Comic Boom - Comics in Education

Comic Boom - Comics in Education with Comics Laureate Bobby Joseph

• Lucy Starbuck Braidley/Bobby Joseph • Season 10 • Episode 5

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In this episode Lucy chats to UK Comics Laureate Bobby Joseph.

Bobby Joseph is an acclaimed South London comic creator whose work has often
challenged and inspired its readers. His early work includes the creation of cult
comic classic Skank magazine, where his best-known strip, “Scotland Yardie”, first
featured, and was later published by Knockabout Press.

He has written for The Guardian newspaper, Dazed and Confused, and Vice.com.
His comic work was a prominent feature at the Anarchy in the UK comic exhibition
at the British Library in 2015 and was seen by over 60,000 visitors.

Since the beginning of his career, he has been a vocal advocate for diversity and
representation in comic books. His graphic novel, Scotland Yardie, published by
Knockabout Comics in 2017, was the first diverse graphic novel to be studied as a
module on an English Literature MA course at King’s College, London.  He is the
first POC to become Comics Laureate for the UK.

This episode of Comic Boom is sponsored by ALCS, The Authors Licensing and Collecting Society.

Find our more about the Lakes International Comics Art Festival here.

Bobby's recommendations:
American Splendor by Harvey Pekar
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Alpha by Jens Harder

Bobby's recommended reading lists can be found here.

Episodes linked to Bobby's lists
Sayra Begum
Pedro Martin
Emma Reynolds
Mark Bradley

Lucy's recommendation:
Here's the comic strip 'Are Comics Serious Literature?' that I referenced, it's by Michael Kupperman and make me laugh!

Connect with Bobby:
Instagram: @bobbyjosephcomics

Follow the podcast:
Insta: @comic_boom_podcast
Twitter/X: @Lucy_Braidley
Contact: comicboompodcast@gmail.com

Music by John_Sib from Pixabay

All content © 2024 Comic Boom - Co

Hello, and welcome to comic boom, the comics and education podcast. If you're interested in hearing more about the crossover between comics and education, then this is the podcast for you. My name is Lucy Starbuck Braidley. And each week I'll be joined by a fellow educator and academic, a librarian or a creator of comics to discuss their journey into comics. And provide some inspiration to influence your practice and hopefully shine some light on titles. You can bring into your libraries, classrooms and onto your bookshelves at home T. This episode of comic, boom is sponsored by ALC S the authors licensing and collecting society. Hello everyone. And welcome to the final episode of this season of comic boom. Episode 10 of season five, absolutely delighted to be able to bring you a top notch guest as always, for the podcast today, today in this episode, which is another one of our episodes. Partnered with lakes, international comics, art festival. I am delighted to be able to bring you the comics Laureate of the UK, Bobby. Joseph Bobby Joseph is an acclaimed south London comics creator whose work is often challenged and inspired its readers. His early work includes the creation of cult comic classic skank magazine, where his best known strip Scotland Yardie featured and that character was later taken and then created into a graphic novel of the same name, published by knockabout press. He has written for the guardian newspaper for dazed and confused and vice.com. His comic work was a prominent feature at anarchy in the UK comic exhibition in the British library in 2015. And we're seeing over 60,000 visitors. And I actually spent time this week with Bobby at the British library. I'll talk more about that later. since the beginning of his career, he's been a vocal advocate for diversity and representation in comic books. His graphic novel Scotland Yardie was published in 2017 and was the first ever diverse graphic novel to be studied in a module on an English literature, M a course at Kings college London. He's the first person of color to become comics Laureate for the UK. Um, he is a great, great guy. Not only did I have the pleasure of interviewing Bobby for this podcast, but also, spending couple of days with him this week at the national literacy trusts inclusive libraries conference, which there was an event in Leeds. And then again at the British library in London, and absolutely fascinating to hear Bobby talk there and in this podcast episode about the importance of diversity, about the things that he noticed as a young reader and about how that's influenced both his work as a creator and his work as comics Laureate. It's really inspiring. Bobby's a really passionate. Person full of enthusiasm and get on really well with him. He's very funny guy as well. So I think you're going to really enjoy this episode. Here's what Bobby had to say.

Lucy SB:

Hello Bobby, welcome to Comic Boom.

Bobby J:

Hello, Comic Boom. How are you today?

Lucy SB:

Comic Boom is good, thank you. How are you today?

Bobby J:

Is that your first name or your surname?

Lucy SB:

That's just a single name that I go by. Welcome. I always like to start the podcast in the same way, which is asking guests to tell us a little bit about their journey as a comics reader to begin with. Where did you, where did that all start for you? When did you first become aware of comics and start reading them?

Bobby J:

I'm okay. My journey begins in the late 70s where I was taken to the cinema to see Superman the movie. So for me, when I saw Superman fly across the screen, I believed a man could fly. And the colors, it just kind of stuck with me. And then we had Batman cause back in the seventies, going into the eighties, we had the Adam West Batman TV show as well. So that brought in another kind of colorful character, that kind of appeal to me. And then from then, um, it translated into comic books. So for me, um, I saw stuff like the flash green lantern. Um, and my journey just kind of just went from film and TV straight into comics. And then what happened with the actual comics itself. It helped me not only become a better reader, but it helped my literacy skills as well. So it just, it helped me in all kinds of ways, I guess. So for, I just looking at kind of comics, just, I became just obsessed with comics, really, really obsessed with

Lucy SB:

So, it became like a real fandom kind of thing for you, did it become a part of your personality, I guess is what I'm asking.

Bobby J:

interesting enough, my son said, he's a grown adult now, uh, he, uh, said to me about a week ago, he says, dad, you are, you are now comics. Take a pause and I mean, what do you mean? He goes, dad, you, you embody everything that is, you are so enthusiastic about comics, you are comics, you are a walking, talking billboard for

Lucy SB:

I love that.

Bobby J:

yeah. So I thought that was great. So I'm just going back to my journey with comics. so I would, once I realized that there was, comics out there, I started, there were some that were more, more accessible for me to read. So I started off with DC, so it was a lot of DC stuff to begin with. Then. Slowly, I moved into the whole Marvel stuff and the storylines and the artwork and the construction of the stories, it really kind of Triggered things in my head with regards to, the way stories are being told. I mean, I wouldn't have realized that at that age, but the fact that I was looking at stories and going, Oh, wow. I wonder what happened next. What if say Cyclops got into a ruck with Wolverine, what would happen then? And then just kind of like start

Lucy SB:

Thinking through your own stories, your own sort of spin off

Bobby J:

stories. Yeah. So that, that was kind of the thing that I was doing.

Lucy SB:

Did you make comics at that point, or was it solely in the reading kind of space for you, or were you, as a child, did you start to make your own comics?

Bobby J:

I was always making comics. I'll give an example. Actually. I remember once, when I was ill and I was at home and two things I remember. I remember, uh, one thing was that my, because I was ill, my mum had bought me a copy of All Star Squadron, which was like a Roy Thomas comic, and that, that's always kind of stuck in my mind, because it had Robot Man in, on the front cover saying, I'm not guilty, because he was going to prison for something or another. And, I remember watching something called the Hardy Boys, which was like a American serial program. And what happened was there was one episode where, they were doing this episode about voodoo dolls. And I really liked the idea of voodoo dolls. I thought, well, that'd be a great comic strip. And I remember in primary school, just drawing this This voodoo doll, kind of story, obviously it's, it's, I lost it many, many years ago.

Lucy SB:

Yeah.

Bobby J:

so, so I was always in love with stories and how stories were constructed, and I think comics gave me that, so. As I progressed reading comics, I got into stuff like Teen Titans, X Men. Just trying to remember what I got into. Fantastic Four, Spider Man, you know, kind of like, there was Marvel Tales, which was like a reprint of the early Steve Ditko and Stan Lee stories. So I was, you know, Just soaking up so many comics and, then, I guess what changed for me was when I was looking at these comics, I noticed a certain thing and that certain thing was even though, I'm an Asian guy brought up in South London. So. I'm surrounded, my community, my area, Lewisham, back in those times were, were black and Asians. So, you know, that was my community there, right? But when I was looking at comics, I couldn't really see people of color. So, and this is from an early

Lucy SB:

Yeah, I, was gonna say, you were really conscious of that right from that early age. Yeah,

Bobby J:

for me, When I was, look, I think, when was it? About, probably about 86, 87? I became really conscious of it. It's like, well, wait a minute. What, what's going on? So I started to collect, comics with people of color in it. So because I just thought, okay, where are the people of

Lucy SB:

yeah, yeah,

Bobby J:

And then I, I was reading stuff like, I mean, first of all, you've got stuff like, Black Lightning, Panther, Black Goliath. And one of the things that was the first thing that kind of stood out for me was, why are all these titles having the, the prefix of having the word black in front of it?

Lucy SB:

yeah, yeah.

Bobby J:

I mean, I mean, you know, we know Black Panther has Black Panther, but isn't a Panther black?

Lucy SB:

yeah, very true, very true.

Bobby J:

these are the things I'm thinking of as a kid and I'm like, wait a minute. And then I started reading these narratives and, they all seem to follow a similar pattern. So for example, who did I look at? Luke Cage, Luke Cage, Power Man, right? So his origin story is that when we first meet Luke Cage. He's in prison. I'm like, ah, okay. So he's in prison. This is how we start. So they give him a kind of injection, which is like the super serum, which is similar to, Steve Rogers. And then he breaks out of prison. Okay. That's his beginning. Then I looked at stuff. Like the Falcon from Captain America and even though like Captain America, I'm sorry, the Falcon is now the new Captain America in the movies. His origin story was that he was a drug dealing pimp. So he was a hustler in Harlem and they both had this kind of jive talk language that could only be taken from blaxploitation movies. And I was like, Oh, okay. And then I think, what was it? Cyborg. Cyborg from DC's Teen Titans and I looked at Cyborg. I was like, well, this is a guy from this, from his origins, right? He's a middle class child. Parents of both scientists, they're actually advanced in their science and, you know, they live a very well off life. However, when he decides that he, wants to become a football player, what happens is, his parents go against that idea. So he decides he's going to go to the hood and join gang.

Lucy SB:

So, we're seeing quite limited narratives and a lot of kind of cliched representation and that was all that was there.

Bobby J:

Yeah, so just looking at it from that perspective, even when I was looking at a kind of like Indian characters, you know, back then, there were no Asian kind of representation, the only kind of Indian characters we have were these really passive kind of American Indian type characters, I mean, I was young, I didn't really, when I thought Indian, you know, I thought it was from, you know, South, from India itself, not the American way. the characters were very passive, you know, they're very peaceful. And I thought, this, this doesn't feel right to me.

Lucy SB:

we've had Meher Shibley, who was an academic. She was writing her PhD on the representation of Muslim women in comics. She was a, she came on in the first season of Comic Boom and very much identified the same thing, kind of a really limited, It's character types that would be represented and quite often either victim or, in the case of Muslim Women, it was either passive or victim kind of narratives, so yeah, it sounds like this is the exact same kind of, it's these character tropes, isn't it? This really limited

Bobby J:

So, so I, I narrowed it down to three things. I, for a while. I narrowed it down to about three tropes, one sports narrative. So you had, kind of people of color that are in sports two either had the slave narrative where it was talking about slavery or three the gang narrative. So these are the free narratives that were presented as representation of, people of color. So. For me, as I said, I grew up in a community of black people from the Caribbean, um, you know, Asian people. So I grew up, um, with a very tight knit community in South London. So, people I knew weren't drug dealers, they were Pimps, they weren't hustlers, you know, they went off to work. They went, they were nurses, there was social workers, there were doctors, there, you know, there were teachers, they, they worked in shops, they went to college, you know, that people that I, so for me, I could see the disparity there and, so when did it kind of change for me was about probably 1986, 87, when the, you know, influx of comics changed, where comics personally changed because we had, I think one of the things that was quite revolutionary for me was, and it's probably one of the few bonding moments that me and my father had because, when I was young, my father used to be a security guard in, Borders bookshop. down in Oxford Street and what, what he did one time was like, he took a book from the shop. He borrowed a book, which I don't think he should have done in hindsight, right? And it was Maus

Lucy SB:

Alright, yeah, yeah.

Bobby J:

that just blew me away. And then, um, I, from there, I, I, managed to find a more kind of an indie vibe and saw stuff like Love and Rockets, which, you know, I started in 87 and I adore to this day. So Hami and Gilbert Hernandez's work is just phenomenal. these works were Not only representative of culture, but it showed a life. I didn't know, uh, people I didn't know. So all these kind of things come flying at me at a certain point and my ideas of comics changed that people of colour can actually create their own narratives.

Lucy SB:

Mm. Yeah, I was going to say that, so that, because there's, there's two elements, isn't there, that, they're linked, but they are different there's a character representation, and then there's also the diversity of creators themselves and being able to, to support a diverse, you know,, range of creators to be able to tell their own narratives and and that that in itself does diversify the characters But it's also a different thing.

Bobby J:

So just to, just to, kind of clarify this for, for me, I don't have a problem with say a white comic creator writing about people of color. However, if your experience of a culture, is the box set of roots is the first couple series of top boy, then we have a problem.

Lucy SB:

Yeah. Yeah

Bobby J:

Yeah. And for so long, the narrative of people of color have been created. By people that look at films example would be a lot of the kind of 1970s kind of movies, like the blacksportation type of movies, a lot of that language was lifted and used as part of dialogue.

Lucy SB:

You get a stereotypical representation that then other people are using as the inspiration for their own characters. And it gets just further and further exacerbated. So yeah, it's, it becomes very limited. Yeah. So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about how you came because lots of people when they're younger, love, love reading comics. But how, how did that love of comics come about? end up with you being comics personified. How did you, how did you become to have a career in, in comics? Because, there must have been a lack of, of role models or ways into the industry at that time. how did you, how did you find your way? Okay.

Bobby J:

weirdly enough, um, I found a way,'cause the, the, first of all, when looking at the UK publishing scene back in the early nineties, we had stuff like deadline. We had stuff like, um, 2080, a lot of them kind of IPC type titles. That stuff that was done was not stuff that appealed to me to write, you know? Uh, so my thing was I wanted to write about. people I knew and people I grew up with. That part of London is not shown and that always kind of bugged me. So, I would say how I got in is not by comics. It was actually by a completely alternative route. So I didn't have a traditional way of getting to comics. I was in college. and then I started doing a fine arts course and then I had met a book publisher called Dotun Adebayo who owned the express books, which were probably one of the first black publishing houses in the UK back in the early nineties. So they did books like, um, Yardy, Baby Farmer. Weirdly enough, Dotun lived down the road from me, and a friend knew him and introduced me to him, and then We sat down and he really liked the kind of, strange urban street type of cartooning I was doing at that time. So my thing was like, Oh, okay. You like it? Cool. Um, my thing was maybe I could get to actually illustrate one of these book covers or something like that, you know,

Lucy SB:

So you didn't have, you, you, you were, you had smaller ambitions at that time, but just to try and get your foot in the door yeah.

Bobby J:

of mad version of the Punisher. So Dotun, what he did was like, he, he saw what I did. It was like, look, I'm If you are, if you are willing, what we could do is that we could create a black viz. And I was like, what's viz? I didn't know what viz was. And then I read viz and I was like, okay, I don't want to do that. That's no disrespect to the viz guys. Cause I get on really well and then they're absolutely lovely guys. but at that point I was like, no, I wouldn't do kind of street kind of comic strips that. Basically, me and my friends can laugh at, right? So that was my mentality. I wanted to show Lewisham I wanted to show Peckham. I want to show the kind of areas that I kind of grew up in. So the way it worked was. I gave Dotun, a black viz, but through my filter, which wasn't really a black viz at all. So I kind of, uh, kind of deviated from his plan, but luckily that worked. So, and what I did was I wanted to get some art creators, that hadn't really been, that really hadn't had the spotlight on them. And I just went and found also creators that were from art colleges and, you know,

Lucy SB:

Up and coming, kind of fresh.

Bobby J:

artists that I found from around the way, a graffiti artist and, you know, people that I knew so we became this weird art collective and then next thing you know, um, we were putting out this magazine and you know it and it's just something that just snowballed and then I'm now doing this magazine called skank, which helped a lot of, um, people of color get a spotlight, which they previously wouldn't have got. So that was how I got into comics. So from the beginning, there were no ways for me to get in a person, not just the person, but, but just as a creator, there was not a way to get in. And also. There weren't platforms that I wanted to work on simply because these platforms didn't appeal to the kind of stuff that I wanted to create.

Lucy SB:

You wanted to find almost like a space for, it seems like a space for a new voice, a new way of talking in comics. it's amazing that you, you managed to do that. And it, like, when I, I always, when I speak to people about their careers, for the number of different people that I've interviewed, There's as many different ways that they've got into it. There doesn't seem to be a clear pathway and so much of it does seem to be luck and people that you meet by chance and opportunities that come up.

Bobby J:

yeah,

Lucy SB:

it must be really difficult, especially if you're, in an underrepresented group in, in the industry. It must be really hard to, to find ways, ways in.

Bobby J:

yeah, totally. Totally. It's a lot easier now because we have social media, we have the web, so it's a lot more easier now to, because you can, you can nowadays create your own comic, get it printed up like a small run of comics. often sell them. You don't have to have large overheads when it comes to printing. So now, nowadays, the market is, has changed in such a way where different, you know, ways in are being presented to comic creators. But back then, we didn't have the internet. you know, we, I didn't have any contacts in the comic industry. I would go to, one, convention, and I just thought that was a horrible experience because I was just there just as a fan, but when I was watching people coming up to certain comic creators and seeing. how much gatekeeping there is in comics. It was just like, wow, I can't believe that it was just like, wow. So yeah, I've seen quite a bit and it was like, okay, I don't, I don't need to be part of that, so I'm just going to go create something else.

Lucy SB:

Yeah, and it was an amazing success. So from, from the work in Skank, that then, did that, that translated or that progressed into your graphic novel Scotland Yardy? Was that a, was that, am I right that that was a, that it, there was part of that story was in, was serialised in Skank, or is that,

Bobby J:

wasn't serialized in skank.

Lucy SB:

okay,

Bobby J:

um, no, no, no, no, no, no, that, that's what, that's my mistake because that's being put on the internet and I haven't bothered to correct it. Completely, okay, it's a completely original story. Well, maybe there used to be like one off tales in Scotland Yardy, but it wasn't kind of collected in the book. Uh, I, I basically, pulled the character apart for the graphic novel. And because when I was doing the graphic novel, it, I wanted to do something that was different. That that what was being, uh, that was actually out there on the comics market, at that point.

Lucy SB:

Could you give listeners a little bit of a rundown of what the story, the premise is,

Bobby J:

okay, Scotland Yardie is a Jamaican policeman who comes over to the UK simply because the UK policing at, at that point in time had problems on recruiting people of colour to the Metropolitan Police. So, In order to get, um, people to join the police, they went over to Jamaica and got a cop to come over and be this kind of representation of colour in, um, the, the streets of London, but unbeknownst to the police. This is not your average cop. so it's in essence it, he is very much every single crazy cop rolled into one. He's dirty, he harried, he's judged, dread. So he is all this in one. So he was more a kind of. spoof of all of those kind of tough guy cop tropes and it was that conflict of UK sensibilities and that Jamaican kind of full on attitude and when it comes to policing. So it's too, so it was a, it was a culture clash, it was a look at the Black Lives Matters movement institutionalized racism, police brutality, things that were quite, prominent, are still quite prominent regards to, policing. so yeah, so it, and it, and interestingly enough, it also dealt with, the effects of Brexit as well. Which was, an interesting fact for me because I had to pull the book a couple times from the printer because in a space of about 12 weeks, the UK went crazy with regards to politics. We voted for Brexit and what my book was a satire. So, uh, if I didn't have anything about that, then that's all

Lucy SB:

yeah. Something so seismic.

Bobby J:

Yeah, so and these were seismic shifts because not only did we vote out the EU but Also, Cameron quit as well. So two seismic shifts in a space about six weeks, wasn't it? And then we had a new prime minister and he was just like, well, wait a minute, you know, and I had to pull the book a couple of times to rewrite bits and send it back out to the publisher. So it was a book. That looked at a lot of what was going on, the pressure cooker of the UK back in 2015, 2016. So it was just looking at all those aspects that, you know, we, we were dealing with back then. It was a experiment doing the graphic novel because, Scotland Yardy was a character that was a very one note character for me. So to create a whole graphic novel around just a caricature wasn't enough for me. So I've built a lot of tension with the partner, PC Akee-Saltfish, who I think the story is really about, about him overcoming, you know, his anxieties and also being able to cut loose because Scotland Yardley is the guy that cuts loose. I guess it's two sides of us, the side of us that is, that is repressed. And then there's the other side of us that wants to cut loose. So Yardley is the one that cuts loose. While Akee-saltfish is the one which is the ones like, no, no, no, no. We have rules. We must abide by the rules, constant battle between those two rules in everyone. Yes.

Lucy SB:

the little, like the angel and the devil on the shoulder kind of thing, isn't it? Yeah.

Bobby J:

Yeah, so I split those up into characters and there, and that's what it was. So yeah, so it was a graphic novel and that I'm happy with. I'm happy with because there were a couple things that I had in my mind when doing Scotland Yardy. One, there would be no sequel. Two,

Lucy SB:

Interesting.

Bobby J:

Yeah, because we'll get back to it. You can ask on that one too. It it's one I've turned down for TV and film and animation

Lucy SB:

Mmm.

Bobby J:

Right. And, is there three? Yep. There's no merchandise on it as yet.

Lucy SB:

Yeah, that's interesting. So what, tell me about those choices. What, what, what made, what motivates those decisions?

Bobby J:

Okay. The first one, um, the first one was that I won't, do a sequel simply because for me. Everything that is Scotland Yardy is in that graphic novel. It, to me, is almost the perfect story of me doing that story, right? So, even to the point where you, if you, I don't know if you've read it. Have you read it?

Lucy SB:

I ordered it before this, to come, before this interview, and I've, it has not arrived. I am going to though. I will, I will do my review at the end when I do the outro to the, episode. I usually, recommend a book, so I would do my review of it when it's arrived.

Bobby J:

What was I saying? Uh, yes. So basically, I'm happy with that book and I feel that if I did a sequel, then I, I, I think that when you read it, I think you'd probably understand it. that what it does is if I'm doing the same thing again, it just repeats what I'm doing.

Lucy SB:

Yeah, yeah.

Bobby J:

What's different about Scotland Yardie is that it can be read three ways. The first way is that the narrative the kind of spoof on Breaking Bad, because there's a huge spoof of Breaking Bad in it. So it's a very straightforward narrative. Second thing is, what I've done with the story is that in every single panel, there is another gag. There's at least, in the book, there is at least 300 odd gags. in the actual graphic novel in the background. So there'll be, so example would be, you know, you have, the David Tennant character from, Broadchurch arresting the David Tennant doctor. So you've got a variety of different kind of spoofs cameos in,

Lucy SB:

Yeah,

Bobby J:

So loads of gags, like, you know, you might have, you might Prince riding his bike in Brixton. So there's loads of kind of things that I put in there. Lots of kind of like visual kind of gags, movie gags. One that I think is quite amusing that I still like. Like there's a movie called Boys in the Hood. I don't know if you've ever seen it.

Lucy SB:

No.

Bobby J:

Right, there's a scene where one of the characters gets killed and he's called Ricky, right? So in the background, in one of the parts of the story, the bad guy tries to kill Scotland Yardy, and then the bullet bounces off, and kills this guy called Ricky. But then you have Bianca from EastEnders come running out screaming Ricky.

Lucy SB:

Oh, layers upon layers, I feel like 50 percent of things gonna go over my head because I haven't watched the right films. This is what I feel like. Everybody gets a different kind of, a different thing from it. Yeah.

Bobby J:

Yes. So you can read it one way where it's the straightforward narrative. You can know everything in the background. Then you can read the second way where you can read all the things that are going on in the background

Lucy SB:

Do you know what this is giving me vibes of? This is giving me vibes of the TV series Spaced. And where there's lots of, there's lots of different film references and stuff in the way that it's put together. And like, and you could be watching it with somebody and, and laugh at completely different things. Because you've come in for different references. Yeah.

Bobby J:

of what, yeah, I would completely go, but also I would also go with something like say League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where Alan did a lot of literary kind of references in the background. I've just got popular culture.

Lucy SB:

yeah, yeah. No, it sounds amazing. I will definitely look forward to, to, to reading it.

Bobby J:

So that was the second thing There was another thing as well. was

Lucy SB:

Merchandise was the other, another one.

Bobby J:

Oh, no, no tv tv. That was tv now Um, I like every every graphic novel or every kind of comic strip that I see, they tend to be optioned for a TV show or a movie. And I thought, okay, do I want that? And a part of me said, well, it'd be fun. But then the overriding part of me says, well, no, I don't want to do that at all. I've had offers. I had, um, someone come up to me and say, look, we can turn it into, like a 20 minute, kind of family guy type program. And I was like, Nope, I'm not interested. I like the idea of Scotland Yardy being almost like the comic book version of Catcher in the Rye where there is no adaptation of it because the author says no. So this will be the only graphic novel that won't be turned into something else, because If I sell it, then it no longer becomes mine. Their version could be completely different from my version. And then they will say their version is my version. Because people will assume their version is my version.

Lucy SB:

that lack of control.

Bobby J:

Yeah, yeah.

Lucy SB:

Especially when you've created something that, you know, you said there is no sequel. It says everything it needs to say within that. Then. Why retell it if you've, if it's already, you know, if you've got something that you feel tells the story you want to tell.

Bobby J:

You'll see that even in the book, there's like, I do an alternative ending to it as well. So, there's two different endings to the book. So you, so it's,

Lucy SB:

I'm looking forward to it. I'm really, I can't wait. I know it's been included in a university syllabus as well. how did that, how did that feel

Bobby J:

It's been interesting because I had a kind of essay sent to me and I'm reading through it and I'm like, cause it's not you. It's a, it's a masters. So it's an English masters. So I'm looking for it and I'm like, Wow. I need to Google this word. Wow. I need to Google that. I'm being made smarter than

Lucy SB:

Heh heh heh heh.

Bobby J:

Which is interesting because the same way, I would break down kind of like the motivations of Charles Dickens in class with regards to the poor law or poverty at that stage in history. Uh, it's the same way people are breaking down my words. And what is his motivation to do this? And that just kind of blows my mind because, you know, like I said, I would go into in, in the classroom, be teaching about Dickens or Priestly, you know, Priestly's kind of, you know, Political ideas and stuff. And it's like, wait, wait a minute. People are looking at my work and breaking that down and,

Lucy SB:

Yeah.

Bobby J:

looking at my motivations

Lucy SB:

Have you disagreed with it? With it? What? Heh heh heh

Bobby J:

everything. I'm brilliant. So I'm not going to disagree with that. So I'm happy with that. Now, um, I don't know, you know, everything for me is subjective. So, you know, you, if people love it and, and they break, they come up with their own ideas, it makes you think, did I think of that and then go, no, you know, if that's what the person feels, then that's entirely down to them. I don't feel the need to justify what I've done, you know, because. I've always come from a satirical point of view, right? These are not my views. And this is where I guess people have kind of got lost with my work at times where they feel that I'm putting across my opinion about something and that's not the case. What I'm doing is that I'm satirizing people's opinions of certain things. So that's what I'm actually doing. So yeah,, whatever people. say about the work, that's entirely their opinion and I'm happy for that to be their opinion.

Lucy SB:

so you're not going to do a sequel, but do you think you'll work on another, like, long form graphic novel again?

Bobby J:

Oh yeah, I'm working on about three or four of them.

Lucy SB:

Ugh, what? You do multiple projects all at once?

Bobby J:

yeah, I, I like, I like juggling projects, but also my motivation is this. I need to do something that challenges perception because I'm always about what is perception, how do we perceive things, why do we perceive things like this. So that I'm always looking at, it could be culture clashes, it could be political clashes. So for me, I'm always looking at what are the voices. That are saying this about that, you know, I mean, not to throw politics into it, you know, but look at someone like Trump. He has a grand swell of people supporting him and like, and, you know, ready to vote for him. And you think, well, what is the motivation behind that? What is, uh. What is their perception of Trump? How is it that they ignore all the other stuff and focus on one thing? So I'm always kind of interested in how we interact and how we, we form our ideas and that's kind of where I come from with regards to writing. It's like, what can I, how do I, how can I look at what that person says? and find a way to understand them. So yeah, I'm, I'm always fascinated by, by the way we think as people. Comics for me are a perfect vehicle. So I'm not the traditional kind of author. How would I describe myself as a writer? I deconstruct a lot of things. I look at something and I deconstruct it. And I like doing that because that's where I guess my humor comes from. Being able to deconstruct something and see what it is. And that's kind of where I progress as a writer I'm always looking at what I can challenge. And when I say challenge, not only as in perception, but also what I can do as a writer.

Lucy SB:

And do you think you're, are you bringing that Approach through into the work that you're doing in your laureateship as well in terms of challenge and Deconstructing things Do you think that there's a little bit of a through line with with your approach to your laureateship work too? Yeah Yeah

Bobby J:

I could quite easily go to schools and say, We love comics. You love comics, we love comics. Let's talk about comics. Right? And that's, that's a I could easily do that and I could ride out the next two years just doing that kind of stuff, um, just going around and saying, I'm the comics laureate. I could just live on the title of the comics laureate. But whenever I do something, whatever it is, be it writing, be it drawing, be it, teaching, I always look at it from the I've got to to be the best that I can be at that present moment in time. If I'm the laureate, what does that mean? Yeah, I'm a billboard for comics. They're promoting the medium. Yeah, I get that. That's fine. But what else can I do with it? And my thing was, well, okay, maybe just maybe you can put a spotlight on those voices that are not being heard. What can I do with the laureateship where I can help promote not only, uh, people of color, but, you know, the LGBTQI community, but, and also new neurodivergent creators as well. So my thing is, well, wait a minute, think what, what is it that you're going to do, how are you going to do it? And, and just to categorically state, I do not get paid to be a laureate, right?

Lucy SB:

I think a lot of people don't don't realize that

Bobby J:

Yeah, so it's a voluntary position. So all the emails I'm sending out to libraries and all the emails I'm sending out to promote diversity and representation, that's off my own back. That's not someone else pushing for me. Yeah, luckily, um, I've got, um, ace involved as well. So they're there. They thankfully decided to promote it via their connections as well. So it's a snowball effect. And what that does is, and weirdly enough, um, it relates back to being a teacher as well, because I came to teaching late. So I was, um, in my late forties, COVID had happened, right? COVID was just happening. And as I do, I tend to make the most strangest decisions at the weirdest of times. So at this time during COVID, I decided I'm going to train as a teacher. So I become a secondary English teacher in Chingford, a lovely school called Heathcote. And there I'm, I'm, English to, Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5.

Lucy SB:

Did you use comics? Did comics come into your classroom practice at all? Okay,

Bobby J:

I think I will come to that. So I created a career as an English teacher and I had, you know, different types of pupils with different needs because COVID hit a lot of kids, it really did. And,

Lucy SB:

I was in the classroom at that point still too, so yeah, but a primary teaching during the, during the pandemic, yeah.

Bobby J:

Yeah. So the pandemic destroyed a lot of confidence and a lot of our young people. So, as it kind of died down and classrooms were getting back to them because I was doing a lot of online teaching, which was new even for the teachers in the

Lucy SB:

no one had a, there's no template for that. That was making it up as you go along.

Bobby J:

Yeah. So, I think that that's probably where. I started to flourish was to actually do the online stuff because, you know, I was like, Oh, okay, I'm quite happy to do this. I'm happy to be online and do this. But when the classroom kind of got back together. one of the things that I remember was I had a, a challenging year nine class and different needs for, for these, these pupils, variety of different needs. And I remember, um, One of the texts that I had was Macbeth, so they, it was, this was key stage three. And they were quite upfront with me. They're like, sir, we're gonna be honest. not feeling Macbeth.

Lucy SB:

Nothing like the brutal honesty of a class.

Bobby J:

Yeah. Yeah. No, my kids were very honest. So what I did was ask the head of department, are we able to get, um, Graphic novels of Macbeth sorted for these kids. And she was like, yeah, sure. Let's do that. If you feel that's the best way for you to teach the, um, the, the ideas behind it. And I was like, yes. So what I used to do, which I think you might find quite interesting, is that one of the kind of things I did was I would, after they've read like a scene, I would have like a photocopy of the, the actual pages that they've read. with all the actual dialogue, whited out.

Lucy SB:

Yeah. Brilliant.

Bobby J:

um, what they would do is they would then have to go through the actual play of Macbeth and find the words that would correlate to the actual scenes in the actual graphic novel. So they're they're trying to decipher the original text, but I'm placing it on the comic strip. they would.

Lucy SB:

really interesting. Weirdly, again, referring to Meher Shibley's interview way back when in the first series of Comic Bean, but she'd done a master's in Shakespeare studies and then her PhD was in comics. And then, and she was saying about how the relationship between a play, because a play, it's the words and then the image, like you start off with the script with the words and then the visuals is like how it would be on the stage, so actually it does lend itself to that comic's

Bobby J:

Yeah,

Lucy SB:

It's really

Bobby J:

yeah, yeah. So, that's the kind of stuff I would do. So, you know, I, I, I love teaching, you know, so it was great that as the comics laureate, I also come from an educational point of view because I'm a strong, firm believer that comics can help build literacy skills.

Lucy SB:

Yeah, I completely agree. I know that you've, you've created some, some book lists which are, they're actually really nice and kind of starting points, aren't they, for public libraries and school libraries who are wanting to maybe develop their collection, build something that's, It's got a really nice diverse, group of creators and character representation in it. Do you wanna, can you talk to listeners? I'm sure that we have a lot of librarians, as well as teachers listening. So I'm sure they'll be really interested in this as a resource. If you could give us a little bit of an intro. I

Bobby J:

um, well I create one of the things that. as Comics Laurier is to promote the comics medium. So as I said, reading can be, a difficult, Thing to do for a lot of people and sometimes we need gateways to get to that point So and not only is this adults, but obviously as children are developing, you know they need to be able to have certain kind of aids to help them and comics are a great visual aids because what it does is that it Shows you what's going on. So as time progresses it really builds up those, skills of interpreting the words in a variety of different ways. So I'm, I'm a strong believer that graphic novels help build literacy skills. And, the reason, so with that in mind, I thought, okay, What can I do to not only help build literacy skills, but also, help the UK comic industry as well. so I came up with a list of titles, uh, you know, um, uh, Lavender Cloud, um, by Bex Ollerton, you know, and Neurodivergent Tell, uh, you know, you got, um, Barking by Lucy Sullivan, you've got Senen by Shanti Roy, we've got a variety of different UK comic creators that, ranges from a, a variety of different, uh, kind of black Asian neurodivergent, LG BT Q rights. So we've got a variety of different things that are in there. You got Bumble and Snug and the, the Shy Ghost by Mark, uh, by, um,

Lucy SB:

Bradley. yeah. He's, he's been on the podcast. He's a lovely guy. We love Mark. Yeah.

Bobby J:

Mark, but you know, I've read his book and it's a great book because the reason being is that he has this certain energy about his work, which I like, and you know, it's accessible. You've got stuff like Corpse Talk, know, by, um, Adam and Lisa, which is like a history kind of book. We got like a, a narrative, which is like Mexikid by Pedro Martin emma Reynolds, who's doing the Mac climate talks. So, you know, we've got a lot. And then and I hope they don't get offended by me saying, but we've got stuff like, bunny versus monkey, Jamie Smart, which I look at as almost like Tik Tok comic books, because there is so much going on in everything, every kind of page. This is

Lucy SB:

Yeah. It's, yeah. It's a real visual onslaught, isn't it? It's,

Bobby J:

Yeah. So I related to like scrolling on tiktok when you got a whole thing like so many images can just bombarding you That's how I kind of look at James work, which I which I adore and so, you know So that's why in my head of it Oh, this is almost like scrolling tiktok, but it's just like just so much things just bombarded at you So, you know, I really like Jamie's work and then you got you know stuff like Dogman, which works really, really well. the kind of stuff that I put in the list is geared towards, especially the younger list, is geared towards, um, helping kids to read. So for me, it's almost like that bridgeway that helps them and, you know, it helps build those skills. And as an English teacher, I feel like I'm satisfying my needs as an educator, as well as a comic creator as well.

Lucy SB:

Yeah, and I'll put the links to those, lists in the show notes as well so that people can look because I think there's not only that there's, as you say, there's great starting points for children on the children's list but also I'm really keen on those adult titles I think are, yeah, definitely good starting points for people who maybe have not necessarily put it into their own reading diet as well so I think that's really cool.

Bobby J:

You know what, one, one of the most amazing things for me to watch is going into Forbidden Planet, which is a comic book shop in London, or gosh, comics and seeing that

Lucy SB:

Thanks.

Bobby J:

I love, gosh, they, they, they're my sh that if I have to say what's my shop, it's, gosh, comics.

Lucy SB:

I love it. Yeah.

Bobby J:

look how diverse the readers are. Yeah, there's everybody from every walk of life reading, buying comics, and it's amazing. And I always kind of look, because I remember back when it was like comic shops in the 90s where you had wooden floors and the comics are in the back of the shop So you have to go through all these other kind of stuff. books just to get to the comics. So, so comic books have changed dramatically with positive.

Lucy SB:

So you're about a coming up to a year'cause it was, it's announced in at the Lakes International Comics Art Festival, isn't it? The Laureate ship. So you must be coming up to the sort of midway point of your Laureate ship. Um, you've obviously achieved so much already, but, uh, what are your plans for the

Bobby J:

keep telling me that. That's quite interesting because a lot of people say, yeah, you, you slow down man. You, you're actually, you're actually doing way too much. It's like, okay, I guess I'm, am I doing too much? Have I done too much?

Lucy SB:

Well, I mean, I wouldn't say too much, but you've hit the ground running, haven't you? So what's your plans for the, the sort of the second part of your Laureate ship?

Bobby J:

So, I'm looking at building literacy in schools, and, hopefully this list, because I'm approaching libraries themselves, I really want to be able to have UK comics. When I say UK comics, I'm I'm using graphic novels because I see

Lucy SB:

Yeah,

Bobby J:

as books, so I just want to clarify that. So I just want to see a lot of UK talent have their graphic novels in libraries, simply because it helps build our industry. Because these books promote diversity, they promote representation, things that I didn't have as a kid. Yeah, so by having books where we can recognize who we are, what kind of people we are, then it helps build society, right?

Lucy SB:

yeah, for sure.

Bobby J:

If we recognize ourselves in stories and, graphic novels and books and TV, then it helps us as individuals, wherever, whatever position we're coming from as people. Yeah, so that's how I look at it, you know, I mean, if there was more representation when I was a kid, then, you know, for me, I guess it would have been a lot more easier to do comics it's about how, how do we help the next generation and not only with just literacy, but how do we build people up? So that's how I'm looking at the kind of laureate list being able to help by putting diversity representation out there because what that does is that it encourages us to be more, more of who we are and who we shouldn't be afraid of who we are, regardless of color, creed, race. Gender,

Lucy SB:

100%.

Bobby J:

sexuality doesn't matter. Yeah. Be who you want to be and we should have books and graphic novels that represent that. And I'm, I'm, I'm a strong believer of that. so that's, I'm carry on doing the laureate list and keep pushing that, but one of the things I really want to do is focus on prisons. There's literacy that can be promoted via graphic novels, via prisons as well. I think that's something that I really would like to focus in my second year, being able to help people in prisons.

Lucy SB:

At the end of the podcast, um, I always ask guests to kind of sum up a few key points or takeaways that might help. Educators, librarians, listening, a few things that might influence their practice. From all of your experience, from both as a teacher, as a comics creator, as laureate what would you leave listeners thinking about?

Bobby J:

I would say that as an educator, comics are a gateway for literacy. It builds literacy skills. That is an educator. That is, that is as an English teacher, as a comic creator. I would just say that comics are Comics. We are art. We are comics. That's it. There

Lucy SB:

I love that. There's a brilliant comic strip and I can't remember who, I can't remember who it's by. I'll try and find a link to it and put it in the show notes as well, where it's like two cowboys having a punch up and it's, one says, I say comics are literature and the other one says, I say they ain't and then they have a big punch up. Um, It makes me laugh. It's great.

Bobby J:

Yeah, comics are so many different things to so many different people and that's the great thing about comics and for me comics, I said this before on a On a documentary that was done on me, but I said that Comics is one of my greatest love And that's very, very true. It's probably the longest relationship I've ever had, and that is with comics. So, yeah, I've been in love with comics since 1979, when I was a little boy. So I've been in love with the whole medium of comics since 1979, in one form or another. And I'm not going to change. It's always been something that gives me joy. And I encourage people to, if you've never experienced a graphic novel, never experienced, um, a comic to go look at, look at, look at my list,

Lucy SB:

Yeah,

Bobby J:

see what's there.

Lucy SB:

point.

Bobby J:

Good starting point. See, see what it is that appeals to you. They're all great. If it's manga, we've got a lot of manga. If it's children's books, we've got some really great children's book. And then there's the UK comic creators list, which has got wonderful people on it and some really good titles. You know, I should have put mine on there, but Hey, I'd rather get other people out there before I even come on anything like that. Yeah.

Lucy SB:

be a difficult one for you, I think. Then the last, the final, final, final thing that we ask is if we were to add one comic to our To Be Read piles tomorrow, what should it be?

Bobby J:

To be read pile, a pile. Um,

Lucy SB:

What would you recommend us?

Bobby J:

I would, it depends. That's like saying top five movies. You go, what do you mean? That's like, what genre are we talking about? Top five, sci

Lucy SB:

I

Bobby J:

What we're talking?

Lucy SB:

often hear people at this point become so overwhelmed they just look at the shelf behind them and you can hear that they're turned around and they're just

Bobby J:

No, I'm not that guy. I give me, give me a genre and I'll be like, okay, that's what you need to read.

Lucy SB:

I can't do that! It's supposed

Bobby J:

I've thrown it on you, now that I've thrown it back on you, now you're arguing.

Lucy SB:

Um, okay, I'm going to give you a genre and then see how you like that. Uh, because my, I, my favourite types of comics that I most like to read, although I do read widely, but I tend to gravitate to a kind of autobiography type comic.

Bobby J:

Okay. Um, autobiographical, I do like a bit of America's splendor. Harvey Peaker, Maus is

Lucy SB:

Mmm,

Bobby J:

phenomenal. look at, mongrel, which is a brilliant book. That's an autobiographical, well, brilliant book. So yeah. and if you go and hit me up with another genre, see? Got you there.

Lucy SB:

Um, okay, I'm interested in silent comics.

Bobby J:

silent comics. Alpha, which is a great silent comic. That's from Knockabout. Um, so that's that's basically about the how the, it's almost like looking at how the world was formed through, uh, graphic novel medium. So, that's a great book.

Thank you so much to Bobby for taking the time to talk me through all of his experience, such a wealth of experience, not only, uh, standout comics, creator, but an educator, someone who understands the way in which comics can be woven into the education space and actually been there, done that. From a frontline perspective, it's really brilliant to hear. And then some also someone who's so passionate about advocating for the UK indie comic scene. And the importance of diversity in terms of everything we do. And hopefully the people who are long-term listeners of the podcast can see through the guests that we've had on that. That's also a really key concern of mine and something that I'm really keen to do. Through the scheduling and the people that I get onto the podcast. And as I said in that clip now I am slightly ashamed that I didn't actually manage to read Bobby's comic before I interviewed him product to the summer holidays ordered it too late. It didn't arrive in time, but it is my responsibility. not ideal, but I am delighted to say that I have read it now. It really did make me laugh. It's really, really interesting actually, because I kind of feel like you think of something like 2016. That kind of post-Brexit time of being relative or is relatively recent history. Then when you look back on, a piece that's really fixed within that timeframe, you see all these cultural references that are so relevant to that era. And I really enjoyed seeing that, being able to pick out as what we sort of mentioned the things in the background. So things that just simple things that made me laugh about. Sidelines from pigeons and cats and things. in the background of the main story as well, which I thought were really cleverly done. A very funny. I'm not a great reader of satirical stuff. It's not something that I would generally lean towards. So it's really good to stretch my, my reading horizons a bit and give me something a bit different to read. So, yeah. Brilliant. Thank you very much, Bobby, for that. Definitely one for adult readers. But I'm sure a lot of you would enjoy that and you would have heard Bobby talk about it in depth. So I'm sure that has sparked your interest if you haven't read it yet. This is the last episode of comic boom for this season. I'm, it's gone so quickly. I've had an absolutely brilliant time. Thank you so much to all the guests that have come on the podcast. it has been brilliant to be able to bring you all together and celebrate your work, whether that be work in schools, whether that be. illustrators creators, whether that's academics, if you've missed some of the episodes, go back and check them out. We kicked off the season with the absolutely incredible Nick Sousanis talking about his approach of using, comics in. University education, And his work, creating a dissertation in comics form a great thinker around comics and the really in depth conversation. I enjoyed that. We spoke to I hate Pixies creator, James Turner. We spoke to Claire McGreevey and educator, really working closely with how space can be found within the primary curriculum and in the primary classroom. Collaborating with Chris molds there. in Rochdale. Absolutely brilliant. Love that episode. We spoke to Julian Sedgwick and Chie Kutsuwada about their work, their collaborative pros and manga. Books. Very, very interesting, and some really interesting conversations about. Writing about other cultures. Outside of our own experience and how important it is. It's at to have credibility in that space. We spoke to writer Swapna Reddy or sSwapna Haddow. You may know her as, all the way from New Zealand talking to us across the airwaves. About her Reggie rabbit series really accessible set of, again, pros and comics, combined in a lovely series published by Oxford university press. We speak to Lida Tsene in Athens about the Athens comics library. So much interesting things that we can learn from what's happening in other countries around comics, education. And then we move into our lakes, international comics, art festival, collaborative episodes, where we speak to the Ricard sisters about their approach to. Using historical texts and recreating those in comics forms, we spoke to Molly Ray about graphic medicine and her beautiful, beautiful book giants, which has just come out this year. In the last episode, we spoke to Isabel Greenburg about how work young hag and her previous works by most recent work, young hag. And then again, obviously in this episode, you've just listened to Bobby, Joseph, what are line up? What brilliant lineup in his absolute pleasure to be able to bring you these. Creators you may be familiar with the books. Maybe you haven't heard them speak before. Maybe you're not familiar with the books and this is your introduction to them. So it's absolutely brilliant to be able to do that. Thank you so much. And it's also been great. I spoke at the beginning of this episode about the inclusive libraries conference run by the national literacy trust, where I spent some time with Bobby and I also got to meet some listeners to the podcast. So hi Jenny. Hi October. It was great to be able to meet you. It's always an absolute pleasure. Hopefully this weekend coming up in the lakes, international comics, art festival might be able to meet, definitely be able to meet some past guests on the podcast. And hopefully some listeners there as well. Excitingly, I've got t-shirt. I've got a t-shirt with Comic Boom. On the back. I'm so excited. I'm fact. Not just one for me, but the whole family, a little they'll try. Of Starbuck Bradley's actually, they just break at least. A little tribe. Bradley's with comic boom. T-shirts on. If you see us that give us a shout out, we would love to see you, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you for tuning into the podcast would be in passionate, passionate advocates about comics in your settings, in your field. It's absolutely a delight to work on this. And to have this community around using comics in education. So I've just had a brilliant time creating these podcasts and, meeting people who listen. I should also thank our sponsors for this season. ALC S the authors licensing and collecting society who have been really, really supportive of the podcast and enabled me to be able to. buy the books, the research guests pay for the, hosting. To be able to get the episodes on to Spotify onto apple podcasts. It's absolutely brilliant to have that support from ALCS as well as obviously the wider support that they give authors to ensure that they get money for their work being used out there in the world. So, thank you so much for ALCS. We will be back in 2025 with another season of comic. Boom, just going to have a little bit of a break.

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Lucy Starbuck Braidley

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