![]() I guess I sort of had a natural innate feeling for telling stories in pictures, which not everyone has got and which has never really been widely taught until recently. I did a bit of life drawing although not anything like as much as I should've. If you look at my style now, you can see little bits that come from people like Kurt Swan or Wally Wood. "I didn't go to art school I learnt to draw literally just by copying comics page for page. I guess I had a natural innate feeling for telling stories in pictures That was in the mid '70s and I've been going ever since. So I went back to working as a surveyor again and also ghosted for another artist while they were away on holiday so built up a cushion of money and just went from there. ![]() I had to borrow money from my parents and I really only made enough money to cover my living expenses and pay them back. Once I'd qualified as a surveyor, I packed everything in and went to Spain for a few months, came back and decided to be a comic book artist. And it wasn't until a few years later when I found myself dissatisfied with what I was doing as a course of study, which was to be a building surveyor, that I wondered if I could draw comics for a living. "But then when I got to be about 16 or 17, I lost interest in comics and did the things that most blokes at that age do - girls, drinking, and scooters, as it happened. I lost interest in comicsand did what blokes atthat age do - girls,drinking, and scooters So I'd haunt all the local comic book shops trying to make sure that I got the latest issue as they came out and would keep them all together neatly in a box under my bed. I had the bug that a lot of adolescent boys had, which was collecting things. "I just kept on drawing comics and when I got to secondary school I was sort of the class cartoonist. This early Superman edition was the first American comic Gibbons had ever encountered, which his grandfather bought for him for six pence (© DC Comics) QUESTION: Tell us how you went from copying comicbooks to working on horror and action titles forDC Thomson and IPC. So I was quite well supplied with comic books by my family." My maternal grandfather worked in a newsagent with another member of the family and he would send me Superman comics rolled up in little brown paper mailers more or less every week as I remember it. And, of course, the fact that American comics were in colour whereas a lot of the British comics were in black and white, the colour seemed to add a lot to it. "I think I just fell in love with the idea of Superheroes and larger than life adventures. ![]() ![]() ![]() I think I just fell in love with the idea of Superheroes I've still got it and I've actually got a much nicer copy of it just for memory's sake. I've still got that comic - that was more years ago than I'd really care to admit, certainly in the mid '50s. He asked me if I wanted it and I said yes, so he bought it for me for six pence. "The first American comic book I remember, is when I was in Woolworth’s with my paternal grandfather and him pointing to a Superman comic on the shelf - first one I'd ever seen. I learnt to read quite young I was quite a precocious and intelligent child. I certainly remember seeing the Dandy and the Beano, having a little hoard of those and getting an annual of each every Christmas from the age of about five or six onwards. I've only got vague memories and some of those are actually inflated with my memory of my younger sister getting those kinds of comics. "I used to get nursery comics, Floppy Bunnies and that kind of thing, when I was a little kid. Gibbons created this cover for miniseries Turf by Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards (© Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards) QUESTION: Tell us about your first encounter with a comic book. ![]()
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