Original Destroy History sketches

At the moment I'm working on a new Destroy History series. It's nice to have some time to devote to a project that I've had worked out for a decade, but never had space to work on properly.

I got a huge box of sketchbooks out of the loft this afternoon, and one of the first ones I looked in had the original Destroy History sketches in it. They're from July 2009 - a few months before Bad Machinery started. A few pages later are the very first Giant Days sketches, which I'll post another time.

The reason Destroy History has never really got going is that it takes a huge amount of research, and then I have to bend that research into a coherent story. The 23 strips of the Hedy Lamarr story I did in 2015 took considerable effort, for what amounted to 13 A5 pages of story. I have another file, for a story called "Iron Pants Johnson", which I never even got started on properly. I did the research, then I couldn't convert it!

But I've started to get a better handle on how to tell these tales, and I've found a format that I think works better than the little strips. I think you'll like the new comics when they start in June.

Anyway, here are those original sketches. I lost them years ago, so they were quite a surprise. Some parts of the comic are there straight away. Others have changed a lot.

1. Robot assistant Nemulon has yet to manifest. He is called "Dennis". Daft. Nemulon is a much more sensible name.

2. Babs McChinnery, Shelley's supervisor. I like the way I drew in my sketchbook in 2010, full of confidence and cheer.

3. Nemulon in his early form. Chunky and cheerful, with a porthole. I made him a lot creepier, later.

4. This establishes the Nemulon-Shelley power dynamic. He is somehow in charge.

5. Shelley was an ebullient character at this point. When she reappeared in my comics around 2012, she was less jolly and effusive, as if her confidence had been badly shaken. I'd kind of forgotten what she was meant to be like, which is, a very competent nuisance.

6. The Ministry of History should have a costume department, so that when Shelley goes back in time, she can wear a suit of armour or a bustle or whatever. But in the wake of the financial crisis (when I wrote this) I figured that due to budget cutbacks, she'd just have to go back in time in her own clothes and work things out.

7. The horned helmet. I drew Shelley in a horned helmet on a poster I drew a few years before this. It's an awkward shape, but it seemed to make sense. At this point, the helmet wasn't the robot. Eventually the helmet became the robot.

Destroy History wasn't so much a character-driven project as a format idea. The format was easy - obviously. I knocked these out in a bored hour, I imagine. The actual stories were the tough bit. They appear to have taken ten years. Anyway, things are moving now! I hope you enjoy what I've come up with.

UPDATE UPDATE!!

During further digging I found earlier sketches, from late 2008. At this point the project was apparently called "Real True History". Needless to say I have no recollection of what I was up to.

8. So apparently the horned helmet (or "battle crown"!!?) used its horns for translation purposes when in the past. And Real True History went much further back than Destroy History's 20th Century remit...

9. A singing sword. I definitely didn't make that up. That's someone else's idea. I don't think the project was "workable" at this point.

UPDATE UPDATE ENDS!!!!