A funny thing happened as me and mighty Martin Simmonds signed Death Sentence London at Forbidden Planet last week.
In case you were unaware Death Sentence London is about Verity Fette, aka Artgirl, uncovering a conspiracy at the heart of British politics. Meanwhile she’s coming to terms with contracting Gplus – an STD which’ll kill her in six months while enhancing her ability to do what she loves.
It twists a lot of recent news through a satirical lens: rioting; government austerity; militiarized police; Occupy; Anarchy; Boris Johnson. Though we had to tone down some of the Boris stuff on legal advice because, you know, it was too close to the bone and THE MAN CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! Haha! To be fair whatever his many failings and strengths the bumbling fornicating angry mayor character Boris created puts him right up there with Peter Sellers and Ronnie Barker in the pantheon of comedy greats – so there’s a rich seam of laughs to mine. Laughs that stick in your craw when you realise how much power the man has. I find him endlessly fascinating, horrifying, and amusing – even more so after researching his life thoroughly – so he makes a great villain for the book.
Amusingly the signing we did at Forbidden Planet happened the same time Zack Snyder was in promoting a small arthouse project called Superman v Batman: Dawn of Justice. So naturally we had some fun with him over who would draw the biggest crowd. I had a secret weapon of course – my innate knowledge of the British people. And in my extensive experience the British people will do anything for a biscuit.
Never mind the years we spent grafting over the graphic novel, queues soon extended round the block as news of my plate of jaffa cakes spread across social media. Zack Snyder was soundly beaten and shuffled quietly into the wings weeping into his sharpie.
Actually, that’s not true at all. The Superman v Batman premiere got cancelled at Leicester Square so all Zack’s fans came down to the store instead to meet him and pick up a Superman Batman artbook. He was a good sport. Happily a lot of them also stuck around and picked up Death Sentence too, so Warner Bros kindly spent millions inadvertently bringing people to our book launch. Weird how the world works sometimes.
It was a very strange week. More on that later.
Monty Nero 
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