Just when you think that stories about the real world, about real people and believable, compelling characters, have no place in comics, along comes someone like Andi Watson to restore one's faith in the potential for diversity in the medium.

Watson is the Eisner-nominated British writer and artist best known for his comics SKELETON KEY, GEISHA and BREAKFAST AFTER NOON, as well as the current Slave Labor Graphics miniseries SLOW NEWS DAY.

Watson is originally from Kippax, a small town relatively close to Leeds. He went to a comprehensive and eventually to college to study Graphic Design and Illustration. It was at art school he started reading comics again, having been a prolific consumer of comics as a child, and eventually, just before he graduated, he created his first comic, SAMURAI JAM.

Not that this meant his success was immediate. Far from it, in fact; "the obligatory stint on the dole followed and comics kept me occupied, gradually weaning me away from that illustration 'career' I assumed I'd pursue."

So what were his comics of choice when he was small, and why didn't creating them appeal as a career choice? "My first contact with comics was way back before I could read; PEANUTS and Disney strips in the Daily Mirror. Then Brit humour comics, BEANO (not DANDY), WHIZZER AND CHIPS, and all the rest, and STAR WARS reprints, which I read until I was 13 or so and then stopped reading comics altogether.

"Then, late in the Sixth Form and on my Foundation course, I got into AKIRA and LOVE AND ROCKETS. I always liked comics to read, but never considered creating my own until years later - which is weird as I was always into stories and images inspired by the written word; obviously why I was doing Illustration."

None the less, in 1996 Watson did become a professional creator, producing SKELETON KEY, an ongoing series for Slave Labor Graphics about a girl growing up in Saskatchewan and having to deal with everyday teen issues like dimension-hopping witches, closet monsters, Japanese fox spirits and boys.

Watson's distinctive artistic style of bold, fluid black lines and backgrounds textured with simple white, black and grey has developed noticeably, from the extremely detailed realism of early issues of SKELETON KEY to the black and white expressionism of the latest SLOW NEWS DAY. "I'm trying to introduce more spontaneity and expressiveness into the art," Watson explains, "and I'll be using tones again in the next project. I want to go on developing and hopefully improving, just so it's enjoyable."

Watson is best known for being a solo writer/artist, but recently he has done work for hire for the likes of DC - the BIZARRO COMICS hardcover collection - and Oni Press, doing the covers for HOPELESS SAVAGES. He also spent two years writing BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER for Dark Horse. According to Watson, the work he did for DC and Oni Press was "cool to do, it wasn't that different from working on my own stuff - there's a shared sense of values.

"When I wrote BUFFY, however, that was very different, because what I thought constituted a good story was very different to the licensors' idea of a good story. Also, writing and drawing is vital to telling a story; dividing them up is a bad idea."

His art college background goes some way towards explaining the references to fine art that figure strongly in Watson's work, particularly GEISHA, a science-fiction series about a girl who has to reconcile the fact that she's an artificial person with her chosen profession as an artist. Wilful ignorance of art appears to be something that irks Watson considerably, particularly in his medium of choice. "Oh my god, it would be nice for mainstream comics to recognise any art outside of movies," he says, exasperated.

On the other hand, Watson explains that 'fine art' does not necessarily mean traditional canvas and paints, or that striving for photorealism is a particularly good thing. "It's depressing the way that painted comics are viewed as 'better' simply because they're painted. I remember some guy calling the art in SLOW NEWS DAY crude and simplistic and not understanding why I would find that insulting! He went on to talk about George Perez...

"There's this weird idea that detail equals content. There's a tendency for the medium to have the same value judgements about art as a 13-year-old... but then that's the audience, I guess. It's a conservative (with a small c) medium; if you were reading comics 30 or more years ago, they won't be terribly different to today's comics."

So where should comics be seeking ideas? "There are a lot of interesting things out there in novels, movies, museums... I don't look to comics for inspiration."

So what are Watson's influences? "Ugh, it's a long list: I guess I like many aspects of Japanese art... the 'stripped down to essentials' quality of the ceramics or Hiroshige landscapes as well as the decorative and patternistic aspects. I like Beat Takeshi movies, Miyazaki animation, manga for its pacing and willingness to take its time. Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, Hernandez Bros, classical sculpture, Hergé, Henry James, Thackeray, Stella Gibbons, Dupuy-Berberian, Gothic painting, early German painting, Ingres, Matisse, Degas, early renaissance portraits, Holbein, Blutch, Seth, Seizo Watase... the Sopranos... different stuff."

BREAKFAST AFTER NOON is a romantic comedy that centres on a couple, Rob and Louise, who have both been made redundant as the date of their wedding approaches. It is often held up as a salient example of a comic that would appeal to a non-comics mainstream readership. However, Watson doesn't see it quite like this. "I don't feel it is a standard bearer, but I would love it to reach a whole new readership who don't usually pick up comics. Even if they think it sucks it would be nice to dispel the hoary old prejudices about comics only being superheroes.

"Of course, that pre-supposes BREAKFAST AFTER NOON is widely available outside comic shops..."

With such emphasis placed on reality, in this book in particular it is no surprise that Watson's writing is "a mix, part my own experience, part other peoples, part imagination and part research." This doesn't mean that the reader should assume everything Watson writes is autobiographical; as he wryly puts it, he's been a disgruntled teenager, "but not in Saskatchewan with Mr. Racoon."

What he does do is adapt his own experiences to a character's situation. "Their reactions will be different, but we all know what it feels like to be mad, happy, betrayed, frustrated etc." BREAKFAST AFTER NOON is a case in point, as although Watson has "been on the dole and... married and now a father, my own and Rob's reactions and situations are very different."

Watson's current series, SLOW NEWS DAY, is about the arrival of an American journalist at a small-town newspaper's offices, and her trials and tribulations in dealing with cultural and professional differences.

He identifies a couple of definite initial sources of inspiration: Stella Gibbons' COLD COMFORT FARM, in which "a sophisticated outsider arrives to sort out a mess in the provinces", 1930s comedies like HIS GIRL FRIDAY and ADAM'S RIB and, to some extent, the Coen Bros' homage movies like THE HUDSUCKER PROXY.

"What I start with is often removed from what I end with," points out Watson, "so in SLOW NEWS DAY there's the look at the differences between the US and UK (hopefully avoiding stereotypes), office politics, the conflicting influences of commerce, and personal and professional relationships. Which may sound a little dry, but I always try to wrap a story up in interesting characters." SKELETON KEY, GEISHA, SLOW NEWS DAY and (to an extent) BREAKFAST AFTER NOON all have strong, feisty female protagonists, but Watson doesn't think that this makes his male characters any the less significant or interesting. "I don't agree [that] the men get a rough deal. In BREAKFAST AFTER NOON, for example, I think Rob is the most fully rounded and sympathetic character; it's his story, we follow his development and he's the one that changes the most.

"Women are often the leads in my stories, so naturally the male characters don't get the star billing. I don't do anything special, I just write the women as people."

The fact that the female characters are so prominent in Watson's books is not at all typical of comics as a medium, and it was this very lack of positive representation that inspired him to makes many of his central characters women. "I guess I noticed women got a raw deal in comics, and they still do. They're usually sex objects designed to cater to juvenile tastes and in some way I wanted to redress the balance. Also, I like drawing female characters."

Watson's success is reflected by the fact that his stories are being adapted to other media, so it is likely that his work will be exposed to a completely new audience. Watson's SKELETON KEY is being made into an animated series by Nickelodeon. According to Watson, "as of writing, Nickelodeon are producing a seven minute pilot in partnership with Sunbow Entertainment - who purchased the option way back in the mists of time."

This could mean that control over his creation is taken from him, but he's philosophical about it. "I'm involved as much as I want to be. But in the end they can ignore everything I say. I've done character designs and whatnot. If it does go to series we're talking a Fall '03 release date. One thing I have learned from my brief flirtation with animation is that everything changes all the time.

"Right now it's as close to the books as an animated show can be. Tam and Kit are the leads and the emphasis is on the character-driven nature of the books." Is anything else likely to follow? Watson remains somewhat sceptical. "No one wants to make GEISHA, THE MUSICAL just yet. There are always companies interested in 'developing properties', but nothing else of mine is definitely going to be adapted."

With this series on the horizon, what else can the public look forward to from Andi Watson in the near future? "I'm going to produce a 56-page one-shot with Oni Press in conjunction with the Turin Biennial. I've been invited to attend that arts festival in April '02, and the comic will be part of the exhibition.

"After that I have pitches out there, and a daughter to look after," he says with a smile.

Lindsay Duff is a literature graduate and researcher.

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