Recently, I had Rob Jones, one of the creators of Titan Comics’ War of the Worlds: Thunder Child. Below is a lightly edited transcript of the show. Also, check out my review of this fantastic comic!
FCF: Today we are talking with Rob Jones. He is the writer of War of the Worlds: Thunder Child from Titan Comics on June 7th. Rob, tell us your origin story—what got
you into comic books and made you a lifelong fan?
Rob Jones: Okay, I was a latecomer to comics. I didn’t start reading until I was in my mid-to-late twenties. I read them; over here in the UK we have weekly kids comics called The Beano and The Dandy. I read those when I was a kid but fell away into other stuff. I was always quite aware of comics. I was quite aware of characters and stuff. I grew up loving the Bruce Timm Batman TV show, and things like X‑Men. Yeah, I was a latecomer to reading comics, and then I started writing about reading comics and being a latecomer to reading comics. And then from writing about being a latecomer to reading comics, I thought I would have a go writing comics, and then, from writing, I learned to letter, and then that’s it. It just flowed that way.
FCF: What made you start writing?
Rob Jones: Okay. I’ve always been quite a creative guy. I was in bands a lot during my teens and twenties and I’ve always loved writing. I always had an ambition to write and write a book. I remember doing my dissertation at university and I loved writing that in the process of piecing that together which was great. And I always wanted to do fiction. I always wanted to write fiction. I love a voracious reader, I’ve read kind of anything and everything. And so that was what g
ot me into it. I’d always wanted to do it. I loved being, when I was in the bands, I used to be the singer in the bands and stuff. I used to write all the lyrics and write the songs, so there’s always been an element of writing in the kind of creative things that I’ve done. And comics being such a collaborative, creative medium like it is when you’re writing music. It was just one of those things where I’m just like, I really want to have a go at this. And it started out writing like shorter things, followed the 2000 AD Future Shock kind of layout with things. And so you’re telling the story as succinctly as you can, you’re boiling ideas down. And that started out as writing practice in a way with regards to writing comics. And then from there it was figuring out how to do more longer form things.
FCF: As a letterer, how do you describe your role?
Rob Jones: Okay, so obviously you try to convey sound in a soundless medium. So, with regard to lettering, your job is to guide the eye across the
page and help the reader understand its flow. But as a letterer, I’ve heard many people say that good lettering is invisible. That is the case to a certain degree. It’s almost like it’s more a case of good lettering marries with the artwork more than anything else. It marries up with the artwork. And obviously I’m trying to get people to hear voice, hear people’s voices, hear the way people speak. Everyone talks differently. We’ve got different cadence, different speeds of talking, and things like that. And part of my job is trying to convey maybe that in such a way, perhaps with sound effects and stuff, the depth of the sound, maybe, or the lightness and complexity of the sound and stuff. There is quite a lot that goes into it. You sit down, and you try to work it out. And many a day I’m sat at the computer, making strange noises as I try to do onomatopoeia for things and think about how some people might sound. And so yeah, that’s how I view my job, which is very strange in a way.
FCF: Tell fans what War of the Worlds: Thunder Child is about.
Rob Jones: Okay. So War of the Worlds: Thunder Child is a companion piece to the novel, or can be read as one. Basically, we didn’t want to set out to try and retell War of the Worlds. Matthew Hardy and I, when we wrote it, sat out and worked it through. We didn’t just want to retell the same story. We wanted our own kind of set of characters. We could tell it could be set in it. So it’s set on the premise that the theme is there: you are following the events of the novel, but we are going to tell our own story with our own kind of themes, our own voice in there. Now it’s an action adventure story. There are themes of grief and dread and this idea of crumbling empires and being completely outmatched and outgunned, and I think there’s a lot of that in there. Titan have been great. They were really supportive when they picked it up. And they’ve really thrown their weight behind it and their support, which is fantastic. Initially, it was crowdfunded, so it went from individual issues to a collected edition with Titan.
FCF: How did you and Matt Hardy connect?
Rob Jones: Matt actually hired me as a letterer about 10 years ago to work on some of his earlier stuff. He did a series called Last Exit to Brighton, and then he did a series of books called Cadavers. And we get on really well. We’d speak; I don’t think there’s a day that goes by we don’t speak to one another. We kept threatening to work with one another. And then we actually decided to do it just after the first lockdowns. We wrote a World War II horror story which we kickstarted, and it did really well. And then I messaged him really aggressively going, “Thunder Child. Thunder Child.” I think I’d been listening to Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds musical version, which was my big exposure to War of the Worlds. Matt very much comes from the book side. And we threw ideas together in a big melting pot, then started dividing up how we’d do it. One of us might have a clear idea of how a story went. Certain characters we would tend to write more than the other. Matt really wanted to write the end part. So yeah, it was really good. It was a really easy way of working together.
FCF: Tell us about the artist.
Rob Jones: Kevin Cast. We wanted someone with a very unique style. He sent over his work after we started dialogue, and that was it. He came back with an absolute bundle of concept art and then thumbnailed the whole thing. And then it was pretty much drawn the whole book before we even went to Kickstarter. And then when it came to colors, we have a gentleman named Simon Goff. Kevin suggested him. The pair of them, Kevin and Simon, working together was just incredible.
FCF: Give your final pitch.
Rob Jones: Thunder Child comes out on June 2nd from Titan Comics. It is an action adventure romp. It is a sci‑fi story set at the turn of the century in 1900s London and surrounding areas. And if you like big boats and you cannot lie, and you’re a big fan of marching tripods and heat rays and explosions and character-driven stories where people are dealing with grief and loss and their worldviews being entirely thrown around and upside down, then this is the book for you.
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