The name Paul "Deadeye" Dick may be a familiar online name to numerous comic fans already. SHIFT'S in house Journalist Paul Neal recently took some to talk to Paul about his long gestating comic, Pale Moon Grimm. It is a project certain to intrigue comic fans.
As is Shift's habit it felt only appropriate to get to know Paul a little before diving headlong into discussing his exciting project.
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Paul told Shift he is 56, a former soldier and suffers from debilitating disabilities of mobility, sight and PTSD. He comes from Leven in Fife. As he puts it " Faded seaside resort town that looks beautiful on the outside but has a rotten interior with crime and Asbo neighbours" that neither Council or Police are quick to correct. As well as being a writer of books and comics. Paul used to be an avid Rugby Player, practiced several different martials arts like Lau Gar kungu under Sifu Guy Dean, Karate, boxing and Kickboxing. He used to enjoy Football teams like Liverpool and Celtic FC as favourites.
With the introductions completed the conversation moved onto talking about comics.
Paul's enthusiasm for his project, Pale Moon Grimm rapidly became undeniable occasionally pre-empting SHIFT'S questions, but his passion became far too infectious.
SHIFT: Paul, can you describe for me how your relationship with comics began? For example what may have been the first comics you enjoyed reading? Where were they purchased from? After all most comic fans and creators remember their first comics do they not?
Paul: The comics began from my love of three things.
Westerns...Spaghetti Westerns, reruns of Gunsmoke, Rawhide and Have Gun Will Travel.
Horror in films and books, especially those of HP Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe and the classic Universal and Hammer films.
And 2000AD which through its heady mix of adventure, sci-fi and horror showed me what was possible. These were my first loves. As I got older I started to read Howard's Conan and Solomon Kane stories in book form, plus Moorcock's Elric books and Heavy Metal magazine. I drifted into watching and reading more complicated horror and westerns. All these went into the creation of Pale Moon Grimm.
SHIFT: Were there any comic creators or comics that inspired you to create you own comics. Was there a eureka moment for you when you decided you wanted to create your own comics?
Paul: Joe R Landsdale's Weird West Stories, his seminal run on Jonah Hex in the 90s and Garth Ennis' Preacher were all big influences in Pale Moon's creation too.
John Wagner and Alan Grant's Strontium Dog, Pat Mills' Flesh and Garth Ennis from 2000AD initially then on to Garth's work in Preacher and Hellblazer were primarily my writing inspirations.
Alan Grant particularly helped me I became good friends with Alan and he acted as a bit of a mentor making me a better writer. Authors like HP Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Joe R Lansdale in both books and comics especially his Jonah Hex really imprinted itself on me in a big way.
I wanted to create a Wild West character that fought demons, monsters and folklore creatures as well as Badlands Outlaws with his name whispered around campfires like he himself is one of these monsters. Then I saw the Frederick Nietzsche quote.. " He who Fight Monsters must be careful lest he become a monster himself."
"He Who Fights Monsters " to me sounded like " Dances with Wolves " and that was the original name of the character until I settled on Pale Moon because of his albino hair and skin and the fact his eyes eerily shone at night reflecting the Moon's radiance above. I gave my wild west character the ability to shapeshift like my favourite horror movie antagonist, The Thing.
My favourite Horror of all time is John Carpenter's The Thing and I thought about a character that combined the true grit and the physical prowess of Conan, Solomon Kane and Jonah Hex with the albinism and doom-laden destiny of Elric, and Pale Moon was born.
Also since there weren't a lot of great American Indian characters in literature besides Tonto from The Lone Ranger or Injun Joe in Tom Sawyer, I wrote my guy as an exiled Apache, exiled as Pale Moon isn't fully human. You see like Wilbur Whateley in Lovecraft's " The Dunwich Horror " - Pale Moon is a Nephilim and is the result of the union of a human woman and Lovecraftian God.
SHIFT: As a comic creator would you describe yourself as a writer or an artist? Which comes more naturally to you?
Paul: At one time I was both, but my sight started to fade and I went blind for nearly 10 years through head injuries I sustained in multiple jobs. To keep myself semi sane I reskilled as a writer with me coming up with ideas by dictaphone and my long suffering and supportive wife Suzi typing the story ideas up. I created several different characters of which Pale Moon Grimm was one. Gradually I got sight back mostly in one eye. My right eye, but the artwork was never the same. I became a better writer with Alan Grant's help.
SHIFT: Thank you for being so honest. Can I ask however when say you considered yourself as perhaps more as an artist, would you have have described yourself as self taught or do you have any formal artistic qualifications?
Paul: I was a BA degree student in Art and Design. I studied 4 years at Duncan Of Jordanstone Art College in Dundee. Then another post graduate in pictorial book illustration. But my sight was steadily getting worse. In 1997 I woke up one morning and the lights had gone out. All that study down the drain! To keep myself semi sane I decided to get what was in my head down on paper as a writer instead. Getting my wife or brother to type up dictaphone ideas for stories. After a series of eye operations I got half my sight restored to my right eye, but the left is practically dead. So my nickname "Deadeye" took on a different meaning.
Its very frustrating not to draw as well as I could. I now also have hand neuropathy and severe arthritis in my hands. If I was able to draw again and write? I would churn out work faster. It was legendary Scots comic book writer Alan Grant that gave me the most encouragement in my art and writing. He said I had loads of potential and called me " An ideas Machine "
SHIFT: Please forgive my ignorance. I assuming Pale Moon Grim is not you very first published art or writing. Would you be able to describe the very first time were published? ...and perhaps what it meant to you?
Paul: Well like I said, I had gone blind, until I got sight back I spent 8 long years regaining sight then losing it again as the earlier operations didn't always take. One doctor had botched nerves in my eyelids causing me to blink less, so my self worth cratered. Until I started to work and was published online.
My first published stories were Pale Moon Grimm which at that point was a series of short story horror westerns called "Grimm Prairie Trails" and my other character "Dyce"...A hardcore Noir shady underworld character...part mob enforcer. Part Fixer. Part Hitman. But who still had an honourable moral code.
I did two versions of the character. One set in the 1950s/60s time period and one far more Bladerunner dystopian future, then we find out they are the same character from parallel earths and link them with a Lovecraftian pair of black stone, sentient Alien dice, which have terrifying powers including dimensional and time travel.
SHIFT: Please tell me all about your comic? Go for it. What is your comic all about?
Paul: Its about a Bounty Killer in the Old West who always takes in his bounties dead, and always their heads. It is a story of vengeance, personal trauma and redemption, Pale Moon has a very complicated backstory that you'll see play out in more detail in the comic, but here's a 100 words on each character:
Pale Moon is the product of celestial rape. His mother was a 15 year old Apache girl about to go through the coming of age "Sunrise Ceremony " that would make her officially a woman in her tribe. When both her tent and then her being were invaded by a supernatural presence she could only describe later as grinning darkness.
Within 3 months in the winter of 1828 she gave birth to a pale, sickly child between a Blood Meridian and an eerie blood moon. So when Pale Moon came into this world, he made the sky bleed. The baby had very pale skin and dark blood red eyes which closed almost as fast as they opened and he died in his mother's arms. The Blood Moon became a Pale Winter's Moon once more.
She prayed to her Gods and the moon above to let her child live...And Pale Moon opened his eyes this time they looked quite black and only his pupils gave off an unearthly light...looking like two Pale Moons. The child was deemed an ill omen by the tribe and both mother and son were cast out into the harsh winter. It wasn't long before a hungry pack of werewolves were hunting Pale Moon and his mother. Tearing them apart.
Baby Pale Moon was no more but the adult Pale Moon grew in each of the Werewolves' stomachs using both his mother's, his own and the Werewolves DNA to regenerate and tear themselves from the werewolves bodies. Eight, feral, blood-soaked versions of Pale Moon then turned on each other until only one was left standing and the victor absorbed the rest... Not Werewolf. Not man but something that wore the semblance of both with writhing bloody tentacles coming out of his body and throat. Howling at the moon in rage and sorrow for he absorbed the remains of his mother too as well as those of the werewolves.
