English 2

March - October 1980

The Forgotten World John and Mick fall foul of some extreme potholing

Bonfire Night Waen’s first time at the annual village fireworks display

String Orchestra A visit from the North Yorkshire County Council Orchestra

TERM 2 The birth of the 1980s - Blake’s 7, Blondie and battles in space

Waen Shepherd 2 Waen’s heroic antics in the far-flung future of 2007 AD!

Ward’s 7 John Ward and his band of rebels fight the evil Federation

The Fugitive A man runs - but who is he? And what is he running from?

The Flame in the Desert An evil fire threatens the safety of the world

Florence Nightingale What if Florence Nightingale had lived in the Year 2000?

< Supersilver

Ceremonies >

The Cover Another defacement - nowhere near as extreme as the first English book, but similarly faded and difficult to decipher. I know I was only eight years old but even then I must have realised pencil doesn’t really show up on grey cardboard. I think that must be me there in the middle saying the title, with his mop of blonde hair above what I assume must be a face. But what am I wearing? Some kind of Satanic acolyte’s cowl, with an upturned collar? A Rick Wakeman-style cape of Arthurian legend? Or am I just standing in front of a bull? There’s a tiny square of pen in the top left, in which I’ve written the word ‘Shep’ - that’s my fictional imprint ‘Shep Books’ - possibly the first time I ever wrote it. Underneath that, there’s an explosion in which I’ve written “No. 2” - helpful, I suppose, if you can’t understand the words ‘English Book 2’. And right at the top, the proud proclamation - 1st anniversary issue! But I’ve only been here six months. I don’t think I’d quite grasped what ‘anniversary’ means. The Contents This is a thick book, like the first one, running to 60- plus pages, so it covers a fair slab of time - six months from the middle of March to mid-October 1980. I’ve grown up a tiny bit and feel much more at home, so the beautiful innocence of the first term is gone. The factual bits, where I write about real life, are either knowing and irreverent, full of terrible jokes, or darkly grumbly, occasionally even quite depressing, as I try my best to summon up the enthusiasm to write about things I clearly don’t want to write about. Still quite revealing though, about the things that make me happy and the things that don’t. The attempts at humour are more plentiful and even less funny than before, with an increasing tendency towards cartoon slapstick as the year wears on. Also an increase in general lunacy - ‘My Wellington Boots’ being an outstanding example of me as an eight-year- old having what I usually call ‘a mad half hour’ - a hyper-energetic flurry of stupidity which seems incredibly funny to me but generally isn’t that amusing for anyone else. But it’s the dramatic fiction that really shines. It’s way funnier than any of my attempts at comedy, and some of it’s even crazier than the maddest of mad half hours. The Money Shop starts as a mindless power fantasy but ends up rapid-cycling through all my weirdest fantasies like a bull in a sweet shop until it ends up in a distressingly violent place. Waen Shepherd’s Run foresees a dystopian future in which I’m blamed for the death of my own parents and go on the run, with only my karate black belt for comfort, before being blown to bits in a nuclear war. The Horrible Black Friday is a non-stop nightmare of vampires, bullets and continual screaming. And Starkiller is a one-way trip to Mars full of death, sausages and liquid fire. You might have noticed there’s a really dark undercurrent to all of this. Maybe even an overcurrent. Usually I’d say I was just trying to write something dramatic, like the stuff I read in comics and watched on TV. But there’s a genuine darkness about some of these stories, making me question how happy I truly was. Not just the cartoon violence on the surface but some occasionally depressing stuff about abandonment and loss. I’ve got a few theories about that but I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about them yet. That’s something I’m going to have to think very carefully about. It’s also worth noting the various attempts at writing stories about other people’s intellectual property. We’ve got adventures with Judge Dredd, The Micronauts, Alice in Wonderland and even Kenny Everett’s sci-fi hero Captain Kremmen. But the only one that’s worth reading is Revenge of the Jedi, my first attempt at writing Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back hit cinemas about halfway through writing this book and its influence on me was immense. Most of that gets channelled through the Topic books, but this is my first attempt at Star Wars text, and it wouldn’t be my last. Be warned: if you do read it, be prepared to say goodbye to half your favourite characters in the first couple of pages. All that’s to come! Keep checking back to see if I actually manage to upload it all…

Captain Carnivore Gary Shepherd is hunted down by a deadly flying meteor

Super Jesus A special pin-up of your favourite Nazarene webslinger

Giant Karza! Arch-enemy of the Micronauts grows to super size!