As part of Manga Month it seems there's a (somewhat feeble) excuse for this blog to travel back in time to 1999, revisiting Agent Rob's first dalliance with the Glasgow comic scene and the resultant, unfinished/unpublished superhero strip The Expanders. Having visited the Byers Road Futureshock and picked up a 'Want To Draw Comics?' flyer concocted by writer Will Marshall and artist Jim Devlin - then currently working on the earliest incarnation of their own Dark Ascension series - a fresh-faced, pre-S.H.I.E.L.D. Rob was soon part of the team working on the proposed Evil Ink anthology. Many enjoyable Saturday afternoon's would be spent in Will Marshall's vast conservatory, our bold creators plotting and planning this (admittedly pretty exciting looking) title....
Spot the newbie.... L-R: C.Barr, J.Devlin, A.Amateur,
C.Alexander, H.Healy and C.Sibling (reclining)
Alas, this website promo is all that survives from those 'sessions', the title never came to pass and for whatever reason the Saturday meets fizzled out and Rob eventually drifted away from the comic scene in general (until....). Luckily (and like all artists, who clutch and cling to their every idea as if it was pure comic gold) Rob stashed away the pages having assembled them into several rough chapters - the strip was conceived and structured along similar lines to those in 2000AD, a 'book' being formed of 7 chapters at 6 pages a piece. The basic premise - though from the meets I'm sure it was agreed the strips should NOT be set in Scotland - was that there was a plethora of heroes worldwide and that The Expanders were decidedly B-List, a bunch of guys living in a Glasgow high-rise, living off Scottish Plain bread (with marmalade) and hoping for a chance to be allowed to venture into outer space....
Above is, um, Mr Solid - who, if anyone is remotely interested, was partly visualised as Rob's idea of what a 9th Doctor Who would ideally look like - the leader of the team and only non-superpowered member, preferring computer games and male pattern baldness....
The second character was Heux: L'Enfant Unique AKA The Boy Bulldog - er, whose 'face' is based on a burglar alarm sensor situated between 2 sash and case windows, the sensor formed the mouth/nose and the moveable side jams to either side informed the angled eyes - a seemingly indestructible, er, hermaphrodite alien (adopted French!) who seems to be seeking his own Achilles' heel....
The third member of our quartet was Captain High-Definition (so named much later in a quasi-revival for a Khaki Shorts khreditorial) who was basically very tall and very skinny and (presumably) very clever. Hi-Def's head is, in fact, based on the look of a retractable pencil's pocket clip....
The fourth notable character was (at that time) known as Compass Head - er, as his head was based on the looks of a traditional school compass - but latterly he was rebranded to Metalhead. In the opening chapters he's evidently the supervillain of the piece. We'll get started on that next time and in the meanwhile here's some story roughs (which at the very least display some clarity of approach and vision for a first-timer)....
Roughs for Chapter 1 and (the start of) Chapter 2....
Roughs for (the rest of) Chapter 2....
Roughs for Chapters 4 & 5....
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