Retro Thursday: Andi Watson
I think Andi Watson is one of the great, underrated comic-book creators of the past decade. For a while there, it was if he was writing comics just for me: the screwball-inspired newspaper comedy “Slow News Day,” the superhero relationship drama “Love Fights,” and “Little Star,” possibly the best graphic novel ever written about parenting. All of those were written and drawn by Watson, who moved from a manga-influenced style in his first comics, “Samurai Jam” and “Skeleton Key,” to a more European-influenced design in “Geisha,” which came out from Oni Press.
You can see a recent project of Watson’s, “Great Uncle George’s Will,” at Tor.com.
I talked to Andi in 2001, as he was working on “Slow News Day” and “Breakfast After Noon,” an Eisner-nominated tale of unemployment.
Nearly everyone has had to deal with losing a job. Andi Watson, writer/artist of “Geisha,” explores the life of a suddenly out-of-work couple in the Eisner-nominated “Breakfast After Noon.”
Rob and Louise are engaged to be married when they both lose their jobs at a British factory.
“Breakfast After Noon” follows the different reactions they have to being laid off and the pressure it puts on their relationship.
While Louise returns to school, Rob refuses to give up on getting his job back – until the company shuts down.
“It’s about the decline of the manufacturing industry, the effect of unemployment on a life, love, work, money and social change,” Watson said.
“I started with the desire to try and capture what it feels like and what happens to someone without a job,” he said. “There is a stigma attached; there is an effect on self-esteem. … Most people want to work. It goes beyond the financial and into the moral. Most of us want to feel we’re of use to the world, we do something – being on the dole is not easy. People who say that usually haven’t been unemployed.”
The 308-page graphic novel “Breakfast After Noon” is available for $19.95 from Oni Press.
Another project of Watson’s is the screwball comedy “Slow News Day.”
“Slow News Day” follows California reporter Katharine Washington to her new job at a regional newspaper in England, the Wheatstone Mercury. The Mercury is undergoing changes, which have left it with one full-time reporter, Owen Holmes.
“Together they cover all the strange little stories that you see in local newspapers: school football teams, injured turkeys, lost hamsters,” Watson said. “It’s about the differences in the U.S. and U.K., personal and professional relationships, success, ambition, and parents and children.”
Watson said the idea for “Slow News Day” stemmed from his love of 1930s comedies.
“Slow News Day” is a six-issue miniseries from Slave Labor Graphics. The first issue is now available.
Watson, who has been nominated for two Eisner awards, broke into comics with “Samurai Jam,” a skateboarding comic.
Watson was the writer of Dark Horse’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” for two years.
“Company-controlled stuff is, as the name says, company-controlled,” Watson said. “It’s not like there’s one boss; there are several all with differing views of what the franchise is and how it should be translated into comics.
“With my own projects I do things exactly how I want them to be done. It’s my personal vision and is in my control from writing through to coloring the covers,” Watson said. “That’s one of the great things about doing your own comics; it’s your story, and no one can tell you if it’s right or wrong.”
– Matthew Price
From the July 27, 2001, issue of The Oklahoman
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