Dave Baillie: ‘Go do something that makes you happier….. or gives you visible abs!’

© Dave Baillie

With work ranging from DC’s Vertigo to Valiant comics, 2000 AD regular David Baillie has had a long and storied career filled with challenge and triumph. Today he sits down to talk about all things comics, how to make it in the industry and how fatherhood has changed him as a creator.

Me: Let’s start with an easy question. Everyone always asks writers when they knew they could do this for a living but when was your biggest I can never do this moment, your biggest moment of doubt?

Dave: I think it was the opposite for me - I assumed it was absolutely impossible, and so instead I had a series of ‘maybe this is doable?’ moments.

Getting feedback from Matt Smith on early Future Shock pitches rather than just form rejections gave me a real boost. Selling my first one - although I definitely remember thinking, maybe this is all the success I’ll ever have? And if so, that’s no bad thing. I was chatting to Si Spurrier at a comics event just after that first sale, and he encouraged me to make sure I kept going, as he knew too many people that had given up at that first indication of success.

I made it into the finals of various TV scripting talent contests, got to meet the head of Scripted Drama at the BBC, and the people who run Red Planet Pictures - and I remember thinking at the time that I’d already made it much further than I’d imagined.

I remember watching Red Thorn fans get excited about the comic on Twitter and thinking that we’d made something special for these people. Even if we didn’t set any sales records, these fans loved it and that was very, very cool.

But to be honest doubt is always there. The industries that have hired me for the last fifteen or twenty years are all in a precarious place at the moment, and I know that it’s always going to be a bit of a slog. As Kyle Baker said in a recent interview at the Comics Journal ‘Comics is the only business I know of where the winners all starve’ - the people we all think of as making it, the legends, almost all died penniless, or at least financially insecure.

I should get a pension.

Me: Which of the Big Two’s characters would you love to write in future?

Dave: I bet everyone says Batman and Spider-Man, so I’ll say those two.

A Marvel editor reached out to me last year asking for Spider-Man adjacent ideas, and after ten minutes of thinking I had nothing, I searched my ideas database and discovered that over the years I’d actually written dozens of one-line notes on a whole bunch of Spider-related stories.

I wrote a Nightwing inventory issue for DC a couple of years ago, and again I started off thinking that I knew nothing about Nightwing and probably didn’t have anything on him. That didn’t last long, as as soon as I sat down at the keyboard, my poor nerdy brain started producing plot after plot for Dick (or Rick as he was called at the time) to battle through.

Growing up a Marvel and DC fan, I imagine (hope?) my brain would light up like that no matter which superhero I was tasked to write for.

Me: Which makes me wonder, would you ever consider writing anything else set in the Red Thorn universe?

Dave: Ha - funny you should ask! Meghan and I chat every now and again about just that.

I keep all my story ideas in a searchable notes database (it used to all be in a TiddlyWiki, then it was Evernote now I use an app called UpNote) and whenever I’m working on something Scottish - like Calhab, or a TV show I was working on last year - almost everything I search for brings up dozens of results from my Red Thorn archives. Weird myths, research I did into apocryphal saints and celtic magickal practises. It’s all still there, and ready to be raided - but we’d have to find the time, some way to pay for that time, and also figure out the legality of it - as we still have an agreement in place with DC Comics and Warner Brothers.

But one day - I’d absolutely love to do more Red Thorn, or more with that world!

Me: Well, hopefully we won’t have to wait long.

Credit: Art of Nick Brokenshire (from 2000 AD's Blue Skies over Deadwick)

Me: On a similar note, if you got the opportunity to give any 2000 AD character the Ultimate Marvel treatment (a topical reboot for a modern audience for those unfamiliar), who would you choose and how would you reboot them?

Dave: ABC Warriors! Oh my god - I loved the Khronicles of Khaos era of the ABCs and would rip time and space apart to do some weird topical reboot. Obviously that can’t happen, but I can’t even imagine how much fun that’d be.

Failing that, I’d throw Dredd and Strontium Dog into the same universe and have them at each other’s throats in every episode. Dredd in his original pitch uniform, before Carlos had the full helmet design, and Johnny Allpha (I’d change the spelling of Alpha, just because) as a gender fluid bounty hunter brought in to help deal with the worst cases of abominable behaviour brought on by the inhumanity of Mega City living. It’d end with the revelation that humanity as a whole has brain worms, a parasite that thrives in unnaturally crowded cities, and there was nothing anyone could have done anyway.

And the outfits would be very cool!

Me: Just like the uniforms in CalHab. What was your biggest inspiration for CalHab?

Dave: Please don’t laugh, but it’s a 1980s arcade machine called Xybots. I discovered it in a chip shop in a neighbouring town to the village I grew up in, and I was in love with it for an entire summer. It was a really early third person shooter, where you had a gun with what looked like a large target hovering over the barrel, and you had to blast evil robots. The joystick twisted, allowing you to switch which direction you were facing. Anyway it was great, and it turns out what I thought was a huge targeting system wasn’t actually that, but the barrel of the weird firearm, which the sprite artists struggled to depict with the limited space available.

I know this is going to sound shallow but I’ve always wanted to write a story about the people who carry the guns……, but to be honest I’m not a gun-guy writer, so I thought it’d never happen. Then Tharg asked me to pitch a Calhab story that was a bit like Taggart, the old Scottish TV show. I did, and he said that story was too similar to Armitage - which it was. But in the background of that pitch was a heavy weapons team, guarding a crime scene and he suggested writing about them. And out popped all my Xybots love from 1988!

Me: How has becoming a father changed you as a writer?

Dave: What a great question! I think parenthood often changes everything - your entire perspective on life suddenly shifts. Mine certainly did, anyway. It forced me to be more organised and sensible in my regular life which I think helped my writing process, but it probably also required redirecting some energy that I would have previously put into my work into the actual parenting. And I have absolutely no regrets about that - being a father’s been, without a doubt, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

Thinking about the work specifically though, I think it’s given me access to a whole layer of emotional understanding that I wouldn’t have otherwise had.

I’ve become a more emotional person too. I was always a bit of a weeper when it came to TV and film, but now that’s off the charts. I was chatting to a couple of friends at Thought Bubble last year (Bridgeen Gillespie and Gary Spencer Millidge) and they asked to see a photo of my daughter, and when I proudly produced it I teared up. I was embarrassed at the time, but I think it’s probably actually really healthy and positive and points to some deep happiness that I’d struggle to articulate in any way that didn’t involve public crying.

The comedian and writer Rob Delaney said that he loves to work with fellow parents, because he knows that they’ll have developed a laser focus from having to snatch work time between blocks of parenting. I have to admit - I don’t think I’ve developed that (yet?) but it probably has made me slightly more organised in every aspect of my life. You just have to be - you have a tiny life form to feed, clothe and protect!

Me: On the topic of fatherhood, how’s indoctrinating your daughter into the cult that is Doctor Who going?

Dave: She loves it. We’re watching an episode with pretty much every evening meal, and I’m terrified of what’s going to happen when we run out!

Me: You've previously told me that you'd love to write for Doctor Who magazine. Do you have any big ideas for a Doctor Who comic?

Dave: I was just about to type, ‘No - I’m a massive Doctor Who fan but I don’t think I have any ideas hidden away,’ but then decided to check my digital notebooks. Turns out I have 46 Doctor Who story ideas, recorded between 2004 and lunchtime last week. They’re mostly single lines, but if Russell T. Davies is reading this - I’m ready, coach, sub me in!

Me: And I’ve gotta ask, who's your favourite Doctor?

Dave: It’s usually whoever I’m watching at the moment. Right now I’m rewatching the Jodie Whittaker years with my family, alongside the new Ncuti Gatwa episodes, so they’re joint fave.

I have a soft spot for Peter Davidson, because he was the Doctor when I first discovered the show, and Sylvester McCoy because of his weird darkness, that I didn’t get to see enough of when I was a kid - as we only had one telly, and my parents weren’t Whovians.

Matt Smith was fabulous though, such a great take on the Doctor. I loved his energy. I also enjoyed Peter Capaldi massively - and was so excited to bump into him at NYCC. He asked me, ‘What’s a Scotsman doing in New York?’ and I wish I’d had a witty answer to that!

© Dave Baillie

Me: What song can’t you get out of your head at the minute?

Dave: Two absolute bangers - Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan or Gagbox by Table. (Two very different ends of the musical spectrum too).

Me: Any tips for new creators like myself?

Dave: Keep making! It’s the best part of the job, and it’s the bit you have to enjoy - you can get away with hating the pitching, networking and looking for work - but you have to actually enjoy the act of creation, or else what’s the point of it all? I think it’s also useful to use that early part of your writing/drawing career to train your brain to make stuff, use that initial burst of enthusiasm and energy to get the neural pathways ready for the career ahead of you.

Oh God - this is sounding like very Old Man Advice! But looking back, it’s the advice I’d give my younger self - although I think it’s what I actually did, albeit by accident. Lots of all-nighters writing and drawing was a huge amount of fun in my twenties, and prepared me for marathon stretches at the desk and drawing table a few years down the line, when my creaking bones and dust-filled brain were less able, and had to rely on the neurological equivalent of muscle memory to hit deadlines.

My only other tip is have as much fun as you can. Again, what’s the point if it’s not fun? I’m always baffled when I meet a grumpy comics creator - why are you here then? Go do something that makes you happier, makes you more money or gives you visible abs!

Me: I was looking at other articles to see what kinds of things people have already asked you and found out you're a pot noodle connoisseur so what's your favourite flavour?

Dave: Oh, how I wish I had evolved tastes, but after having tried every flavour available it turns out I’m a simple chicken and mushroom man!

Me: And the question on all our minds, what's the next big thing for Dave Baillie?

Dave: I honestly don’t know!

As I write this, Portsmouth Comic Con is next weekend, and I’m the artistic lead there, so I’ve been busy choosing Artist Alley guests, liaising with guests and various related tasks. Heavy Metal asked me for some short story ideas last week, and I said I’d have space on my schedule soon - so by the time this interview appears at Thought Bubble, either that will have happened or not.

I usually look forward to heading out to New York in October for NYCC, but to be honest if my chances of spending time in an ICE jail cell are non-zero I may stay here.

Other than that, I hope the future is all about writing stories, getting paid for them, and spending time with my family and friends.

Dave Baillie’s future may seem uncertain to him but in my mind it’s pretty clear. He’s going to keep on doing what makes him happy which is creating, broken up by his fatherly duties, a marathon of Doctor Who here and there and a pot noodle or two, or, failing that, he’s at least going to do something that gives him ‘Visible abs.’