffon City had become in its hero's absence; a street scene full of crime and sleaze. High above, was an aircraft about to plow into a towering skyscraper. 

Ten years later, in 2005, when Richard Starkings contacted me regarding his generous idea to reprint all the Brickman strips in one book, he quite rightly expressed concern about that image. Since its original publication the world had witnessed the appalling events of 9/11 and, understandably, that page would not sit well with some readers. It had to be changed, and naturally I agreed. 

Simply deleting the 'plane from the drawing wouldn't work as it'd leave the composition unbalanced with nothing happening in the top right of the page. It had to be replaced with something else, so I decided it'd be a monster, coiled around the skyscraper, about to eat it. At least there was no fear of that happening in real life.

That done, Richard's company Active Images published Brickman Begins! in April 2005 as a 152 page digest softback. It collected all the Brickman strips to that date, along with brand new Brickman illustrations by Alan Davis, Hunt Emerson, Tim Sale, Mike Higgs, and many more. If you missed it, I still have copies available which you can order from my website:
http://www.lewstringer.com/page7.htm 

Speaking of Richard Starkings, I recommend his excellent series Elephantmen if you haven't tried it already: http://www.hipflask.com/

Richard is also the founder of Comicraft, the top place for comic book lettering fonts. (I use some of their fonts myself on this blog, as does The Beano these days.) Check them out: http://www.comicraft.com/