RIAN HUGHES ON YESTERDAY'S TOMORROWS

[MattBrady]

by Michael C Lorah

Since the mid-80s, Rian Hughes has done more to redefine the concept of design as it relates to comics than anybody. He reshaped the look of Fleetway’s 2000 AD, Crisis and Revolver, designed the look of Titan Books’ repackaging of American comics, and worked to give Knockabout Comics a distinct presence. He even found time to illustrate and letter (the two seem inextricably bound in his world) several comics stories of his own.

Now, Knockabout Comics is putting out the book Yesterday’s Tomorrows, a collection of Hughes’ comic book work. As with everything he works on, expect a visual treat.

We asked him about the new book and his design work in comics.

NRAMA: Rian, you’ve done a lot of design work in comics, but not a tremendous amount of artwork. What stories are going to be included in Yesterday’s Tomorrows?

Rian Hughes: Dan Dare, with Grant Morrison, The Lighted Cities, with Chris Reynolds, The Science Service, with John Freeman, Really and Truly, with Morrison again, Goldfish, with Tom DeHaven (adapted from a Raymond Chandler short story) plus an assortment of covers, sketches, bubblegum cards, and other rarities. There is also a limited edition with a slipcase and four postcards featuring new drawings.

NRAMA: Dan Dare’s one of those classic British characters that some American readers may not be extremely familiar with. He’s gone through several permutations over the decades, so can you give a quick overview of who he is and, more specifically, where he is in Grant’s and your story?

RH: He's possibly the most famous UK comic character. He's very much of his time - the square-jawed and somewhat naive space pilot of the 50's. He feels out of place in the modern world, a world that seems to have lost the moral certitudes of his youth. We use this dichotomy in the story, ultimately to show that his old fashioned heroism does still have a place.

NRAMA: I love Raymond Chandler. Is this a straight adaptation? Where was it published previously?

RH: It's "Goldfish", a short story first published in 1936 in Black Mask magazine. It was adapted as part of "A Trilogy of Crime", from Byron Preiss' ibooks, by Tom DeHaven (author of It's Supeman!)

NRAMA: How does it feel to see some of these stories in print again after all these years? Do they hold up to your expectation of yourself?

RH: Heh. It's weird - looking back, some elements are far better than I remember, while others are not so good. It seems I learn some new things and in the process forget other things.

NRAMA: You’ve drawn few, if any, comics in the last decade or so, have you?

RH: I've been seduced by mainstream illustration and design work, and font design, which was a first love. The move away from comics coincided with my discovery of the Apple Mac, and I was exploring how my work would adapt to Adobe Illustrator and Fontographer, and in the process managed to hit on what has become a hugely popular and now hugely copied clean vector drawing style. I think that it's probably run its course now, like all fashions do; it's also been watered down by so many copyists. I kept producing design work, especially for DC, but drawing comics has been put to one side for the last ten years or so. I'm hoping I can now look at picking up some of the threads again!

NRAMA: Your company, Device, does design work for tons of clients, including magazine and book publishers, record labels, Virgin, Eurostar, BBC... and DC Comics, Marvel Comics and 2000 AD. When you started Device, was staying active in comics something you actively hoped to achieve?

RH: Well, it's impossible to do everything, though with my workaholic schedule it seems that I try. As I say, I did keep designing for comics, if not drawing. I think the kind of work I get involved in happens in waves - I'll be doing mainly comics, then find myself producing logos, then next it may be toys or CD covers. The muse and opportunity will point me in different directions. The variety is what keeps it interesting for me, and as I'd classify myself as a designer/illustrator - we really need to find a better name for this now common hybrid! - I enjoy flitting between all these disciplines. When I'm producing an illustration for a CD cover or an ad campaign, I'll also be producing the design, custom type and layout, and more often than not conceptualising the entire thing. I think some illustrators are illustrators only - not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but I seek a more holistic approach to image-making. If you attract the right clients, they appreciate this broader range of skills you can bring to bear on a project, rather than expecting you to merely be a stylist.

NRAMA: It’s always best to work with people who have faith in the range of what you can do. What is it about comics that draws you to them? Despite being a graphic storytelling medium, they’re not really known for as a forum for cutting edge design work!

RH: Indeed - but I think there's no reason why they can't be as varied and exciting in their graphic and storytelling approaches as, say, record and CD design has been. This is the area I'd like to explore next - bringing some of the sensibilities I've discovered and worked with outside of comics to bear on the form. To mess things up and rearrange the furniture in new ways, and see if that gives us some interesting results. I just need a writer to collaborate with and I'm off. Comics are a much broader church than they were 10 years ago, and there's a lot that excites me again.

NRAMA: What is your feeling on the current design standards of comics?

RH: Much better than they were 10 years ago, but the mainstream is still mired in cliché. It's helpful here to compare the design of record and CD covers from the 60s to the present with the design of comics. Records and CDs have been through many stylistic revolutions and innovations, from psychedelia, through punk to electronica, new classicism and grunge, but comics have sailed on regardless, with the heavy hand of their own hermetically sealed and self-referential history at the rudder. Things are changing, and some beautiful work is being done by people like Chris Ware and Chip Kidd, but however much I love their work, they can still seem heavy with nostalgia for the past. If comics are to fully be a part of a vibrant pop and art culture, as they really should be, they've got to go through as many generational "chuck out the old" revolutions as the music scene does.

NRAMA: What inspired you to pursue design as a career? What are your major influences?

RH: This is a difficult question, because I think it's not so much certain people who have been influential, but more the ideas that certain people's work embodies. For instance, a strong sense of design and composition appeals to me, so that means that Harvey Eisinberg, John M. Burns (the British artist), and Serge Clerc were early influences. This feeling for structure and an underlying framework that all aspects of the design refer to and are built from means that outside of comics, work by designers like Roger Excoffon, Peter Saville, A. M. Cassandre and Abram Games have been very influential. And more broadly still, I respond to novels that have form and structure to the fore, like David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife - and, of course, Alan Moore's Voice of the Fire. Last year I studied Physics at Birkbeck University here in London, which could be seen as the study of the structure and form, the language if you like, of nature. If I had to pick a theme common to all my work, this would be it.

NRAMA: Do you hope to create more comics stories somewhere down the line?

RH: Yes, definitely, soon. Something that expresses what I've just been discussing somehow, hopefully without seeming gimmicky. Stay tuned...!

[joe bloke]

I am definately going to be picking this up. I was quite a fan of Rian back in the Revolver days. Really and Truly was a cracking good strip. And Dare was, in it's day, perfection. It'd be nice to see Rian getting a little bit more recognition for some very sterling work over the years.

[The_Adventurer]

Hmmm this looks interesting, if only for the Dan Dare stuff. Though I'm not a huge Morrison fan by any stretch.

[cook]

When I visited London, I stayed with a friend of mine, and my friend's roommate had a huge, huge stack of back issues of 2000AD. Every moment we weren't out enjoying London I was burning my way through those comics. I read Garth Ennis and John McCrea's Troubled Souls, which was fantastic, and a bunch of other little stories from creators that have gone on to big things, and others I'd never heard of.

The last couple of chapters of Dare were in there, the story having been printed in Revolver at first. They were great. I'd very much like to read the story from the beginning, rather then jumping on for just the climax and conclusion.

[Dave Accampo]

Hughes is such a great designer...I'll totally pick this up, just for the visual package.

Anyone know when it comes out? I didn't see a mention of it...

[Roy Batty]

This is somewhat of a disappointment to me.

I thought this was referring to some kind of updated version of his long sold out DEVICE book. As much as I love Hughes' design work (for which he is, in my opinion, greatly oversight and underrated), I am not that great a fan of his comic book efforts.

But for all you readers who missed Morrison & Hughes DARE the first time around, do yourselves a favor and pick this book, if only for that.

[joe bloke]

I disagree, Roy. I liked his comic stuff. I think it's very much a product of it's time, but I think it's a good product of it's time, it had a lovely faux-European feel to it, something that was exploited in the short-lived Escape Magazine. There was a lot of "fussy" art stuff going on at the time, and Rian Hughes was a terrific antidote to that.

[Michael C Lorah]

Originally Posted by Dave Accampo

Anyone know when it comes out? I didn't see a mention of it...

July 12, according to Amazon.

[M. Costello]

I hope Rebellion do a collection of the Tales From Beyond Science series he illustrated at 2000AD. I was about ten when I first read those and they gave me the creeps for ages!

[The_Adventurer]

Hughes's 2000AD Bibliography

He did the Peter Hogan era Robo-Hunter? UGG... Well at least it wasn't the Mark Millar Robo-Hunter...*gag*


EDIT: But he did a bunch of Tales from Beyond Science with Mark Millar. Ugg. Mark Millar, worst 2000AD writer-droid...Ever.