Three Years – Questionnaire – Shaun Richens.

Who is your favourite comic book character?

Truth be told, I am more of a creator guy these days. I tend to follow them from book to book rather than reading a particular characters.

Although as a kid I loved Gambit in the X-Men animated series a ton!

What is your favourite comic?

Fell and The Umbrella Academy are the two series that instantly come to mind. They are the single issues I will pull out every few weeks and re read and just get pumped to make comics.

Who is your favourite comic writer?

Robert Kirkman, it’s as simply as that. If it wasn’t for Invincible and The Walking Dead starting at Image I wouldn’t have gotten back into comics and wouldn’t be writing them today.

Who has been the most fun to write so far?

Jonah Hex for me was a hoot to write. I’m a sucker for all those old western tropes and loved getting a chance to play with some of them.

Which character do you most dread having to write?

Honestly, any that I like to much. It’s the characters I know inside and out that always prove the hardest to work with I’ve found. When you know all of a characters stories, finding your own tale can be daunting.

Which non-comics character would you most like to write?

I’d personally love to write a Fast and The Furious comic. I have a strange love for the franchise and think the over the top action and crazy car plots could make for one hell of a comic series.

Also as a kid I was a huge fan of the 3 Ninjas series of films and my inner child would jump at the chance to write an old ages comic set in that universe.

Which script do you think has been your best so far?

Two scripts stand out in my mind, Rainbow Dash and Peanuts. They both came one after another and at the time seemed like subjects I thought so far from my wheel house that I could never come up with a story for them worth telling. Perhaps because of this, the fact I found my in, so to speak and managed to write something I could be proud of makes them stand out.

Which script do you think has been the best on the site?

I have pulled out the script that stands out for me as the best for all my fellow current tenured writers.

Ben’s  Starship Troopers still stands out as one of his best for me. Its tightly written and perfectly paced. It captures the source material just right as well.

Dan has written so many scripts that I wish I had written but I’ve picked the script that I never could have written, Dan’s Krypto script. Mr Hill came at the week from an angle I never would have and ended up with a truly powerful and emotional script, that even now, just rereading had me touched.

Grant wrote a clinic during the Planet of the Apes week. In one page he introduced us to, and fleshed out two strong and fully formed characters, whilst having them explore the themes at the very heart of the material, a wonderful piece of writing.

J.D used some elegant time changing and minimal, yet powerful captions to craft one hell of a page during our Alfred week. J.D really showed how much you could do from a craft point of view with a single page. It’s the kind of writing that I want to deconstruct so I could learn from it.

MK showed a skill during the Top Cow Talent Hunt Week that I am still very jealous of. The dude can write one hell of an action scene. He creates drama and movement in each panel that makes the combat and action feel fast and brutal in a way I can still only dream of achieving.

Looking back at Niel’s work I thought I’d found my pick for him a dozen times, the guys written so many wildly different and brilliant pages. But then I hit this script with a beat boxing rap battlin’ Etrigan and it couldn’t not be my pick. I remember reading this for the first time and with each new panel loving it more and more. That’s good comics!

Ray’s ongoing tale of redemption hit a crazy new high with his Electro page. This tale of one man trying to become more than he was for his family, set to the back drop of some of the craziest characters in the Marvel universe truly makes for a sage that is as big and bold as any of the great comic book adventures.