HomeHarker Store/Downloads Blog Sapphire About Contact

Ariel Press was originally created in the early 1990s by Vince Danks - his own comics company, set up specifically to publish his espionage thriller Sapphire. Roger Gibson soon joined in the fun, Vince publishing the Gravestown comic that he put together with Mark Wayne Barrett.

After this initial flurry failed to set the world alight, Vince and Roger returned under the Ariel Press banner with the Raven anthology, containing Vince's continuation of Sapphire, along with Roger and Mark's Dan Druff, and Roger's The Bishop, Mad Girl and Griffin.The Sapphire story is available in three collected editions, all available from our shop.

Our latest project is the monthly Harker comic - check out the downloads area for our latest issue!

Vince Danks, Artist/Co-plotter

I set Ariel Press up in 1997 to publish Sapphire, a paranormal espionage story. Prior to this my first foray into the world of comic creation was back in 1986 when I became involved in a project with Richard Piers Rayner called 'The Solthenis'. Sadly it came to an end when Rich was understandably lured away by DC to work on Hellblazer. I was then offered some inking work on Redfox by Chris Bell and Fox under the Valkyrie Press banner and my first paid work (not a great amount of money but very exciting!)

From there I was offered some strip work by John Freeman who was editor of Dr Who Monthly, and I also did a strip for the Red Dwarf Smegazine and some inking work for the Marvel UK superhero line.

At this point my comic career hit a bit of a brick wall as my style didn't suit superhero work. Self-publishing, with all it's creative freedom, seemed to be the way forward. Sapphire was first, then an attempt at producing 'a good Saturday night's TV in a comic' with the anthology title 'Raven' and then two Sapphire graphic novels.

The latest project is Harker, something that again feels like a natural next step. Raven didn't work for various reasons but the idea of creating 'good TV in a comic' material is still one that both Rog and I feel excited about.

For any fans of ghostly folklore there is also a book that I've published under the Blue Angel Press imprint called Haunted York. Written by me and photoshop illustrated by Ariel Press associate Ian Forster it's a collection of some of York's best known ghost stories. Not a comic but Ian has made it look very pretty! More details at www.hauntedyork.com.

 

Roger Gibson, Writer/Co-plotter

My first comic strips were drawn for X-Men fan club offshoot X-AP in the mid 1980s - I soon formed my own APA, called Early Spring, and created a number of comic strips, including some Doctor Who stories, a wobbly adaptation of Michael Moorcock's The Chinese Agent, and other solo stories and collaborations with other fan artists and writers. Eventually I became active enough in 'fandom' that I was asked by Martin Skidmore, editor of Fantasy Advertiser, to interview Richard Piers Rayner, who was then the artist on Hellblazer. Through Rich I also met Vince, who was working as art assistant to Rich, posing as the photo-reference model of John Constantine. I quickly found myself appearing in Rich's comics (anyone with the Swamp Thing Annual he drew will see me featuring as Brother Power, and I'm in other places too).

As Vince began to publish his Sapphire comics through his own imprint, Ariel Press, I began to work on two comic strips for him with Mark Wayne Barrett, with whom I'd worked in Early Spring. The first of these was Gravestown, with Mark and I working closely together on both art and plot. We made a good start on issue two, but sales of Sapphire slowed down, Vinnie wasn't able to break even, and Ariel Press Mark One ended.

Vince and I had bigger ideas, and we talked a lot about producing a comic that was 'like a good Saturday night's telly' - the result of which was the Raven anthology, containing Vince's continuation of his Sapphire strip, my solo photo strip 'The Bishop', and the second of my projects with Mark, Dan Druff (and its later spin-off, Mad Girl, this time produced solo). My last solo strip in Raven was the detective comic Griffin, and with that I quietly withdrew from drawing comics, and concentrated on my strongest skill - writing. Discovering Nanowrimo (National Novel Writers Month) I threw myself into novel writing, producing an adaptation of the Gravestown comic, and also a science thriller called Loop.

Until the Bristol Comic Convention last year (2008), and a discussion Vince and I had in the bar. I asked Vince if he really did intend to retire from comics, as he had hinted in his editorial in Sapphire. He replied that what particularly appealed to him was the Griffin comic strip I'd begun in the final issue of Raven. Griffin was a quirky detective, with a cocky sidekick, and although I'd enjoyed putting together the first part, it was clear that I had no further plans for the character. "Feel free to take him if you want," I said. Vince replied that although that would be nice, he didn't want to work on it on his own, he'd had enough of the solo thing to last him a lifetime.

"Well, what if I were to write it for you?" I offered. By the end of the evening, we'd not only talked about what such a comic would be like, we'd begun to flesh out the structure of the comic, the first story, and the way we saw it progressing afterwards. Harker, of course, was the result...