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LFCC Interview: Ash Hewerdine, creator of Deathridge and The Rooster’s Pearl

We’ve been keeping up with darkly funny serial comic Deathridge for a while now and, last weekend at LFCC, we finally got a chance to sit down and have a chat with the man who wrote and illustrated it: Ash Hewerdine. He told us about hopes for the future, Stan Lee spotting and his new comic The Rooster’s Pearl.

 A Place to Hang Your Cape: Hello Ash, thanks for joining us today. How are you enjoying the convention?

Ash: It’s amazing. There’s no other word for it. It’s my first convention either as an artist or just visiting and it’s just been insane, meeting so many cool people, so much to see.

 AP2HYC: Is there any one you’re really hoping to see?

 Ash: Yeah, I came here to see mainly indie guys, Jon Scrivens of Little Terrors, I met Rachael Smith earlier this morning, people like that really.

 AP2HYC: A lot of people here are hoping to spot Stan Lee, it’s become almost a competition. Have you seen him?

Ash: Yes!

 AP2HYC: You have?

 Ash: Yes, I was taken through a back door to get to the other room, with one of the staff, and he came out of the door and I had to step back to let him through.

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AP2HYC: That’s the closest we’ve actually had so far! That’s brilliant. So, can you tell us a bit more about Deathridge, just for anyone who doesn’t know?

Ash: Yeah, of course, the book itself is about Boris and Doris Stromen as they move from London to the village of Deathridge. Without giving too much away, Doris goes missing, Boris goes looking for her and the village is conspiring against both of them. It’s a horror story with comedy elements, it’s a lot of fun.

 AP2HYC: And that’s out now…

Ash: Out now as Volume 1 which is issues one to six.

 AP2HYC: Awesome, and what have you enjoyed most about the process of creating Deathridge?

Ash: Seeing the finished product, you know, working on it’s very hard. It takes a lot of work, lots of late nights and early mornings. When it’s finally printed and arrives and you open it, smell the new books and everything comes together and it’s real, you know, it’s exciting.

AP2HYC: And, looking to the future, what are your hopes and ambitions for your work?

Ash: Honestly, I mean, Deathridge is continuing so there will be a Volume 2 coming out. Rooster’s Pearl, I plan to do many of these based around different Aesop’s Fables and it’s been hinted that it might be considered for an animated series, so we’ll see, an ambition is probably to see that actually happen.

 AP2HYC: Some big plans for the future, brilliant. Now, you mention Aesop’s Fables in regards to The Rooster’s Pearl, that’s really interesting and unusual to use them as a comic. What inspired you to do this?

Ash: Well, there was a competition recently for – let me make sure I get the name right – it was ‘Adventures in Comics’ down in Margate, they ran a competition earlier this year to do a two page comic and all you had to do was general audience, and two pages of A4, those were the only rules. The title had to be ‘The Orb’. I went through so many different ideas, and finally settled on the orb being a pearl, being a treasure that was being sort, and basically, that two page comic, I decided to turn into a twenty four page comic based on the moral of ‘The Rooster and the Pearl’ which is essentially that treasure is only valuable to those that – that use it. So basically, The Rooster’s Pearl is a twist on that idea.

 AP2HYC: Thank you very much for talking to us today.

Ash: Thank you, nice to meet you!

To buy copies of Deathridge and The Rooster’s Pearl visit Ash’s own website where you can buy the comics directly or use any of the listed retailers.

About the author

Grace Davis