An interview with Simon Furman
Much-loved comics writer Simon Furman took some time out of his busy schedule to discuss the influences on his work.
THE groundbreaking films of the 1970’s had a profound effect on much-loved comics author Simon Furman when he was growing up. He was a ‘big cinema goer’ with a passion for the American New Wave and sci-fi explosion which crashed into UK cinemas and delivered a deluge of fascinating characters, non-linear narratives and open endings. As an impressionable teenager the dystopian thriller Rollerball stuck in the fledgling writer’s psyche. Set in a world controlled by greedy corporations where a brutal sport had replaced all wars, these ideas directly inspired the author’s series Dragon’s Claws, and his recent creator owned project To The Death.
He explained: “It’s got lots of ideas and interesting notions about humanity and what they want and faceless corporations, which are very much a thing of today.”
During those formative years he developed a passion for Charlton Heston’s sci-fi films such as Planet of the Apes and Omega Man, as well as conspiracy thrillers The Conversation and Parallax View, all of which had a profound effect on his evolving youthful brain.
“They weren’t bound by the need to be somewhat formulaic like modern films seem to be these days. There were some fairly free-form films around and I really liked that,” commented Simon. One major factor were the memorable characters which emerged from this tumultuous celluloid decade. It was an era of the anti-hero, where the ‘good guys’ walked the thin line between hero and villain. Simon loved Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle in The French Connection and the morally grey protagonists who populated Walter Hill’s gritty oeuvre, particularly the hardboiled bare-knuckle brawler Hard Times. He enthused: “Often, they had more layered heroes and villains. It was the age of the anti-hero.”
Of all the characters he wrote for, arrogant Dinobot leader Grimlock - a particular favourite of Simon - embodied these new heroes. Unlike his brutish depiction in the animation, this version was cunning, vengeful and selfish and Furman relished writing him: “He was a great character because he walked that line. If you have Autobots on one side and Decepticons on the other, he’s in the middle. Those characters are much more interesting to me.”
His legendary run on Marvel UK’s Transformers comic, where he had the freedom to create stories outside the main US continuity, was part of UK comics’ rise to prominence in the 80’s, which was led by an army of creative talent. Furman’s stories captured the complexity of his favourite movies and enthralled his readers. For example, The Dirty Dozen, where a group of criminals are enlisted for a suicide mission behind Nazi lines, inspired Furman to create the Autobot commando team, the Wreckers.
“If that wasn’t an inspiration for the Wreckers, I don’t know what was,” laughed the writer. “The moral ambiguity in those movies was definitely something I picked up on and put into my own writing.”
With 70’s cinema imprinted on the aspiring writer’s mind, he then encountered a trio of British comics legends which made a considerable impression in the early 80’s, while working as a journalist in the competitions department of IPC. Fascinated by how comics were made, he read 2000ad’s scripts and discovered Alan Moore, John Wagner and Alan Grant.
“My comic writing was influenced by other comic writers, particularly Alan Moore’s stuff because he rarely told a straightforwardly linear story. There were often clever structures within the story which tallied with dialogue,” explained Simon, who still reads the Northampton scribe’s groundbreaking Captain Britain and Miracleman runs. When handed his first writing job for Scream! he asked himself the question, “how do I play with the form to tell a story?” In contrast to Moore’s famously detailed descriptions, Wagner and Grant’s scripts were economical but impactful and Furman took inspiration from all his heroes when he started his comics journey.
He said: “I got to read a lot of John Wagner and Alan Grant scripts and veered towards the economical in my panel descriptions. You’re better off trusting the artist to get what you’re after and if you bind them too much, they baulk at that.”
For anyone who has ever read the fruits of Furman’s and Geoff Senior’s dynamic partnership, such as Death’s Head, this trust is clear. Similarly, for the creator-owned project Five Points, Simon has boiled down his work to a ‘film script’ with minimal description, giving illustrator Martin Stiff plenty of creative space. An occult noirish murder mystery set in 1960s New York, it’s second series, The Gyre, is due out next year and was a chance for Simon - an avid reader of crime thrillers – to do something different.
“My comic writing was influenced by other comic writers, particularly Alan Moore’s stuff because he rarely told a straightforwardly linear story."
X-Men trailblazer Chris Claremont completed the quartet of creators to have inspired Simon, who had discovered Marvel’s heroes when reading comics Wham and Pow. But when the company launched its UK division and introduced Spider-Man and the Avengers, Marvel “trumped everything” else he was reading. Among his favourites were Professor X’s mutant misfits, which Claremont elevated to new heights by giving each team member their chance to shine.
“I admired how cleverly he would lace two or three storylines, with character ‘A’ in the foreground and ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ gathering pace in the background,” observed the writer. “How he manipulated a large cast stood me in good stead for Transformers.”
With a huge array of characters to play with and Bob Budiansky’s comprehensive Cybertronian personality profiles as a starting point, Furman was able to give the likes of Ultra Magnus, Jetfire, Galvatron and Jazz their moments in the spotlight in his popular Transformers story, Target 2006. Claremont’s approach was instructive, he revealed: “We never treated the robots like they were just robots, they were characters which were nicely defined thanks to Bob Budiansky. When I was writing Target 2006, I was trying to pull background characters into the foreground and make them a little more interesting, so the reader was more invested in them.”
While writing in the “anarchic” Marvel UK environment, there was the freedom to flex his creative muscles and write the stories he wanted to read, commenting: “There was a certain amount of seeing what sticks, which gave us a creative freedom to push the boundaries in story structure, high concept and internal characterisation.”
Furman’s character-driven tales, which were packed with drama and action, converted an army of readers into lifelong Transformers fans. Stories such as Time Wars – the culmination of a long-running saga involving time tossed Decepticon Galvatron – were wildly popular and saw him elevated to Marvel US, where he took over duties on the main Transformers book. During this “incredible time”, he became part of the company’s famous Bullpen between 1989 and 1995 and wrote for Alpha Flight, She-Hulk and RoboCop.
“Amazing things were happening in comics at that time, you had John Byrne on Fantastic Four and Simonson’s Thor and X-Men was expanding,” he added. “It was a great time to be around the Marvel offices.”
Brilliantly, Simon’s Marvel legacy lives on in the shape of bounty hunter Death’s Head, who made the leap into the company’s main continuity in the 90’s. The murderous mechanoid has also enjoyed a revival in the last decade thanks to creators who grew up reading Furman’s books and then built professional comics careers.
Furman said: “Death’s Head never really been away, he’s always pottered around in and out of the Marvel universe. It’s extremely satisfying that something you have co-created is still a part of that Marvel US structure and keeps cropping up.”
While writer Kieron Gillen has had Death’s Head locking horns with the likes of Iron Man, the resurgence of Transformers comics - itself sparked by Furman’s writing for Dreamwave and IDW - saw the creative duo of James Roberts and Nick Roche take inspiration from Simon in their epic series Last Stand of the Wreckers. How did it feel to see a generation inspired by him?
“It’s the ultimate in flattery,” he beamed. “If anyone ever tells me they were remotely inspired by my work to do their own writing and art, or their own creative endeavours, it’s the best reward. That what it’s all about, passing the torch on.”
While a new breed have been influenced by Simon’s comics, in recent years he’s had the chance to pen new adventures for classic British characters close to his heart, reprising the British Spider-Man, The Leopard of Lime Street, and the surreal House of Dolmann, with artist Christ Weston. But it was Adam Eterno, Steel Commando, Robot Archie and Tim Kelly he relished doing the most for The Vigilant.
“Those were the ones that I had the most feel for because they were my first proper action and adventure style comics, and I love them still,” he enthused.
At this stage of his career, he’s writing for traditional companies and self-publishing personal projects via Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform, which he uses to share Five Points with the world. He explained: “The stage I am in my career I really want the avenue to do the paid work and the one-off projects which are mine along the way.”
In an exciting move, he’s branched out into podcasting alongside old friend Andrew Wildman on The Rest is Giant Robots, where they discuss Transformers, comics, films and TV. Meanwhile, he’s having ‘great fun’ developing the next series of Astrobots and a comics adaption of Netflix show Skull Island for Titan Books, while he’s also hoping a To The Death sequel with Senior is “on the cards.”
As a statesman of British comics, what shape does he think the industry is in? While he feels digital comics didn’t “have quite enough about them” in a collector driven market and worries whether new and younger readers are coming on board, he remains positive.
“I think the comics industry is in a pretty good place,” concluded Simon. “The UK industry is not what it was, but it still goes along. In terms of variety of comics, you can get hold of - from independent publishing to big companies – there’s a lot more and they’re much less formulaic now.”
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