THEY CALL HER TRINITY

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A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy…

October 2020.

Covid pandemic in full flow, the locked down creative communities crumbling in isolated pockets dotted around the world began to look outward for shared support, and an unexpected network was born.

Many communities/groups/friendships sprang up from the global devastation left in the wake of Covid 19.

One such, within the small press comic community, was Sentinel.

I was made aware of Sentinel and its founders Ed Doyle and Alan Holloway, through a mention from my mate Morgan Gleave, who was at that time working on the interior art of Bad Kitty, issue 6 of the ongoing digest comic, and subsequently I ended up producing the art for the alternative cover of that issue.

In November, after completing the cover, Alan asked if I would be interested in taking on art duties for an as yet undecided future issue of Sentinel, and after seeing a selection of previous issues I tentatively agreed.

At the time I was still working a full time shift job and trying to push my own ideas into physical form, one of them, one of which, Prodigal seeing publication in The 77, another group nurtured by the Covid lockdown.

Now one thing about amateur creatives in full time employment – we underestimate workload – and as such the speedy completion of a 64 page digest book was a non starter from the very beginning… however!

Al and I began a short period of picking a tale for the issue.

Nothing came to the fore from the projects he had in his bag of tricks, so we ploughed through interests and inspirations, funnelling the conversations down to a mutual appreciation of Westerns and Sci-Fi with a quirky edge.

I had recently created book covers for a Wolfpack publishing series called Black Rose and written a short story for Piccadilly Publishing’s magazine, Head West, so the western heroine theme was strong and Al duly set off to create a script in the Strontium Dog/Spaghetti Western vein.

And on the 26^th November the first scripted pages arrived in my message box.

By December 2020 the script was finalised and I began to create the look and feel of Trinity and her world.

A little known comic called Dusty Star by Andrew Robinson was an influence, Keoma and The Great Silence, two of the finest ‘offbeat’ spaghetti western were thrown in the mix. The crazy Japanese western, Sukiyaki Western Django rolled in at some point; and pieces of my own Barbary Dove make Trinity as much homage to my love of westerns as to the subconsciously ever present, Strontium Dog.

By January 2021 the visual world was built, and the first few pages had gone from roughs to virtually what appears in the final book.

Then, by the end of January, the full weight of attempting to complete a 64 page project for others, while trying to progress my own work, and hold down a full time job got the best of me, and mentally not in a good place I had to back out of Trinity.

As a warning to other artists (and it is artists who are in short supply), be realistic about what you can actually take on and complete at a moment in time. Be brutally honest with yourself and others about expectations – both theirs and yours. Because I came a hairs breadth away from giving up on comics and art altogether. I had a massive self confidence collapse in my abilities to even draw a straight line. In consequence I actually progressed nothing at all, and in reality I was simply being blinded, by the overwhelming nature of – lack of time.

And so between January 2021 and August 2023 the millstone ground to a halt.

But art in all its forms is clearly my ‘happy place’; and I embarked (unconsciously I think) on an initially fallow creative period, where the total destruction of my belief in my creative self had to be slowly rebuilt gradually and on my own terms.

Thankfully Alan and Ed were very supportive during the time and I was mildly happy when they eventually found a replacement artist for Trinity.

The years rolled on.

I worked full time and made tiny steps in returning to my illustration.

David Lloyd ran more of my work in Aces Weekly, I was stung (yet again!!) by grifters looking for an easy touch in the art department – and began publishing my own mini books again.

Dark Pastoral and In The Hand were followed by Graffittifish, and slowly the confidence returned, my art improved and I edged ever nearer to retirement age!

Then, sometime in August 2023, I began to experience unprompted naggings in my mind from a wee voice; familiar yet somehow not. The voice grew and grew insistently, until I recognised it finally – Trinity was a-calling!

Being so invested in her creation and having abandoned her, years previously I was still very attached to her and after taking on some small projects for other small pressers (Radclyffe for Peter Duncan’s 1900) and then finally retiring in April 2024, I quizzed Alan in the following June as to the progress on Trinity.

It appeared that for reasons similar to my own, the new artist had also struggled with releasing enough time to do Trinity justice, and on the 21st June 2024 I once again took her under my wing.

With the free time afforded by retirement the return of Trinity to the roost was actually a relief. I had long wanted to try a digest format book, much of the design work had been done, and in returning to the part-planned pages I hit the ground running, so to speak!

So from June 2024 until June 2025, Trinity has been the main focus (with a break at the halfway point) of a couple of projects that had been long promised, and a couple of new ones that I finally felt I could begin to take on.

Most of these seem, by coincidence, to have come to fruition at the same time!

Graffittifish Archives Volume 1 – The Aces Weekly strips is available now from my online shop, a short, First World War horror tale for Dave Metcalfe’s, SHRIEEEK! Issue 4 is already available; eight pages of graphic poetry adaptations coming shortly for Peter Duncan’s, Faces of War and a long wished for dream project, The Jigsaw Review will be available early July.

Once Jigsaw is in the bag I’m moving on to my own, Navarro Spar and the continuation of Prodigal!

So it’s been a long road to get Trinity where she needed to be.

I’ve learned a lot along the way, about comics, about what art means to me, about the value of understanding my limitations and about not throwing pieces of myself away as easily as I have done in the past.

And about just how much I love the digest format!

If you’re tempted to give Trinity a try I’d be interested in what you think!