Talk Panels to Me #1 – Comic writer John Lees

Hello and welcome to the first instalment of Talk Panels to Me. This is my corner of the world to shine a light on those putting their collective heart and souls into the world of creator-owned/self-published comics. The aim is to focus on the best of British, with the occasional venture across the pond and maybe further afield. Maybe my line of questions will gain online notoriety and a well-established name will throw their hat into the ring…

First up, we have writer John Lees, who is about to unleash Orla! from Mad Cave Studios onto comic shop shelves. In recent years, he has had success with Hotell! from AWA. As well as The Nasty from Vault Comics, which was a love letter of sorts to his Scottish youth. Another series set in Scotland is Sink, which has finished its third successful Kickstarter campaign in recent months. So on with the questioning…

What was the first comic you read?

This is hard to pin down exactly, as I was reading comics from a very young age. It was probably something like Sonic the Comic or the Beano. I was also reading Judge Dredd comics when I was probably far too young to be doing so! Batman stuff, too, of course. Batman/Judge Dredd crossovers, some Batman VS Aliens books, random single issues and annuals, whatever I could get my hands on. It wouldn’t have been the first, but I remember Batman: Knightfall as one of the first comics to make a major lasting impression and make me really want to seek out more comics. With its big cast of villains, reading that graphic novel was my proper introduction to these characters as they existed in comics continuity.

When did you start following a series and what was it?

The first time I started actively following a series rather than dipping in and out of whatever random single issues I could get would probably be Spider-Man comics in the mid-to-late ‘90s. My entry point was Astonishing Spider-Man, this comics magazine which was released in UK newsagents, and would collect stories from the monthly Amazing Spider-Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, etc. at about a 1-2-year delay, along with an old story from the archives as backmatter. Because of the timing, this meant that I actually got INTO reading Spider-Man during The Clone Saga!

Was there a certain reading experience that made you think I can and will write comics?

It’s funny, I loved comics from a very young age, but as a kid, I didn’t really think of them as something made by actual people. I didn’t really see the writer or the artist, just Batman or Spider-Man or whoever. It wasn’t until I drifted from comics a bit, then came back in my late teens in the mid-2000s, that I found myself with more appreciation of the craft. And I remember the one specific comic I read where it hit me like a lightning bolt how well this comic was written, and having the thought of wanting to write a comic that good. It was Batman: The Killing Joke. Though it would be a few years after reading that for the first time where it all clicked for me and I actually decided to pursue writing comics.

Who makes your Hall of Heroes?

Batman, Spider-Man, Superman… and let’s throw Swamp Thing in there to make things a bit spicy.

Where do you fall in the argument that, as you get older, you follow creators rather than characters?

I would say it depends on the person, but for me, there’s a lot of merit in that argument. Yes, I’m probably always going to have some degree of interest in what the latest happenings are with Batman, but when it comes to the comics that ping on my radar these days and have me eagerly anticipating their release, I’m looking at, what’s the new comic from Alex Cormack? What’s the new comic from Jeff Lemire? What’s the new comic from Chris Condon? What’s the new comic from Rich Douek? It’s names like Kenny Porter or Brian Level or Zac Thompson or Sally Cantirino or Joe Mulvey or Fraser Campbell or Hayden Sherman or E.B. Carroll, or other creators I admire having their names on the cover that will make me curious to check a comic out.

What’s the elevator pitch for Orla?

Orla! is a horror comedy by me, Sally Cantirino, Dearbhla Kelly and Lucas Gattoni, published by Mad Cave Studios. It’s a quirky, gory, horny romcom/creature-feature mash-up that tells the story of Orla Bard, a believer in true love navigating Seattle’s singles scene while struggling with loneliness, anxiety, and this little problem of sometimes turning into a man-eating monster. When Orla gets too scared, angry or stressed, a monstrous entity she calls The Ick emerges from within her. She can’t rid herself of this affliction, and so instead she has opted to use her curse to save other women by removing the scummiest men from the dating pool. It’s a story about the versions of ourselves we curate for public consumption, and the dangers of letting someone close enough to see the real you.

What influences past and present best inform Orla?

Oooh, I love talking influences! I’ve said that the biggest inspiration for Orla! is Muriel’s Wedding, which is my favourite romcom, and one of my all-time favourite movies. I see a lot of Muriel Heslop in Orla Bard, somebody who might be doing bad things but hopefully the audience still finds loveable. It might be something of a deep cut, but another big inspiration was a horror film called Def by Temptation. That’s a story about a succubus creature in the form of a beautiful woman who stalks the dating scene killing men, and while that character is just a pure predator in that film, my thoughts of “What if that character had an interior life?” was one of the initial impetuses for the process of development that led to the creation of Orla! Other influences include Cat People, Under the Skin, Punch-Drunk Love, Under the Skin, Carrie, Rye Lane, Fresh and An American Werewolf in London. Also, it wasn’t so much an influence as something being made at the same time that I watched after I’d written Orla! and realised it had some resonances, but the TV series Dinosaur on Hulu in the US, BBC iPlayer in the UK, is co-created by, written by and stars my old friend Ashley Storrie, and a lot of main character Nina’s struggles strike a chord with our portrayal of Orla.

What is one positive that you will take away forever from doing self-published comics?

The amount of satisfaction that comes from “Doing the Thing”. To anybody out there who has a self-published comic that they’re selling at a con table or on their online shop or even just posting on socials… congratulations. You have already got so much further than the majority of people who have an idea for a story, or a desire to make a comic, but never get it done. That in itself is an achievement to be proud of. If you’re someone who writes and draws and does everything yourself, the experience will be different, but for a writer like me, the experience never gets old. The joy of seeing the pages of art landing in your inbox, seeing your story come to life. The excitement of the box of comic stock landing on your doorstep, seeing your story as a physical comic, a tactile thing you can hold in your hands. And it all starts with the satisfaction of writing THE END at the bottom of a script, knowing you’ve had the perseverance to realise your idea and see it through to fruition as a complete story.

And for balance, one negative?

Talking about self-published comics especially, I think one big negative I still struggle with is how small your audience is going to be. It can be hard to swallow that, no matter how much you post on social media, no matter how many e-mails you send and interviews you do, no matter how relentlessly you beat the drum, still, the vast majority of the comics audience, itself a relatively tiny niche, will never even hear of your work that you put so much heart and effort into, never mind actually read it. And it can be a sting seeing all the end-of-year “best of” lists that you know your book will never be a part of. But the thing that makes me feel better when I get down about this is knowing that the audience we DO have for books may be small, but it’s so passionate, and they really love what we’re doing. If you can create something that truly, deeply resonates with even one other person out there in the world, that’s special indeed.

Name three stories that have stood the test of time?

Whoa, this is a pretty broad question! Are we talking comics, or just stories in general? I’ll try to go eclectic with my answer.

First up, let’s say Macbeth, by William Shakespeare. Over 400 years later and people are still quoting it, and we’re still getting movie remakes of it. And I can write a comic book remake of it, in the form of The Crimson Cage, and there are readers and reviewers out there who didn’t even know it was a remake of Macbeth who totally loved the story and thought it was great. That shows how well the key components of that narrative have aged and how relatable they still are, even centuries later.

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen is a little over 200 years old now, and its influence is still felt. Funny story about me: every New Year’s Day, I watched the 1995 BBC TV adaptation. I guess it’s on my mind these days with my focus on Orla!, because Pride & Prejudice is like the ur-romcom.

And finally, I’ll say Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. You could argue that it’s a novel that birthed not only the horror genre as we currently know it, but the sci-fi genre, too. It’s this titan of genre fiction, and beyond its historical significance, you read that novel (and I reread it myself just last year), and it is still gripping, still suspenseful. And the fact that we have a new, hotly anticipated adaptation coming up from Guillermo Del Toro is a reminder of how the story is still relevant.

What is one comic you wish you could read again for the very first time?

Hmm, that’s tough. 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa is quite possibly my favourite comic of all time. Getting to experience the twists and turns and euphoric moments of that all over again would be pretty cool!

If you could take everything you have learnt doing Orla! and apply it to one existing character to take over for a year, who would it be and why?

Honestly, I feel like my priority right now is telling my own stories and making them the best they can be, rather than taking over an established character. But for the sake of argument, let’s say I’m given free rein to write a year-long run on any character I want… of course, I’m going to choose Batman, he’s my favourite character in fiction. And the lessons I’d take from my own work would be trying to not only bring a whole lot of horror trappings to my portrayal of Batman, have him facing threats that are dark and monstrous, but given the skew of something like Orla!, I’d probably also be leaning into the weird sexy horny side of things, too, in a way that would probably be harder to get away with at DC than it would be to get away with doing horror! Maybe it’ll have to be something out-of-continuity!

What is the one piece of advice you would give anyone wanting to get into self-publishing comics?

As per my earlier point… Do the Thing. If you want to make a comic, make a comic. Maybe start small, like a one-shot, so it’s something you’re able to finish, but get together the budget, set aside the time, and make it. Accept that it won’t be perfect, but you’ll learn so much about yourself and about the process of comics storytelling just from making a book of your own. It’s the best education.

What does the future hold for John Lees and Orla?

I’ll be pretty busy over the next couple of years. I have a couple of unannounced things in the works. But in the nearer future, I have more Sink coming up. The collected Sink Vol 3 has just gone out to Kickstarter backers and will be heading to comic shops later in the year, and now work has begun on Vol 4. The team of me, Joe Mulvey, Kurt Michael Russell, JP Jordan and Shawn Lee are working on Grawlgore & Shanks, a high-fantasy/procedural mystery about a dwarf tailor and his orc steward who travel around solving crimes, like Dungeons & Dragons meets Knives Out. That’s coming to Kickstarter soon. As for Orla!, FOC for the first issue is 14th July, so if readers are interested in checking it out, they should let their comic shop know they want it added to their pull list. The first issue launches on 6th August, and the series will be running monthly from then through to the end of the year, with the collected edition coming early 2026. If you want to keep up with the latest news about the series, and with everything else coming from me, you can subscribe to my newsletter at johnleescomics.com. You can also find me on Patreon at patreon.com/johnlees, and my most active social media accounts are Bluesky – @johnlees.bsky.social – and Instagram – @johnlees927.