Filed under: Interviews | Tags: Black Hearted Press, Laptop Guy, Scout One, Sha Nazir
Following on in our Black Hearted Press feature week, we caught up with Sha Nazir, creator of Laptop Guy and artist of Scout One.
Talking with Sha on his background of work, it’s hard to understand why he didn’t get into comics sooner – having worked for some time now as a graphic and web designer, as well as in the theatrical space, he’s in the perfect position to create something new and get it out there – which is exactly what David and John saw when they needed help with the first BHP title – Black Maria:
They asked me to come in and help them to bring it all together. And then kinda post doing that I got the bug for it – it wasn’t that I particularly wanted to draw superhero comics or really commercial stuff or be famous comics artist or all these kind of things, what I’m much more interested in is just creating stuff and making my own ideas and just enjoying them.
What was clearly a big-bang moment for all three when creating Black Maria has lead them to create BHP as a platform for collaborating comics creators:
I’ve really enjoyed working in collaboration with other people, cause that’s the big fun thing for me. So for like Laptop Guy, that was my first comic and the first time I’d done something in that kind of way – it was really fun to do and really silly, but it let me sort of cut my teeth. I’ve got that to the point now though that one of my friends who is a television writer who writes for Shameless and Dr Who, is going to come in and do the next 3 issues of Laptop Guy.
Starting the publisher has been a good way for these guys to try out something new, however by bringing Jim Alexander on board it meant that they could all learn from someone who’s been doing it for quite some time:
On Scout 1 it was really good working with Jim – pro of 15/20 years! Having the ability to take his scripts and have the confidence to start and do some storytelling. It was nice to take a real script with its narrative and actually then tell that in a graphic story way – I’m still kind of trying to find my feet in terms of drawing and making comics, but I’m enjoy it.
Talking to all of those behind BHP it’s clear that they believe that 2012 will be the tipping point for the company. Starting out with only a couple of titles, the range has now grown to a decent size, one that Sha knows will be hard work to build upon, but good fun to promote:
The aim with the schedule we have now is we’ve got the 5 or 6 titles that are out, so we should be in a position where we’re producing a comic once a month or every 6 weeks. Whether it’s Scout One or School of the Damned or Children of the Damned, all of these things will be ticking over. So that’s going to be fun and a challenge, but then there’s a lot of potential working with other established creators as well newcomers in projects coming under the BHP title.
Finally, when asked about what comics he was reading, he was also enthusiastic about John Lee’s The Standard, feeling compelled to read the rest of it straight after reading issue 1. Outside of the indie titles though, Sha is a bit of a “weird and eclectic” reader:
I don’t read regular comics very often, I used to read lot of superhero stuff from Marvel and DC, but I love older things, like Tin Tin, more kind of graphic story telling. I think the most recent thing I’ve read which I really loved was Justice League International from the 80’s. It’s brilliantly funny and beautifully drawn as well. It’s nice for it be a completely different take, but it’s still really contemporary now. Go back and read it! I wasn’t sure about reading it, but I started and just got hooked.
Be sure to check out our review of Sha’s Laptop Guy and Scout One from earlier.
Craig @hastiecraig
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