The Uninvited Guest

by Wildman | 23/02/2019 | Art, General

I guess a lot of you will know that I am and have been, for a long time, a Marillion fan. Who? Marillion. Look them up. Amazing band. (And anyone who mentions Fish gets a slap) 😉
About 16 years ago I came up with an idea for a graphic novel. It was designed to feature the lead singer, Steve Hogarth, as one of the main characters. It was in its early stages and I pitched it to the band and presented them with a sample page of artwork. Those early conversations went well. They invited me to their studio for a chat about it and Steve sent me some of the (in progress) lyrics for the new album they were working on, called MARBLES. The idea for the new album very much fed into the narrative of the graphic novel and it was going to feature many of these lyrics. Anyway, time moved on and in the end, we decided not to collaborate on it. I did eventually develop the book into something slightly different and self publish it and the book continues to do well. I was interviewed about it a while back for the Marillion fan magazine, THE WEB where I spoke about its development and how certain themes remained. In the opening pages, there are visual acknowledgements to the bands early influence. They published some images from the graphic novel in that magazine article but one thing I wanted them to include and that I searched high and low for, but could not find, was that original sample page. Today… I FOUND IT! Sitting in a box amongst a load of my artwork from my days working on books for Marvel Comics.

So, for those interested in this kind of thing, or comics or Marillion, below is a copy of that sample page followed by an image of the book that eventually (after a number of years) got released. Originally to be called The Uninvited Guest, the book ended up as Horizon. You can find out more about Horizon HERE.