As grunge took over the American rock music scene in the 1990s, the United Kingdom had its own musical movement — Britpop, a style of alternative rock made famous by bands like Oasis, Pulp, Blur, Elastica and CUD.
William Potter, the bassist for CUD, would go on to become a writer and editor, writing puzzle books, non-fiction, magazines and comics. While Potter was living the life of a musician in the 1990s, artist Philip Bond was drawing comics like Tank Girl, Kill Your Boyfriend, Shade the Changing Man and more.
And now the two of them have teamed up on a new comic series, Geezer, which tells the story of a fictional band during Britpop’s heyday. Published by Off Register Press and edited by Vertigo alumni Shelly Bond, the first issue was published following a successful Kickstarter campaign.
And now Potter and Bond are back for an encore. Geezer #2 is currently up on Kickstarter, having already doubled its initial goal. Potter and Bond were kind enough to answer some questions I had about their plans for the series, revisiting the 1990s music scene and more.
I thought I’d start with your secret origins — how did you first discover comics? And what made you want to create them?
Potter: I read comics as an infant, but it was the UK Marvel reprints—Mighty World of Marvel and Spider-Man Comics Weekly – that inspired me to create my own. I wrote and drew hundreds of titles, often daily, for school friends, featuring their pets with super powers and anxieties. This led to writing/drawing strips for local and student newspapers.
P: My dad was a cartoonist who always had a big library of comics and reference materials and illustrations. All kinds of photography books and comic books that I would bury myself in. It was always in the house, so it was sort of inevitable.
I feel like for this project in particular, I should follow up with your secret musical origins as well — tell us about your history with Britpop.
Potter: Britpop began at the time Nirvana and grunge was sweeping over to the UK. There was pushback from UK music journalists keen on generating a UK response. My band, CUD, were grouped with Suede, the Auteurs, Denim, and St Etienne as the peculiarly British “Lion Pop.” The name didn’t stick, but the same journalists later came up with Britpop. CUD weren’t invited to this party and probably wouldn’t have fit. We were on our last major tour at the time Blur’s Park Life came out. I played it constantly in the tour bus. We caught up with Blur, Suede, and Pulp on their 1994 tours, and they were obviously and deservedly on the way up. It was a time when new bosses were inviting more guitar-orientated bands on TV and radio rather than generic pop, which made a huge difference to the bands’ profile. CUD’s record company pushed us in an entirely different direction, and we split just as Britpop hit its stride.
I know the two of you worked together before on a strip for Black Crown Quarterly, but how did the two of you meet and decide to start working together?
Potter: We met at a Leeds comic book signing. Philip was with the Deadline team, who turned out to have heard of CUD. I started hanging out with him, Jamie Hewlett, Glyn Dillon, Alan Martin, Mat Wakeham, and the rest of the Worthing crowd when CUD played England’s south coast. Eventually, I got my own regular comic strip in Deadline, but Philip and I didn’t start working together until I pitched a bizarre CUD biography strip (Rich and Strange) to Shelly Bond for her Black Crown Quarterly 24 years later (!), and Philip made us look good.
William, Geezer is obviously set during a time and a scene that you have direct, first-hand experience with. As you were writing the story, were their certain elements from that time in your life that you wanted to make sure made it into the comic, and conversely, were there certain things you thought were best left out?
Potter: I used some of my experience in CUD for sure – issues with record companies, touring, egos – and read a lot of Britpop band biogs for those bands’ stories, so there are love triangles, appalling US tours, and massive excess, plus real events that I fitted Geezer into. I drew up a detailed timeline, to make sure Geezer crashlanded at the most memorable events in Britpop history, though history, sadly, does not recall their presence. I don’t go into detail about some of the darker stuff that went on in the later Britpop years, the hard drugs, though they are alluded to.
Philip, I know you produce a lot of art, but I don’t think we’ve seen much interior comic art from you since Eve Stranger. How’s it been for you, getting back to sequential storytelling?
Bond: Eve Stranger was the last of the Black Crown titles, and we started work on Geezer right after Black Crown folded at the end of 2019. Shelly and I created Off Register Press as a place to publish our own work, and continue our crowdfunding projects. The precursor of Geezer in 7” format started with my collections of Inktober drawings, which we printed at 12” and 7” formats. At the same time, Will sent us a pitch for Geezer which we loved. And I couldn’t wait to get back to drawing something longform. There’s a lot more behind-the-scenes stuff going on in a creator-owned book like this, than just stepping in to do a four-issue run on a mainstream monthly, especially when you’re doing real scenes based on real places. By the time we launched issue #1 Kickstarter, we’d both been working on Geezer for a year already.
You’ve already passed your stated goal for the campaign, but what does additional support mean for the project, both in terms of stretch goals and also what you’re hoping to do creatively? And does this mean Geezer #3 is on the horizon?
Potter: We make sure the stretch goals in each campaign add more to what each backer gets, so we deliver more pages and goodies with the book. While we design each issue to be enjoyed on its own, we do have a run of five issues planned, with a satisfying wrap-up. We hope continued support will allow us to see it through.
One thing that crowdfunding offers creators is the chance to get a little more creative with things like design and format — something that might be limited at a traditional publisher. Can you talk about your choices in that area, both with the comic itself and with some of the extras you’re offering?
Potter: It was Philip’s idea to try the 7” vinyl single format, after he used the size for his INK print series. It really suits a music-themed book, with the comic as a single from the graphic album. We think of Geezer as a real band, so everything you’d expect for a real band is provided – posters for albums and singles, flyers, tour T-shirts, lyric sheets, reviews…
Bond: One of the top tier backer levels for both Geezer #1 and #2, has been to have an original 4 X 4 drawing of an album cover of your choice from the period. And our latest stretch goal, which kicks in at $15,000, ties in to this. We’ll be adding a set of five prints of my drawings of classic Britpop covers for each print copy of Geezer #2.
What else are you working on, comics or otherwise?
Potter: I write a lot for the kids and young adult market. I’ve just delivered a book on manga and anime, and am writing about astronomy and fossils now. Comics-wise, I’ve been doing some script development for a U.S. writer, and crossing my fingers on a pitch I submitted to a UK publisher.