Interviews

Ian Murphy talks with the writer of Allemansretten and the smaller press hit Trains Are … Mint, the first collection of which has just been published by Blank Slate

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For the benefit of those who haven't picked up a copy of Trains Are ... Mint before, how would you describe it?

How would I describe Trains?  The best comic you've never read. 

Trains Are ... Mint is a great title for a comic because if you don't know the slang it doesn't immediately make sense. Did it concern you at all that the title might cause confusion?

Good timing, as I'm just blogging about how that's the last book I'll do with that title. I didn't think it'd cause confusion, no, because when I first started trains I didn't imagine anyone outside my friends in Manchester seeing it, and they'd all get it. After that, I hoped there might be some anglophiles overseas who might be turned on to it, intriqued you know?

It's been a big couple of months for you, with your first Trains Are ... Mint hardcover, Trains Are ... Mint #5 and the Elbow album all coming out within a few weeks of each other.  You did the sleeve art for the Elbow album The Seldom Seen Kid - how did that come about?

Elbow are mates and I managed their local while they were recording the album, so we all shared a lot of experiences, good and bad, while the album was formed. Then I just asked them "can I do the sleeve"?  Luckily they said yes. I took some Trains to show their label and they were well into it. From getting the gig to the album came out took just over a year.

Was it strange to see your artwork all over the place, advertising the album?

It was up dead massive by Piccadilly Station in Manchester, that was weird. Good for my mum, my mum loved seeing it everywhere. I just kept spotting things I'd do again.

There’s a billboard you paint in Trains Are … Mint #5, to the side of a brick bridge, and when the Elbow album came out lo and behold that very billboard [except now across the top of the bridge] was carrying an advert for the album, using your artwork … artwork which can be found in the opening pages of Trains Are … Mint #5. Does life imitate art any more perfectly – and bizarrely – than that?

That was pretty cool. Friends who come into town that way, on their way to work, had told me about it. So after some afternoon drinking fun with my wife, we went along to have a look and gurn for the camera. Good day that.

With your book Allemansretten ... what made you decide to rework it as Trains Are ... Mint #4? Are copies of that still available?

That was just an exercise in practicing my drawing. After the third Trains I thought I'd like to do this for a while, so I fiqured I better get learning how to draw. It was a right pain in the arse though because the paper is really thin, it didn't like having loads of washes layered on it.  Turned out all right though. I've still got a few of the original books left, aye.

Allemansretten’s still available. At a price mind. The initial plan was to illustrate a few copies, in different ways, in between other projects but I doubt I can be arsed now.
 
Do you see yourself as a documentarian, trying to depict an unbiased view of what you experience as you walk, or as a writer-artist who consciously chooses specific aspects of the walking experience to focus on because they're what you want to depict?

I'm as honest as I can be, so documentarian I guess. I don't set out with certain things I want to highlight, I just try and be as aware of what I'm thinking as what's happening. I try to include as much as possible, good and bad, but there are some very dull things that don’t make the cut.

What is it about walking alongside train tracks that appeals to you?

It gives me time to meditate. It's cheap therapy. I do my best thinking when I'm walking. Train tracks gives the books a theme, a motif, something to write about other than myself. I'm fasinating for only so long so the trains give me something else to write about.

The watercolour washes are a big part of what makes Trains Are ... Mint such a visual pleasure. What made you decide to take that route rather than using more conventional comics colouring methods?

They're not watercolours they're diluted acrylic ink. Having no knowledge of comics and how they're made I didn't know what I was doing was right or wrong. I'd hardly drawn before and never used colours, but I guess acrylic inks seemed an easy medium to work with and it's stuck. They are very diluted and a pot can last up to a year.

Trains Are … Mint doesn’t seem to fit any obvious niche markets. What made you decide to make a book like this?

Seemed obvious to me. I'd done work like it before, in black and white minis as well as performance and sculpture. I was interested in how you make the work you make, what informs the choices you choose. So me deciding to walk from one town to another, keeping as close to the tracks as possible, put me in some positions that would question my working methods. I thought it'd be possible to make a really good book this way. I'm getting there.

Was this something you'd done as a pastime before deciding to write Trains Are ... Mint?

I walk everywhere anyway, so the walking thing was a given. I started writing when an exhibition went wrong. I tried to turn a two-man tent into a pinhole camera to take pictures of caravans. It didn’t work and two days before the exhibition I didn't have any photos. I decided to write about my experiences instead and write onto the gallery's walls. It ended up working out better than if the tent had worked. I then wrote a book about camping in Norway (Allenmansretten, which later became Trains 4), which was released along with an exhibition which showed my efforts to read Dr. Doolittle to a herd of cows. Pastime's the wrong word. I don' t draw for pleasure, just for work.
 
The first three issues of Trains Are ... Mint have been collected in a hardcover edition, and for once it's not a self-published comic, it's published by Blank Slate, an off-shoot of Forbidden Planet. What made you go with a publisher this time out?

Can't afford to be self-publishing any more really. Any money I get I should really be putting into my house or treating my wife. Plus I've still got boxes upon boxes of unsold comics and I've only got a three bedroom house. Plus I'm crap at promoting the books and getting them into shops. Having a publisher takes this out of my hands. It was a chance to get on board, from day one, with some potentially hip British publisher so I could say "yeah, but they did my book first". I'll probably return to self-publishing at some point though, because as well as things are going now, it could all still go horribly wrong.  I've got another five or six books working out in my head and if I can't find publishers for them all, I'll do it myself.

What do you like most about seeing the first three issues collected in one volume?

The quality of the printing is better than I could afford for the single issues, so the art's closer to how it was meant to look. Plus there's a picture of me in the back.
 
I love that the hardcover doesn't have an annoying plastic feel dustjacket, and that you can feel the texture of the actual book as a result. The single issues of Trains Are ... Mint have been printed on luxuriously thick, soft pages. How important is the texture and the overall sensory experience of Trains Are ... Mint to you?

I wanted to keep it simple for starters, but with the single issues I thought that if I distracted people with full colour and sexy card stock, then they'd not realise I couldn't draw until it was too late and they'd bought it. Looking at them now I think the stock's way too thick. The paper of #5 is closer to what suits Trains best. Thinner and a nice off white; that's how I want the next book done. I just wanted people to have bought Inice object rather than just a mint book.

In what ways has your approach to the second narrative arc of Trains Are … Mint been different to the first one?

With the first three Trains I felt that things moved a bit too quickly, like something had to happen on every page and it was usually tied up by the end of that page. With the next narrative, which [Trains] 5 is the start of, I'm trying to slow things down just a touch. I mean, it's not as if major events happen in Trains or anything, but for a journey as long as from Manchester to Blackpool, for me, it read too fast.
 
Were you surprised by the positive reaction Trains Are ... Mint has enjoyed?
 
I am now. At first I knew a few people would like it here and there, but when Blank Slate came forward that was pretty cool. Still though, outside a handful of blogs, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who knows it. I’m very proud of it though.

And then just last week Page45 went and made issue #5 their Comic Book of the Month selection. How chuffed did you feel when you heard about that? What effect has that had on sales?

That was amazing. Steve's been dead supportive since day one but that just knocked me sideways. He bought 60 copies off of me outright! Beat some fella called Dave Sim to the coveted CBOTM spot. Never seen any of his stuff but apparently he's famous or something. I was made up. I owe him a pint.
 
When can we expect issue #6 of Trains Are ... Mint to come out?

Ages if ever. My current project is one, maybe two books with a new title. They'll always be Trains Are...Mint, but this new one's got a different title. Some time in the future I might return to doing single issues of one big story and then I'll return to Trains Are...Mint but for now I'm putting it to bed with the collection.
 
What's the new project about?

I'm walking from Manchester Piccadilly to Liverpool Lime Street along the southern route, via Warrington. I might walk back along the northern route, via St Helens, for another book.

What will this book be entitled, and when should we expect the first issue?

It'll be one big book rather than a series of separate issues. I've just set up a teaser site for it. It's just got the title on it for now, but I'll leak info on it from time to time.

http://propergowellhigh.rollingstockpress.co.uk

Train Are … Mint #1-3 and #5 and the Trains Are … Mint hardcover are available from all good comics shops. Trains Are … Mint #4 available through www.rollingstockpress.co.uk

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