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David Morris Talks About Special Operations Executive; The Baker Street Irregulars. Dee’s Angel Volume 1, His First Kickstarter Campaign

Published

1 year ago

June 30, 2025

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Meet The Baker Street Irregulars

David Morris is a UK indie comics veteran, having worked for the last few years with Time Bomb Comics. But now he has launched his own debut project Special Operations Executive; The Baker Street Irregulars. Dee’s Angel Volume 1 going live on Kickstarter tomorrow. So he chatted to Tripwire about the new project…

What was the genesis of this comic?

A love of the old British TV shows and films of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. Each of the characters in The Baker Street Irregulars is an amalgamation of characters from those shows. The name for the book came from reading about the history of the Special Operations Executive during World War II, and that they headquartered at 64 Baker Street London leading to them being nicknamed “the Baker Street Irregulars” after Sherlock Holmes’s fictional group of spies. It seemed too good to ignore.

The first comics came out in late 90’s and early 2000’s but then I got sidetracked with co-producing the Bristol Comic Expo and although we kept working on the stories we didn’t publish any further comics.

It is the first crowdfunding campaign you have run yourself. How do you feel about it?

It is, and very nerve wracking it is too! Particularly as I’m not very adept at technology, social media or self-promotion.

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What made you decide to go this route rather than traditional distribution means?

Originally a couple of decades ago BSI was published in comic book format under Corvus Press for several issues and sold at comic conventions and marts. From then they subsequently appeared as short stories in various anthology publications, most recently in Time Bomb’s Brawler and Quantum. Whilst discussing those ideas and fleshing them out, we accrued numerous pages of unused art with completed short and full scripts.

Last year we also completed part 1 of a special BSI comic for the Malta Comic Con ’24 (part 2 will be produced for this year’s Malta Comic Con), a spy story, based in Malta, which gave us an exciting footprint into the international market for the team as a single BSI titled comic.

From this, with the advancements of the Kickstarter platform we made the exhilarating decision that instead of the BSI stories being published as part of other publications, why not collect everything we have completed into a grand three volume graphic novel set of 70+pages each and publish as a stand-alone title under the original Corvus Press imprint.

Also, Kickstarter was the traditional route for launching Time Bomb Comics titles.

What perks will people who support it be able to get during the campaign?

We’ve got the Early-Bird rewards for the first 48 hours, discounted price on the digital and physical copy rewards plus a special limited edition digital and physical print for all early-bird backers. The other tiers include a limited-edition Bookplate signed by Patrick and myself and the Secrets & Files comic with the backgrounds to the S.O.E organisation and the main and supporting characters. Preview copies of which were at the Lawless and Enniskillen Conventions.

There are original art page tiers along with a number of exclusive stretch goal rewards which are just being produced for this campaign and haven’t been available anywhere else before.

How closely are you working with inker Pat on this?

Very, he’s an integral part of the creative team, as well as inking he’s co-plotted/written parts of the story that lead into Volume 2 and written several stand-alone stories.

This is volume one, so you already have future volumes planned in this series?

Indeed. Volume 2 continues the Dee saga which we hope to have out early 2026. We also have the “Legacy of Shadows” story from the original comics which is currently being coloured and will be volume 3 in the series.

You are writing and pencilling this series, so you have total creative control with this. How important is it for you to have this with this series?

Well, not total control, Patrick is also co-plotting and writing some of the stories. We have an overall plan of where the Irregulars are heading and how the characters will be portrayed. We are different in the way we work. I tend to work from a loose plot and write the script while drawing which gives me a certain flexibility whereas Patrick does prefer to have the script finished before we start on the artwork.

John Dee is a historical figure who continues to fascinate people even now. What is it about him that still does this?

He is one of London’s most intriguing historical figures, a renaissance man, an occultist, mathematician, astronomer, astrologer and navigator. He had also amassed what was arguably the grandest esoteric library of the period. Yet he still remains a bit of a mystery man compared to other notable Elizabethans of the time.

What else would you compare this to in terms of its tone and approach?

I’ve thought of it as a cross between the X-Files and Justice League Dark, with a bit of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Spooks (the TV series) thrown in for good measure. The storylines cover similar tropes and genres, science fiction, mysticism and horror.

Can you please talk us through the main characters in this series?

The Irregulars are made up of

Francis “John” Drake: Former duty-bound MI6 agent. He vanished for 10 years. On return exhibited the ability to cause objects to spontaneously combust. He joined the SOE and now heads up the Irregulars.

Professor Q: Government Scientist formerly with the British space programme. He continually found himself confronting sinister alien forces that threatened to destroy humanity. Transferred to the SOE as their chief scientist. He was the first British astronaut although this is not public knowledge as the mission remains classified.

Sapphire: In 1574, on a mission for the Queen, Dr Dee travels to the Welsh Marches where he encounters an elemental. The elemental accompanies him back to Mortlake. In 1581 Dee’s daughter Katherine is born but shortly after she becomes unwell and likely to die so Dee fuses the elemental to Katherine who recovers but it is the elemental not Katherine who resides in the host body. She has continued through the centuries jumping from host to host of descendants of Dee’s family. In most host bodies she becomes the dominant personality.

Adam “The Edwardian”: Swashbuckling Edwardian Gentleman Adventurer, frozen in suspended animation in 1914 and revived in 1964. He hasn’t aged a day since his revival.

John Naylor “Little John”: 7’ Scottish giant claims to be the reincarnation of the Little John of Robin Hood fame. He grew to current size on hitting puberty following a witch’s curse.

Tobias Dayce “Tarot”: Mage / Occultist from the time of the plague of London in the 17th century, forced to make magical plans to escape the plague and placed himself in suspended animation in his crypt. Revived in 1964, 300 years later. Illusionist and stage magician.

Kashifah Alfarsi “Scheherazade”: An empath, able to read probabilities from static and broadcast images. She is addicted to Japanese Anime.

Randal Hopkirk: Deceased Detective. Killed during a shoot-out between rival Jamaican drug gangs. Of the Irregulars only Drake and Sapphire can see and communicate with him.

The Cuckoos: Five orphans; Victor, Judy, Bunty, Diana and Robin. Found in the abandoned SOE Station IX – Spartan factory, North Circular Road, Wembley. All three were in an underground bunker having been raised by an alien computer in a virtual reality program far in advance of anything on Earth. They exhibit telekinetic and teleportational abilities and communicate with each other via telepathy.