That’s Grainger Town, the historic centre of Newcastle. They are walking down Grey Street, away from the monument to Earl Grey, a local boy during whose time as Prime Minister slavery was abolished in the British Empire, but also the middle class was divided and conquered away from the working class through the Reform Act 1832.

I just had to put one of those 1998 H&M ads with Gary Oldman in there (although I somehow, maybe not so surprisingly, managed to make him seem darker and hairier), because my aunt had a crush on him in those ads. My mum thought it was disturbing, because she only associated him with his character in True Romance … It’s maybe also a bit of a thank you for making Nil by Mouth, which for me hit a little bit too close to home.

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Yesterday and today I took part in the 24 hour comics marathon. This year my sole mission was to draw as much as possible in that time frame. I am crazy busy these days, so I can’t clean and letter the resulting comic until maybe later next week …

Until then, here is the cover:

It’s a flashback to the time in Driftwood chapter 3 when they were looking for Eva, and it’s a bit unorthodox since it associates to both Driftwood and Eva’s solo comics (but it stays within the Driftwood universe). The story is rather subtle and you might only be able to enjoy it to its full extent / at all if you have read all the comics I have ever drawn. Mua hah haaa …

One of my 24 h comic making colleagues (middle aged German male) looked at the cover upside down and read the text out loud: “The Muggers … vs. Willie, Adolf –” — and when I started laughing my ass off he got flustered and excused himself since he wasn’t wearing his glasses … (Poor Aeron.)