Straight, No Chaser: Gurchain Singh’s horror comics were always straight from the heart, and that’s what we loved about his work above all. Art © 1989, 2008 Gurchain Singh, Gore Shriek™ is a trademark of FantaCo Enterprises, Inc.
[Note: Here’s What Came Before: Backstory on FantaCo, Gore Shriek]
Still among the most beloved of all the FantaCo horror comics contributors is Gurchain Singh, aka ‘The Gurch,’ who made a major splash for Gore Shriek readers.
I’ve held off writing about Gurch until I’d found enough to do more than just rehash the obvious: yes, I can catalogue what was published where, and try to discuss his always-passionate art and usually anecdotal narratives without either overinflating its virtues or understating its weaknesses. But neither approach would do Gurch justice, and those who were exposed to his comics at an impressionable age could care less what anyone has to say critically about Gurch’s grisly gems: they just want more, and/or want to know more.
But finding anything anywhere about Gurch — his work, who he was, where he came from, and where he went after FantaCo ceased publishing his work (and why that relationship came to an end) — is almost impossible these days. The precious few references to Gurch online are scant and/or confusing at best, when found at all, and riddled with as much misinformation as the various FantaCo references online.
Consider the entry in the ambitious, expansive Who’s Who of American Comic Books, 1928-1999:
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SINGH, GURCHAIN
Name and vital stats
SINGH, GURCHAIN (artist)
Biographical
Birthplace: United Kingdom
Pen names THE GURCH
Print Media (non-comics)
Artist: Magazines: 1988-90s G. M. Magazine ‘88+
British comics
DEEP RED~ (pen/ink/) 1988/91
TALES OF SCREAMING HORROR~ (paint/) 1992 including covers
FANTACO PUBLICATIONS
GORE SHRIEK ANNUAL~ (pen/ink/) 1990
GORE SHRIEK~ (pen/ink/) 1989-91
SHRIEK~ (pen/ink/) 1989 and cover
FANTAGOR PRESS
GRAPHIC~ (pen/ink/) 1990
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Not too shabby, as far as it goes — but note that neither Deep Red (edited/packaged in California, published in Albany, NY) nor Tales of Screaming Horror (packaged/published in Albany, NY) are British publications by any stretch of the definition, nor did Richard Corben’s self-publishing imprint Fantagor Press have anything to do with either Gurch (ever) or Graphic, which was likewise a FantaCo Enterprises, Inc. publication.
In fact, as far as anyone knows, FantaCo was the only publisher of note to bring Gurch’s body of work to the known universe.
But Gurch’s history predates FantaCo’s first horror comicbook, Gore Shriek. I had no idea of it at the time, but Gurch’s and my career paths almost overlapped in the same horror comicbook before our ink-slinging graced the pages of Gore Shriek.
We both were published in the short-lived Eclipse Comics title Tales of Terror (I was in issues #1 (as a writer) and #7 (also as a writer); this was Eclipse’s extension of Twisted Tales, writer/editor Bruce Jones’s title launched by Pacific Comics and concluded, after Pacific ceased to exist, by Eclipse. Sales on Twisted Tales had been strong enough to prompt Eclipse to almost immediately launch Tales of Terror on its heels, but it was a troubled graveyard shift at best.
A little background digression: I liked Cat Yronwode, but I confess to finding editor Yronwode’s orientation to that comic and to the horror genre as a whole frustrating and in the end intolerable. In short, Cat not only didn’t understand horror fiction or comics, she loathed horror in all its guises.
This had been apparent to me from my reading of one of her review columns in The Comic Buyer’s Guide back in the late 1970s. She was reviewing the then-current issue of Cliff Neal’s Dr. Wirtham’s Comix & Stories, which was one of my first venues in comics. It was the issue with my story “Cell Food”, which I’d first written as a short story in Carol Collins’s creative writing class in Harwood Union High School; after graduating Harwood and into my second year at Johnson State College, I began drawing the story in comics form, completing three pages which I included in my folio for The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon & Graphic Art, Inc.; it was crude, rendered in wash, but I still liked the story, which Rick Veitch and I rebooted and completely redrew (with Rick’s sterling airbrush work pulling it all together) for Cliff’s Dr. Wirtham’s title. That was one of the stories Cat reviewed — and reviled — in The Comic Buyer’s Guide; the review was structured around her feeding the comic, page by page, to her woodstove, and I’d give almost anything to have a copy of that review in my files today. But I never forgot it. It ended with the thought (I’m paraphrasing here, since I don’t have it at hand), “what kind of people write and draw these kind of stories?” Her utter disgust informed every turn of phrase. “Mission accomplished!”, I thought at the time.
Years later, I did my best to work with Cat on a number of projects, and we did OK all in all. Along the way, I submitting material to Tales of Terror; given my relative boxoffice value as a former Swamp Thing rabble-rouser, Eclipse wanted me involved. I tried my best, keeping myself to scripting so as to not wreak havoc with deadlines or invest myself too fully in a venture with Cat and Eclipse, but her revulsion for the genre and inability to engage with its (and my) modus operandi was consistently an obstacle. If a story pitch disturbed her, it was rejected and a little lecture about moral character would accompany the rejection; if she liked a story, her impulse to either twist it into a positive message or cramp it into a staid, traditional mode would suck the life out of the wretched thing.
Through no fault of Cat’s, my story in Tales of Terror #1 was an abomination — chalk it up to being one of my earliest scripting gigs working ‘blind’ (I had no idea who the artist would be drawing the story until it was about done, so I was out of synch with any anchor) — but I’m still very pleased with and proud of “Remembering Rene”, which I scripted and David Lloyd beautifully realized on the page. In fact, David improved the story immeasurably.
Cat loved it because it was a love story. Cat loved it so much she made it the cover story for Tales of Terror #7 (July, 1986) — and was then taken aback by my reaction when I saw the cover. It’s a lovely, exquisite painting — but it fucking gave away the end of David’s and my story! I was as diplomatic as possible about the situation, but it was an irredeemable dilemma. We only had one ending, it was the whole thrust of the tale — and there it was in full color, our whole poker hand, on the cover. I wasn’t happy, but Cat didn’t see the problem. She just didn’t get it — you don’t tip the twist ending of your lead story on the goddamned cover of a comic!
As I say, Cat didn’t grasp the most primal basics of the genre, much less horror comics. It drove me nuts; I drove her nuts.
John Bolton’s striking cover painting to Tales of Terror #12; artwork © 1987, 2008 John Bolton.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Enough about me and my work; we’re here to talk about The Gurch.
What’s important here is tucked away in the penultimate issue of Eclipse’s Tales of Terror (#12, May 1987) –
– one of those minor but historic surprises that just don’t pop up in the data bases. Who can bother with listing who wrote the letters of comment in every comicbook ever published?
This is the comic book that features Gurchain Singh’s first published work — a lengthy letter, and samples of Gurch’s earliest published artwork (four pieces, in all). Gore Shriek and Gurch fans, take note!
This letter provides the only substantial biographical information on Singh, and provides considerable insight into his hopes, dreams and aspirations, which are completely in accord with his work at FantaCo soon afterwards.Already referring to himself as “The Gurch” (his name is spelled ‘Gurchain Singly’), the address listed is in Scunthorpe, South Humberside in England. “Now I think I should explain a little about myself,” Gurchain begins after complimenting the Eclipse editors for the comics stories in ToT, “which are superb”. His favorite creator, he notes, is Bruce Jones.
“I am 20 years of age [in 1986-87], have Asian parents and have lived in a small British town all my life. (The nearest place to get Tales of Terror is 29 miles away!) I have 8 0 Level, 1 A Level and two course passes. Ever since I can remember I’ve been into drawing and horror.” Mayhaps one of our British readers could explain the ‘Level’ references here?
Gurchain’s next sentence is self-explanatory, given its context: “After leaving school, I did a General Education through art & design, where I got a Distinction pass, the only one ever awarded at that college! I failed to get into a degree course, so I went into a business of my own. Now I own my own Off-License beer, spirits, etc. and grocers store with video tapes (plenty of horrors), and that’s after only 1 year, so things have turned out well for me.”
So, at the time he was first reaching out to the American comicbook industry, Gurchain was a self-employed grocer, who smack-dab amidst the notorious ‘Video Nasties’ scare in the UK still proudly stocked horror videos for his customers to rent — Gurch was certainly my kind of guy! (Note that I grew up working in my father’s grocery store from age 6 to 22; I chose to pursue a career in cartooning rather than inherit and take over the family store in Colbyville, VT.)
“I have also been into comics all my life. Horror comics hold a special interest,” he continues. “So my New Years Resolution was to get as many pieces of my work as possible published anywhere — but hopefully to be able to work in a comic, and what could be better than a horror comic. I have plenty of spare time on my hands now and the shop runs by itself. When I’m not drawing I’m dreaming about drawing and have all sorts of ‘crazy’ ideas swimming about in my head for stories and paintings. In my college days I tried my hand at comics strips and found great satisfaction, drawing ‘Ohhhhs!’ and ‘ARRRRRs’ from admirers. ‘You should get your work printed,’ they told me, and as there is no real outlet for this style in Britain, I have written to you.”
This begs the question: was any of Gurch’s early work published in any of the UK comics fanzines that proliferated in the ’80s? My sampling of British fanzines date from earlier in the decade — the early to mid ’80s, primarily purchases and/or acquired during my early years on Saga of the Swamp Thing and two trips to the UK during that period. There’s no Gurch in any of the zines I have laid hands or eyes on.
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The Shape of Things to Come: Flash forward from 1987 to 1992, the splash page to the first story in the all-Gurch FantaCo extravaganza Tales of Screaming Horror; art and story © 1992, 2008 Gurchain Singh.
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Continuing with Gurch’s letter: He then asks a series of questions that quite candidly reveal the artist’s situation.
“On the subject of comic art, there are one or two things I need to know which I hope you will help me out with.
1. Are frames drawn as seen or can they be drawn separately and assembled later?
2. Is lettering done by machine?
3. Are speech bubbles and captions added on after?
4. What page size should I work at?
I HOPE you like my work as my ambition is to appear in your pages.”
Alas, Eclipse didn’t find Gurch’s samples that inspiring — though I hasten to add, Associate Editor Sean Deming showcased Gurch’s letter (it’s the only one in this issue’s letters pages) and art quite handsomely, and provided a refreshingly open, expansive, caring and encouraging reply, answering every one of Gurch’s questions in considerable detail.
Gurch’s letter is at times painfully revealing: “I would like to do my first few stories for you FREE! I hope that makes your mind up for you. How much does one get PAID for a story, anyway? If I do get paid it would help ‘buy time’ and materials for my obsessive hobby. Any criticisms of my work would also be deeply appreciated.”
In this, one hears the voice of almost every serious aspiring cartoonist: barely mediated desire, the purity and passion to see his work in print expressed without shame. More revealing, though, are the subsequent paragraphs:
“I have enclosed a small selection of my work, to give you some idea of my tastes and styles.” It must be said that even in the quartet of panels published with Gurch’s letter, his work has more atmosphere, energy and impact than many of the artists Eclipse had already published in the pages of Tales of Terror. Gurch was clearly a natural, with an in-his-bones affinity for the genre comparable to Graham Ingles, Berni Wrightson, or Tim Boxell (in fact, Gurch’s work here is sharper than the earliest Wrightson work published in the fan page of either Creepy or Eerie or Wrightsons’ Castle of Frankenstein story — but Gurch was, at age 20, a bit older than the young Wrightson of those first published showcases). His work positively throbs with it.
“As you can see I’m really into the ZOMBIE, an interest which ranges back a year and a half. The selection is taken from my many sketchpads, which contain other themes as well: aliens, gangs, etc., but no superheroes!” Again — my kind of cartoonist! Nor was Gurch above elbowing Eclipse (again, for love of the genre): “I have plenty more ideas with lots of zombies, which I feel are slightly lacking in your mag.” Indeed they were!
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Chas Balun’s Deep Red horror movie zine provided the first FantaCo showcase for Gurch’s work; more on that next installment.
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Gurch was craving editorial guidance and feedback, and candid about his relative writing skills. “All my work is done just for the fun of it and I enjoy it greatly. Also included are two story roughs, ‘Nothing on Telly’ and ‘Frankenstein’s Early Days,’ which I hope are to your tastes and are worthy to appear in print. The storylines and art are rough and, if you could, I would like them to be written more clearly by someone else, as I feel my writing lets me down sometimes. If you would like to modify or rewrite them please feel free…. I hope you do take up my offer as I would very much like to work for you and I’m sure we will both benefit. The people who have seen my work feel it to be of very good quality. I hope this isn’t lost in the photocopies which I have picked for you. I eagerly await your reply as this is one of my alltime best wishes.”
So, there you have it; The Gurch, laying it all down and playing his hand in 1986-87.
Eclipse helpfully published Gurchain’s full address. Though Sean at Eclipse was encouraging, Gurch never appeared in Tales; the title folded with its very next issue (#13). Sales were down, which I would argue was due primarily to Cat and Dean having nothing but contempt for the genre, though they were already milking the Clive Barker Express for all it was worth (accelerated by their rather absorption and rather shoddy treatment of an enthusiastic and well-connected young writer/editor/packager by the name of Steve Niles — but that’s another story, which we’ll also get into a bit in this FantaCo saga).
“Your artwork is very bold and emotive,” Sean replied in print, “Though I can’t use your work — yet, Gurch — I can promise you that if/when I can, you will be paid a proper amount… Amounts vary, but if you pencil and ink one page a day, you would make about as much as the man who installed the phones in Eclipse’s new offices.”
Yowza! That must have lit a little fire under many youthful cartoonists’ wee bottoms, eh?
I must note, here, that apparently no editors or publishers picked up on the opportunity provided here. Yours truly must be included in that slumbering company; John Totleben and I were working on Taboo, and a letter to Gurch would have been appropriate, but truth to tell we were looking to steer clear of the traditional trappings of Frankenstein stories and zombies.
Thankfully, an attentive fellow Tales of Terror reader named Marshall Crist was paying attention. In fact, it was Marshall himself who alerted me to this long-forgotten debut appearance of The Gurch in the American comics scene
when I posted the link to my initial Myrant posts on Gore Shriek on the Classic Horror Film Board; scroll down to Marshall’s June 17th post.
Marshall is the man who brought The Gurch to the attention of the right person — Chas Balun — at the right time.
With Marshall’s permission, I’ll quote his own account of the key role he played at this point in The Gurch — and FantaCo’s — future:
“I noticed Gurch’s England address and wrote him a letter to encourage him with his art and BTW, did he happen to have access to a VHS copy of Lemora, which I was obsessed with and which was unavailable in the US. He wrote back and asked if I could suggest anyone to whom he could submit his work. (Included was a gory Christmas card he’d done.) I referred him to Chas. Balun, who by then I believe I’d traded a few tapes.
And the rest is history.”
[Note: Richard Blackburn’s sleeper Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural (1973) is now on DVD, but was long a hard-to-find, almost impossible-to-see ‘holy grail’ movie for vampire and horror film buffs.]
So there you have it — we owe it all to Marshall, and God Bless you for that, Marshall!
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John Watkiss had a bold, splashy pen, brush and ink style as he came out of the starting gate, though his work was raw and still crude at times. We all start somewhere; cover art for Kiss of Death #1 (1987), © 1987, 2008 John Watkiss
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So — 1987. Let’s put this all into context, pre-Gore Shriek.
Gurch’s letter to Eclipse was published at the same period a bold fellow Brit named John Watkiss was beginning to make a splash with his own pen, brush and ink comics and illustration work. I first saw John’s artwork during my second trip to the UK; Alan Moore brought it to my attention, and I met John briefly at UKAK. He was rather full of himself (as well he should have been), as I recall, but I was instantly captured by his art, which I saw as photocopies, then in his first published solo comic. Watkiss’s work initially reached America via the import of British publisher Acme Press Ltd.’s anthologies of Watkiss’s work, Kiss of Death #1 and 2 (1987) and Last Kiss (1988). John went on to bigger and better things in short order, and I do mean bigger and by all means better:
now living in California, John maintains a blog and website which provides a snapshot of how far he’s come (which I highly recommend you pay a visit — like, now).
Now, I’m not being unfair in bringing John Watkiss into the discussion: in fact, the inside back cover of Tales of Terror #12 (with Gurch’s letter and art) features an Acme Press ad for Watkiss’s Kiss of Death comics: “Introducing John Watkiss: The Art of Darkness.” Dave McKean was also an immediate contemporary, but in terms of where they all were at artistically in ‘86-’87, I see a greater affinity between Watkiss and Gurch at this stage. In terms of raw facility with pen, brush and ink, their energy, and the imagery they toyed with, Gurch and John were at similar junctures. Their differences were already apparent, however. Where Gurch was attuned to the genre sans pretensions, Watkiss was very much the artist (as in ar-teest): his comics aspired to being weighty philosophical explorations, closer in nature to the work of Jeff Jones or Kenneth Smith (to give two examples off the top of my head) than the blatant gorehound enthusiasm of Gurch’s work, which was much in the “Do You Wanna Party?” vein of Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Dead.
Mind you, I’m not positing one orientation as being superior or inferior to the other — I’m just trying to characterize their work at this fleeting point in the already diverging paths of two very talented and ambitious horror-loving British pen-and-ink cartoonists circa 1986-87.
A later John Watkiss comic image: 2005 cover art for Deadman #1, scripted by Twisted Tales and Tales of Terror’s Bruce Jones — a favorite of writer to ToT reader Gurch — © 2005 Vertigo/DC Comics, Inc.
Watkiss was upper class; he heralded from the Midlands and whose education encompassed graduating from Brighton University with a bachelor of Fine Arts degree, and John went on to teach anatomy and fine art at the Royal College of Art, Ballet Stage and Fashion Design, the Museum of the Moving Image in London, and Steven Spielberg’s Amblimation studio. He has authored and illustrated a series of anatomy books for artists. En route, he also worked his way via the 1980s-90s wave of British talent sweeping the comics industry to drawing and painting for American mainstream comics (e.g., Sandman, Sandman Mystery Theatre, Deadman, Batman, etc.) while nurturing a career in cinema that is positively mind-boggling. How many talents can boast having worked with/for Derek Jarmon, Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola (Pinocchio) and Disney Studios (Tarzan, 1999)? Watkiss has also flourished as a fine artist; kudos to the man, his resume is simply staggering.
Gurch, however, was a grocer with a deep love of drawing who aspired “only” to draw a better zombie comic.
Vincent Locke’s cover painting for Deadworld #1; art © 1986, 2008 Vincent Locke.
Now, I’m not noting this to in any way place John Watkiss on a pedestal and/or ‘put down’ The Gurch. Far from it! The fact is, they were immediate contemporaries in the late 1980s, emerging from the same country, aiming to make their marks in the world with their art. Much as anyone considering my own body of work would rightfully do so in the context of my respective contemporaries — from those who rose and fell to those who soldier on to those who have risen to far greater heights than I ever have or likely will (e.g., Frank Miller, Bill Sienkiewicz, Rick Veitch, etc.) — I’m only trying to position Gurch historically in his time and place, to ascertain what he was shooting for, what he was up against, and all that he did accomplish — which, however modest, is more than many other of his contemporaries managed or were fortunate enough to accomplish.
Who else walked a similar path to the Gurch? Though Gurch and Watkiss were both British, a much closer kindred soul among Gurch’s immediate contemporaries was arguably the young American pen-and-ink genre cartoonist Vincent Locke. Both emerged from blue-collar backgrounds, and drew for the love of it without much formal art education. Though I’d argue that back in 1986-87 Gurch had a slight edge on Locke (as a stylist and in terms of his facility with pen and ink), Locke had the upper hand: he had his own comicbook, and he soon matured and developed into a major talent. Locke’s ‘zombie comics jones’ yielded Deadworld (originally published by Arrow/Caliber, 1986-93). The early issues were crude indeed: Locke was working against tight deadlines with precious little (if any) income from the early issues, fueled by adrenalin and enthusiasm. In the first few issues, one would find effectively conceived and executed sequences, panels and/or pages standing out alongside scratchy, rough-and-ready, almost unfinished imagery, lurching in a crazyquilt of polish vs. primal ‘just get it done‘ fits and spasms. Locke soon paced himself with greater assurance; in this regard, Gurch’s earliest work for FantaCo was far more confident and cohesive.
Still, Watkiss and Locke had what Gurch did not: publishers (however meager the pay or distribution) providing a venue for their developing work. This makes all the difference in the world to an aspiring young cartoonist, and in 1987 — as Watkiss was cutting his teeth with solo anthologies with a philosophical bent, and Locke was sinking his into the fetid flesh of the pioneer walking dead comic of the ’80s — Gurch was laboring in complete obscurity, humbly writing to his favorite American horror comics publisher about the nuts and bolts of how to draw comics.
Gurch ‘just’ wanted to draw the best horror comics he possibly could — and that’s an honorable thing, if I may say so myself (being another cartoonist who ached for the same thing a decade or so earlier, and was lucky enough to do so, to the best of my own abilities).
A couple of years later, for a brief time, Gurch found his venue at last with the giant blonde guitar-picking gore-lovin’ Viking of a man in California who edited Deep Red for the little-publisher-that-could in Albany, NY.
[To be continued…]
The Advanced Reader Copies of Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman by Hank Wagner, Christopher Golden and yours truly went out this week from St. Martin’s Press.
Speaking of Nine Panel Nerds, I was amused to see this Marvel Comics G.I. Joe comicbook cover on Dave K’s Nine Panel Nerds site — as I just priced this puppy for sale in my booth (Dealer #653) in
