Feature:
Drawing Drag with David

David Shenton’s comic Get Her is a hyper-fictionalised serialised drag psychodrama in 10 Chapters…more or less.

By Krathyn White.

Get Her is the wonderfully sick and twisted creation of UK comic and illustrator David Shenton, a creation that’s evolved over the past decade to exist in its current online form, with new instalments uploaded each Wednesday.

Taking the form of a toned-down American-style romance comic set in the North West of England with a deranged cast numbering close to 15, Get Her’s transition from creator’s head to world wide web started, as many things often do, by publishers seeking David’s talents for a new media adventure.

“A new paper called BOYZ was about to start and I was asked to contribute, explains David. “The tone of the paper was lighter than anything else at the time, and the publishers wanted a comic soap.”

Up to this point, the nature and tone of David’s gay comics was overtly political – enter nom de plume number one.

“The first name I chose was Emma Dale – there’s a very popular afternoon soap here on UK TV set in the Yorkshire Dales called Emmerdale, but BOYZ didn’t like it. The other really popular soap on TV at the time was Twin Peaks.”

With Tim Peaks locked in as preferred pseudonym, David set to work giving life to the characters inhabiting the Get Her world, creating an initial set of drawings as Tim Peaks which were re-worked into the narrative wonder that exists today.

Enter nom de plume number two: Jules et Andrew. Thickening the plot somewhat are the fictional masterminds behind Get Her’s publisher, DS Comics – a fictional pair David created as a bit of Julie Andrews camp and to make his “DS Comics empire seem massive…well a tiny bit more massive anyway.” Log onto the DS Comics website, and you’ll be hard pressed to find any mention of David Shenton.

In addition to weekly instalments online, David is planning to publish a comic novel version of Get Her sometime in early 2008: “The plot is built like a traditional story, like a novel with a beginning, middle and an end. Hopefully DS Comics will have something else in the pipeline by then.”

David counts four forays into the world of comics. “Stanley & The Mask of Mystery is a comic novel about a clone, his mum, the leather scene and Star Wars. It’s quite a collector’s item on eBay now apparently,” says David.

“Salome is the comic book version of Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name, which turned out extremely well and was much lauded in the USA when it was released. The other two are strip collections. Phobia Phobia was first and covers the AIDS/Section28/Thatcher years, followed by Bananas Are Not The Only Fruit, which is the stuff collected from Capital Gay – a paper I contributed to for years on end.”

Cause comics don’t pay the bills, David “has to work too”, which comes in the form of illustrations for mainstream magazines, journals, newspapers and book publishers. “I have very few principles and draw whatever anybody asks me too because, like most people, I have to pay the rent, so anybody want anything drawn…”

But ultimate illustrative appeal for David lies in creating comics. “Comics encompass the screenplay, the set design, the costumes, the direction, the acting – it’s the whole movie,” he explains.

“Sometimes it’s the shortest of short stories, such as a single frame cartoon, to a mere incident told using the classic four-frame strip to something as gigantic and fantastic as Spiderman or as harrowing as Maus.

Get Her can be seen at dscomics.co.uk and subscribed for free (yes that’s right, free).

For more of David Shenton’s work visit davidshenton.com