Artist Ian Gibson has passed away and our thoughts are for his family at this sad time. He is one of our favourite artists and in the History of Comics 1984 Steve Bull interviewed him about his career and Halo Jones. The interview is reproduced below.
SB Let’s go back to the beginning Ian. It’s 1984 and you’re an established 2000ad creator. How were you approached to co-create one of the greatest characters to appear in the Prog?
IG. I wasn’t. I’d been pestering Steve, the editor, to do a girl’s story as I was irritated by the way women were represented in the stories. Mostly they were just men with tits. So I asked him if they could get permission to do Bobby Heinlein’s ‘Friday’ and gave Steve a copy to read.
But they came back with a definite ‘No!’
Then, one evening after signing party, in London Steve said to me: ‘You’ve just done a long stint on Dredd and Robohunter. Is there anything you’d like to do?’ And, as I’d seen Jim and Alan’s work on Skizz, I said I’d like to do a girl’s story with Alan. So Steve introduced us. I told Alan that that I wanted a ‘realistic’
story without ‘thought bubbles’ or panel explanations. Let the reader figure out what is going on from the action. As I’ve often said: I never see a street sign with a message “Ian is in for a big surprise!” So let’s keep it real. Alan said fine and went away. Six months later he came back, enthusiastic saying ‘We have a winner!! Girls, rockets and monsters!’ So I went to visit him and sat on his lounge carpet being supplied with spliffs and designed Halo right there. So you could say ‘Halo was born on his livingroom carpet.’
SB. I remember you also drawing a two part strip in 2000ad shortly before Halo appeared titled The Amazing Maze Dumoir. Maze was another strong female lead, this time written by Alan Hebden. Do you think Maze had any bearing on you getting the Halo gig? Was she your audition?
IG. I think it was just the editorial way of making sure I could draw ladies. An ‘audition’ if you like.
SB. How was the collaboration with Alan Moore. Did you have conversations around the characters and events in the script or were you presented with the usual highly ‘Moore’ detailed descriptions to work your magic?
IG. Alan’s first ideas where for Halo to find some abandoned space craft on an asteroid or some such. Mystery story style. I asked Alan what her raison d’etre was and he said ‘escape’. So I told him that we needed to know what she was escaping from! I told him that the best way to get to know a world was to go shopping in it. I said ‘Imagine that there’s a hostage situation in Tesco, the local store has burned down and Terrorists are swarming all over Sainsburys. You need to treat your shopping expedition as a
military operation.’
He decided that we’d base them on something called the Hoop off the coast of Manhattan, being powered by the city. But I had to point out that it was an ideal wave power generator inhabited by a
slave maintenance crew. They would be supplying power to Manhattan, not the other way round. I also pointed out that it would need to ‘flex’ to allow for large ocean waves otherwise it would just break up. So I sent him some designs of how it would look.
As to Alan’s infamous ‘detailed descriptions’ – I mostly ignored them. I considered them mood setters and not much more. For example in book 3 when Halo is told they’re off to War zone 1, Alan wanted Halo to drop something precious to her and have a horrified expression. So I just drew her from the knees down and she’s dropping a picture of Rodice as a final break with her past.
But I must confess to having dropped the ball myself in book 2. The editors had told us that we could only do a second book if it contained some violence ( as if there wasn’t enough inherent violence in
book 1??!! ). This totally pissed me off and my heart just wasn’t in the story any more, and it shows in the art as well as in the fact that I didn’t pull Alan up on all the dreadful plot holes in the story. Friggin furnace on a space ship!!??!!
SB. Can you describe the origins of the look of Halo? Anyone familiar with your work will know that beautiful ladies are something of a constant theme but was there anyone you based her look on either
famous or not?
IG. I just made her up.
SB. Were any other characters looks inspired by people either in the public eye or in your life?
IG. Not from my part. But my long time friend, Janet ( sadly not with us any more) was sure that Alan based the professor, Dr Brunhaur ( or howerever you spell it ) on her cousin Jan Harold Brunvand who
wrote the Vanishing Hitchhiker, which was about urban myths. She even said that my rendition looked a lot like him!!
SB. I’m interested in your process for a page of art at the time. Can you take us through this and the amount of time it took to produce an average page (not that any of those pages are average)?
IG. The deadlines were tight. So I was producing five or six pages a week. For book 3 I demanded from the editors that I be allowed to work larger as I find it easier to work faster on a larger scale.
SB. What were your thoughts on reading the script for book one? Was it clear that this was something special or did it just feel like another job?
IG. Nope. This was my baby. I wanted it to be something special.
SB. Had you worked with Alan at any time previously or if not were you aware of him as a writer and did you have any opinion on his work?
IG. I think we’d done a couple of odd stories – future shocks I think they were called. I’d liked Skizz, but I think a lot of that was down to Jim’s excellent artwork.
SB. How did the artist/writer relationship develop/change over the 3 books? Did it become more collaborative? Did Alan leave you to do your thing with the art?
IG. Well, as I said, I’d had to guide Alan into Book 1 to give the story meaning. In book 2 I just wasn’t paying attention and let his blunders through the net. So, when it came to book 3 I decided to try to make up for my slipshod work in no 2 and put a lot more effort into the art.
SB. It’s commonly understood that Alan had planned for there to be 9 books. Can you enlighten us on any of those original conversations with Alan beyond book 3?
IG. Right from the start, there on Alan’s living room carpet, Alan was talking about how the story would end – out at the arse end of nowhere. We talked about if she would have children etc. But nothing really concrete.
SB. Do you have any thoughts on the recently released colourised version of Halo? Where you approached to do the job?
IG. Nope. I don’t think Rebellion like me very much, as displayed by the shit awful cover they did for one of the‘collections’. They didn’t offer me the chance to do that cover and they didn’t even tell me that a ‘ colourised’ version was in the works.
SB. Halo obviously transcended comics into popular culture with Songs (Hanging out with Halo Jones by Transvision Vamp and Stage shows etc. What was your favourite part of that and did you as the artist find yourself with an amount of celebrity that you didn’t have before?
IG. I think my favourite part was meeting the little blonde girl from Transvision Vamp, Wendy James, I think her name was. I was feeling a bit down as I’d just got divorced and given my ex a new house and a new car and still had to pay alimony. And Wendy’s response was: ‘She can take all your money. But she
can’t take your talent!’ Which was a very mature attitude for someone so young. Pity she couldn’t sing! 😉
SB. Luis Cannibal has a pretty striking look. How did you come up with that?
IG. Alan asked for tusks. But I figured that he needed more. Something to give him distinction, maybe distended earlobes like a bodhisattva. So I set about hanging stuff in his ears, something that has become something of a trend nowadays!
While I was sketching away, my wife Jacqui passed behind me and commented that the rocks I’d stuffed in his ears looked like snake heads. Boom!! Thanks, Jax! So I go looking for reference of the most poisonous snakes on the planet and hang living ones in his ears and around his neck. That’s more like it! Now you hardly notice the tusks!!
SB. Did you ever get to see the Halo Jones Stage show? If so what did you think?
IG. Alan and I went to the ‘In the Red’ company’s version of the stage play. Personally I thought the girl who played Halo was too loud and brash, whereas the girl who played Ludy would have been my choice of lead. The chap who played Toby wasn’t too bad.
SB. Halo was incredibly successful, Why do you think it was so heralded and is still so relevant to this day and it’s new readership?
IG. Like I told Alan at the start – let’s make it real. I guess that worked.
SB. Finally, You’ve let it be known that you have developed your own ideas for future books of Halo Jones. Now it’s clear Alan Moore won’t be continuing his scripting beyond the released books. Can you give us some spoilers on the journey Halo would be taking beyond book 3?
IG. Well, Halo gets tried for murder. There is security footage of her messing with Cannibal’s spigot ( no innuendo intended! ). She is also found guilty of theft and desertion. Happily for Halo she is tried in absentia. Cannibal is still alive – he set up Halo for the supposed murder, hence the handy security film of her ‘crime’. Swifty Frisco is the propaganda mouthpiece for the Lux Roth Chop empire as they bring ‘peace and stability’ to the primitive worlds. The Dolphins aren’t happy.
SB. So what would the end look like?
IG. If it ever did get to the end of the nine book scenario, where Alan’s idea was that Halo just gets into her ship and flies off into the maelstrom at the end of the universe, or whatever. I was imagining a
time/reality warp where …….. 😉
Ian Gibson’s work has been nominated by you for the ComicScene Awards 2024.
ComicScene magazine 
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