John Riordan is an illustrator and comic artist living in London. He draws and co-writes
the comic Hitsville UK about the wastrels and weirdos of a fictional record company -
John explains he’s not taking a pop at the music industry in his comic, despite its tag line: “There's so much material to be found in the world of pop music, both in the musicians and the diehard obsessives who hunt out new tunes and haunt gigs. The characters in Hitsville UK aren't based on particular people but there are definitely certain types we wanted to get in there, whether they are country and western troubadours or electro-punk girl groups.
“I have fond memories of Deadline magazine, the birthplace of Tankgirl in the 90s and the way it combined weird comics and a love of the pre-Britpop indie scene.
“The title comes from a song on The Clash's underrated 'everything and the kitchen sink' triple album Sandanista!”
John, who names his muses as Jaime Hernandez, William Blake and Modern Toss, has high hopes for Hitsville: “We're going to sell the comic in our online shop and through comic shops, but we're also going to serialise it on our website. In the future we want to make downloadable versions available so that you can read it on your newfangled iThingy."
Indeed the web has made art, including comics more accessible: “It demolishes all of the geographical and financial barriers that used to stand between you and art. With some types of visual art or music it's still better to see or hear it in the flesh, but comics and illustration are designed to be mass media pop artifacts, so they work brilliantly on the screen. There's so much to be found in the depths of the web that the biggest problem is knowing where to begin.”
His aspirations for the comic don’t stop at getting eyeballs on it though: “We'd love to sell oodles of comics but more importantly we hope that people find it funny, interesting, entertaining and think that it's worth following. I think that comic fans will like it, but I hope that music lovers will find stuff in there that they recognise as well. To paraphrase the lyrics of the mighty Smiths, we hope that it says something to them about their lives!”
In this slideshow we’ve included illustrations from Hitsville UK, plus some from the comic strip William Blake, Taxi Driver, where John imagined the visionary poet chauffeuring characters from London history and legend across the capital.