Way back in 1989, the highly regarded British publisher Knockabout unleashed a 64 page softback anthology entitled Seven Deadly Sins. Each of the seven stories within focused on one of the seven notorious sins, written and drawn by different creators.
My contribution was The Glut, written and created by Dave Gibbons, illustrated by me.
Yes, that Dave Gibbons, already world famous by that time for his magnificent work on Watchmen, written by Alan Moore.
I'd known Dave for several years as a friend by that point and we had already collaborated on a page for my Brickman comic in 1986 and a page for Oink! comic in 1987. On both of those occasions, I scripted and Dave drew, but for the Seven Deadly Sins book Dave wanted to stretch his creative muscles to write a script. (If memory serves me correctly, The Glut was the first strip that Dave wrote. He'd later go on to write other material of course including The Originals).
The Glut was set in 1920's America and the days of prohibition. Alphonse Gluttone (nicknamed "The Glut") is a vulgar, avaricious gangster who runs a protection racket in a small town that fears him. In keeping with the 'gluttony' theme of the story, Gluttone over indulges himself in everything, including food, drink, women, and tasteless decor. The gangster invites the local Sheriff for dinner at his mansion, where he manages to blackmail him. Two elderly women, Sarah and Hannah, members of the Temperance Society, have had enough of Gluttone's dominance of the town and they decide to take matters into their own hands.
The Glut ran to eight pages with as many as 13 panels on some pages and a lot going on. It was a challenging work to take on but I relished it and it was just the sort of thing I needed back then to push me to my limits. There are a couple of bits I'd redraw and improve if I ever chose to redraw it but that's unlikely to happen at my age. On the whole I think it still stands up well and Dave's script was excellent. I hope I did it justice.
Seven Deadly Sins still turns up on eBay or in the long boxes at comic marts so it's well worth a purchase if you find one. Other contributors included Graham Higgins, Hunt Emerson, Bryan Talbot, Banx, Davy Francis and Alan Moore.
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| Cover by Hunt Emerson. |
The Glut is ©1989 by Dave Gibbons and Lew Stringer.
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