Tripwire Talks To UK Indie Creator Gary Seaward About Legacy: Idols And Bones

Creating A New Superhero Legacy

Tripwire magazine has a proud history of supporting the British Comic Industry for almost thirty-five years. Our contributing writer Paul N Neal endeavours to keep an eye out for comic projects he believes genuinely deserve greater exposure and a little more recognition.
Gary Seaward and his project is a perfect example. So Neal reached out to find out little bit more…

TRIPWIRE: In my experience, anyone that is bold enough to try to create their own comic must have been a fan of comics. So, let’s start at the beginning. What were the first comics you recall reading or even buying for yourself? How old would you have been? How much might they have cost? And where were they from?

GARY SEAWARD: Thank you for talking comics with me! My first introduction to comics were UK reprints from WHSmiths of Superman and Spider-Man comics.

I was probably about 10 or 11 years old (I’m 47 now), I poured over those pages! As much as I enjoyed John Byrne’s Superman, it was the 3 issues of Spider-Man collecting issue 1 of McFarlane’s Spidey, an Erik Larsen drawn Spider-Man and a Punisher story, and a Sal Buscema Spidey and Puma one (I don’t think I ever saw that character again).

I can’t think how many times I read those three issues, all of which were just parts of a story (I didn’t finish McFarlane’s Spider-Man until a few years ago!)

I eventually started picking up more Spider-Man UK collected reprints with Mark Bagley and Ron Lim on Maximum Carnage, but it was Rick Leonardi with Al Williamson on Spider-Man 2099 that blew my tiny little mind. I think it would have been then that I finally walked into a comic shop and started picking up the original issues of the Spidey 2099 run (Recently buying the massive omnibus edition).

TW: Can you say what your current reading habits are like? What do you currently enjoy?

GS: As much as I love superhero comics, which is what I guess I would say Legacy: Idols and Bones is, I’m currently more drawn to horror and sci-fi books.

I’m currently reading Something is Killing the Children, I’m catching up on Saga. I loved Spectators by Brian K Vaughan! The Moon is Following Us, I was a Fashion School Serial Killer, Spawn the Dark Ages, Void Rivals, Battle Beast and anything Hulk.

TW: Legacy: Idols and Bones is your project. How long have you been working on what I suspect may be a passion project? I  believe you are hard at work on issue two now? Please tell me all about it.

GS: Issue 2 is finished. I’m on issue 3 of this 6-issue story. This comic has been a LONG road, which I guess would have started probably around 2008 when the characters came to me. No story, just characters.
Over time the story started to crystallise in my mind. 2 brothers, superheroes. Eidolon/Ethan, a Superman-style front-facing hero with his name in every magazine and his face on every product and his brother Connor/Carcass, a vigilante who works at night, but more than that, I wanted to create a story with consequences – people get hurt, and die and it sticks!

GS: As a comic fan for a long time now, I’m trying to play with comic tropes and enjoy the experience of playing with people’s expectations. This is a violent, action-filled, sexy comic with characters that feel and grow.

expectations. This is a violent, action-filled, sexy comic with characters that feel and grow.

TW: Has it been an easy journey to get to where you are now?

GS: I think it was around 2011 when I drew 13 pages… and I hated them, they got binned.

Then 2020 came around, Covid. I was furloughed the whole time and (after sitting on my arse for a couple months) I thought, “I should do that comic!” In that time, I finished about 12 pages and had another 12 pages in the works.

TW: Certainly, Covid and Lockdown was a weird experience for everyone.

GS: Then the world started back up, and I went back to work and the files sat on my PC for another few years. I can’t remember when, but, at some point, I changed my working hours from full time to 3 days a week, starting my own freelance design services. Work coming in was slow, so I thought rather than just sitting around, why don’t I have a look at those shitty pages I drew.

They weren’t as bad as I remembered! I made the decision to get it finished and to prove to myself and potential readers that I was serious, I drew all of issue 2 and added to issue 1 making issue 1 48 pages long (so issue 2 is actually issue 3 etc).

TW: You believed in your project?

GS:  Currently, I’m not taking on any freelance work, I’m solely concentrating on getting the comic done.

TW: Would I also be correct in thinking that your comic relies on crowd funding and Kickstarter. Please do tell me all about the Kickstarter campaign you have planned for issue 2.

GS: Yes, Issue 1 was successful enough to get copies printed, which was such an odd experience! Issue 2 has its pre-launch page up and will go live in February.

I’m offering print copies of issue 1 and 2 along with pdf versions, plus gold foil art prints and bookmarks, and a top tier to be drawn into the comic.

I’m very excited to say that I have 2 pin ups in issue 2. One by co-host of the Awesome Comic Podcast and creator of the web comic, Dan Butcher, and another by comic artist Matt Timson (Impaler, Self-Storage). They produced amazing artwork and it blows my mind seeing other people draw my characters.

TW: What is the attraction of superhero comics for you? What is the appeal? Certainly the 1990s were a weird and wonderful era for comics, so are you trying recapture part of that magic?

GS: Don’t get me wrong, I 100 % believe that comics is a medium, not a genre and I love picking up all sorts of comics, but there’s this little (or large) part of my heart that will always be drawn to superheroes. I grew up with them… in the 90’s and maybe that’s the problem. Within the mainstream superhero comics, nothing changes, there’s no consequences and I wanted to create a comic that really explored what would happen if superpowered beings existed in the world. Not a new concept, I’m sure, but let’s be honest, if people with that level of power existed, normal people are gonna get hurt and die, and the heroes themselves would not be immune to the consequences, which is mostly what I explore with the story. I actually really fancy doing a horror comic next, when this is tied up.

TW: Your comic has a variant cover that you freely admitted online was a little adult or for lack of a better expression NSFW. I simply ask what age group is your comic appropriate for?

GS: There’s NSFW variant artwork for covers 1-3, which I may carry on with for all 6 issues, but to keep the print costs down, I’m not actually offering variant covers. The artwork appears at the back of the comic and as (foil) art prints that can be pledged for.

I’d definitely agree that it’s a ‘Mature Readers’ comic, but as for an age? I don’t know. I’ve let my 16-year-old daughter read it. “Maturity” is an odd thing. I’m a fan of Brian K Vauaghan and what he’s done with Saga and Spectators, and as someone who studied life drawing at college, I have no problem with female AND male nudity, but I understand it can be an issue for some people, so have ‘Austin Powered’ any male genitalia. Why do we readily accept terrible violence in our media but squirm at nudity? weird.

TW: You have stated that your project is planned to run for six issues. If people invest in the early issues, can you publicly state here and now you will commit to completing your six-issue storyline? Or will you leave people hanging on a cliffhanger?

GS: I’m going to do everything in my power to complete all 6 issues, but obviously, the better is does on Kickstarter and at conventions (I have a table booked for NorCon in September) the easier it is to dedicate time to it. With that in mind, 6 issues completes this story and character arcs, but obviously the world will still exist… unless I blow it all up (you can do that with Indie comics lol), so I may come back to it one day to explore it further.

TW: Would you have a Facebook group of a Kickstarter link that readers could join or follow for updates?

GS: Absolutely! I’m doing everything I can to get the word out. Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/legacyidolsandbones

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/garyseaward/legacy-idols-and-bones-issues-1-and-2

TRIPWIRE NOTE: To end our discussion, Gary agreed to share a small preview of Issue One of Legacy: Idols and Bones