10 YEARS OF THE BF SIX TO WATCH! Event organiser, collective member, writer and artist… Tom Philipson is a man of many roles within the UK indie comics world. He’s also one of this year’s Broken Frontier ‘Six Creators to Watch’ and today, in the first of our spotlight interviews with the 2024 Six, he gets to tell us all about the many facets to his comics CV. From his inventive take on mental health awareness in his acclaimed autobiographical one-shot Complicated Young Man to contributing to Image Comics’ Radiant Black series Tom is a versatile new creative voice on the scene. We chat with him about collaboration, activism and opportunities from chance encounters below…
ANDY OLIVER: Here’s your chance to put yourself in the spotlight, Tom with our opening question for all this year’s ‘Six to Watch’ artists. Please tell us about your wider artistic background and introduce yourself to our readers.
TOM PHILIPSON: Hey, Andy! Okay, the basics: My name’s Tom Philipson, I’m 24 years old, I’m from Newcastle upon Tyne, I’m a writer/artist, and I love pina coladas and long walks on the beach.
I studied Game Design at Gateshead College, then Comics and Graphic Novels at Teesside University. I dropped out in my second year during COVID, and I’ve been working in various stockrooms and warehouses while drawing my little comics. In July of 2023, I quit my last warehouse job (so far). Since then, I’ve been clawing my way into the industry by hook or by crook, which means I’ve been working on and off as an inker, letterer, colourist, penciller, and writer.
I’m a bit like the comic book equivalent of a gun for hire, if my gun was a Huion Kamvas GT-191 Drawing Tablet (Trademark (not a paid sponsorship (But I’m open to it))).
AO: Before we start talking about your own comics practice I want to chat a little about your work as part of the CoCo Comics collective. What are the ethos and aims of CoCo Comics? What have you learnt from co-organising CoCo Comics Con and how important do you feel grassroots events are to the UK comics community?
PHILIPSON: Well, a little backstory on CoCo…
Originally, before it even had a name, I wasn’t a part of CoCo Comics. It was actually the brainchild of my friend and frequent collaborator James Patricks, who I met at Teesside University. He was a few years above me at Uni, and he was the boss hog of the Comics Society at Teesside. He’s always had an entrepreneurial spirit. He turned the society from what was essentially a comic book reading club into a small press collective in its own right, using funding from the University to finance print runs of themed anthologies featuring work from members of the society, then taking that work and selling it at conventions like LICAF and Thought Bubble. It was actually as part of this society that I had my first experience tabling at a comic con – at Thought Bubble 2019.
I know this sounds intense, but I think that experience changed my life. Before TBubs 2019, I was studying Game Design and was hoping to go into that industry, even though I was making my own comics on the side. Seeing how vibrant and alive the comic making scene was in the UK awoke a love for that community. I met Dave Gibbons!
The day after I got back from Harrogate, I put in a request to switch from Game Design to the Comics and Graphic Novels course.
After that, there was a programme at Teesside University called “FUEL”, in which the University would invite pitches from graduates for business ventures. If they liked your pitch, you had the chance to secure a small grant to fund the first few years of production for your business. James and I, as well as two other Comics Course Graduates – Theo Pickering and Caio Whitmore, pitched the concept of CoCo Comics (although I can’t take credit for starting the collective, the name was my idea!). That’s how we got the money to kickstart CoCo initially. We secured enough money to fund the printing of the first three issues of The CoCo Comics Anthology, as well as to pay guest artists to do some stories for us, and to pay for table space at cons – including everyone’s favourite, Thought Bubble!
The aims of CoCo have always been to be a platform for artists we love, and to bring a sense of community to the comics scene. That was the goal with the anthologies, and it naturally extended into the conventions. There’s nothing I love more than letting creatives know they’re safe and taken care of.
At every CoCo Con, I try to take five to ten minutes away from the table to just stand outside the hall to just listen to the noise of the event. Hearing people doing their pitches, talking about their work, or just laughing with new friends, I feel like that’s what CoCo has always been about for me, even if I didn’t know it when we started. That sense of belonging can really heal you.
AO: From your own comics work to date it’s arguably your tour-de-force one-shot Complicated Young Man that will be the standout for many readers. What was the thinking behind exploring your own mental health issues via a multitude of recognisable comics styles and pop cultural references?
PHILIPSON: Well, first of all, I want to say thank you for all the support you and the whole Broken Frontier community has shown me and Complicated Young Man. It’s been extremely rewarding to see how much people connected to that book.
I mention it in Complicated, but in late 2022, I was really struggling with my art. For the better part of three years, I’d thought I had what it takes to do comics as a career, but it just felt like I was kidding myself. I had no sense of direction, I wasn’t connecting to my own work, and if the creator can’t connect to their work, how can they expect anyone else to? It didn’t help that I’d just broken up with my girlfriend at the time after about three years together, so there were a lot of feelings going around in my head that I was rapidly losing control of, losing that sense of self and all that.
The second page of Complicated – the one where I tear my own face off, I drew that a few hours after one of my first post-breakup dates. Honestly, the date went fine, but I felt terrible. I wasn’t emotionally ready to go back to dating so soon, and I hadn’t drawn in months. I just had no idea who I was anymore, really. I very rarely drew myself, but something in me thought it might be a way to reconcile the disconnect I was feeling. I drew it solely for me, and I never expected to post it, because it was so far removed from the more bubbly or “safe” art I usually make, but I showed some of my close friends and they were all so supportive, so I thought, “why not?”. It was probably the best decision I’ve made for myself and my art in a long time.
After the reaction to the first page, and the feeling of release it gave me, I thought I’d try my best to use the format of the comic page as a diary, essentially. I wanted to express how I was feeling at the time in a way that felt valuable to me. Sometimes I’d use the words, sometimes I’d use a shifting art style, sometimes I’d combine the two. That’s what comics are all about, right?
AO: Was there any sense of vulnerability about examining those themes on the page? Conversely was there a feeling of catharsis about it? What have reader reactions been like to Complicated Young Man?
PHILIPSON: After posting that first page, I told one of my friends, “I feel like I’ve just posted a nude online”, it was very uncomfortable for me, very much new ground. You have to understand, before Complicated, I was doing an action/comedy webcomic about a vampire, I don’t think anyone expected this from me – I don’t think I was expecting this from me.
I couldn’t have predicted the reaction. I thought people would look at me differently – and they did, but not in a bad way. I like being funny. I like using my art to make people laugh. But I think people realised that I had the ability to express other, less comfortable emotions maturely, too, that I wasn’t a one trick pony. It felt very cathartic to confirm to myself that I had that ability in me, and for people to connect with it.
I’m not a particularly spiritual person, but I truly believe that the emotions you’re feeling while creating will be embedded into your work on some ethereal level. It just happens.
AO: Can you give us a quick overview of the kind of genres and projects you worked with in your pre-Complicated Young Man comics?
PHILIPSON: Well, before Complicated, I was working on StrangeWorld (above), a series published through the CoCo Comics’ Anthologies.
It was an action/comedy series starring Axel Bloodhenge, an eighteen-year-old vampire, and a man named Floyd, a burger-flipper from Los Angeles with weird superpowers. I loved that book so much, and I still do. It was sort of a melting pot of everything teenage me thought was cool – I wanted to make the book that, if I walked into a comic store at sixteen and saw it on the shelf, I’d think, “This is the perfect comic”.
The problem with the book, and it always has been, is that it really doesn’t have a genre. It’s not quite superhero, it’s not quite fantasy, or sci-fi, or anything, I really don’t know what it is. It’s weird…Strange, even (har har), but I love it. It taught me a lot about character writing. I’m still really, really proud of some of the jokes and conversations in that book. I love those characters. The first three issues are collected on my BigCartel store (self-plug).
I think it’s neat!
AO: The Stranger (above and below), your collaboration with James Patricks and Devlin Baker, was successfully crowdfunded earlier this year. What’s the premise of the book and what differentiates it in that ever crowded super-hero market?
PHILIPSON: Yess, The Stranger! Oh man, what a book. I love it.
I was hanging out with James, and I had this idea that was basically, “We always see the alter-ego aspect of a superhero story from the hero’s perspective, wouldn’t it be cool if we saw it from the perspective of someone who DIDN’T know the secret identity?” and James said, “…Are you gonna write that?” and I said, “Probably not.” and he said, “Can I buy that idea from you?” and I said, “No.”, and he said, “Can we write it together?” and I said, “Yeah, okay, but I get top billing.”
The first draft of the script came together really, really quickly. Me and James would hang out and kick together various ideas of how to write this “Saviour-Mystery”. Every now and then one of us would go “Oh! Wouldn’t it be cool if (MASSIVE SPOILER FOR THE BOOK) happened?”, and then the other would go, “Oh man, that’s perfect, we need to put that in!”.
James is really good at keeping the story on track, and I think I’m good at injecting fun concepts or character beats into the script to keep it feeling exciting the whole way through. I think we work together really well. We’re the comic book writing equivalent of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, to put it in 1990s basketball terms.
We found Devlin through Twitter’s superhero art community. He was posting these amazing drawings of the Hulk and other Marvel/DC characters. His style is perfect for the book, it really wouldn’t be the same without him. He’s quickly become a great friend, too. I’m used to either drawing my own scripts or working from other writer’s scripts, so writing something for someone else has been really rewarding in a different way than I’m used to.
AO: Huge news from you earlier this year was that you would be providing some back-up stories in Image’s popular Radiant Black series. What’s the story behind the story there?
PHILIPSON: Oh man, that’s a nuts story, honestly.
In March of 2023, James and I, along with a rag-tag group of our friends from around the globe, met in Los Angeles for nine days of… reckless behaviour. We were staying in a hostel. Our friends were in one room, then James and I were in a room with, like, nine strangers. It was intense, but I loved it.
On the second last day, mostly everyone else had gone home, so James and I decided to go to a comic store: Golden Apple Comics. While we were there, Eisner Nominated writer Kyle Higgins, the writer of Radiant Black, just happened to walk in. Just like that. I’d interviewed his editor for a podcast the year prior, so James, ever the businessman, cornered me and Kyle and said, “My friend knows your editor!”. I said hi, and Kyle said, “Oh, I know you, you’re ‘Tom Talks To’, right?”. That was the name of the podcast. I was stunned. Man.
We got talking, and Kyle gave us his business card, and we gave him our CoCo Comics business card (never leave home without it). Being recognised thousands of miles away from home was very surreal.
Remember when I went to LA? about that…
Can't believe I'm saying this, but yes, @JPatricks__, @fancygoblin_ and I will soon be ✨ IMAGE COMICS PUBLISHED CREATORS ✨ through @KyleDHiggins RADIANT BLACK Backups!
DEFINITELY telling the story of how this came to be next stream! https://t.co/Itzrzaf4I8 pic.twitter.com/Bd8wtdk1hS
— Tom Philipson (@PhilipsonThomas) February 13, 2024
How Tom announced the Radiant Black news on Twitter!
The day after, Kyle emailed us and asked if we’d like to meet him for a chat at a bar in West Hollywood. Of course, we said yes, and headed there later in the day. We talked and drank together until 10pm, where James and I had to drag ourselves back to the hostel so we didn’t miss our 5am flight the next day. Just before leaving, James said, “If you ever need someone to write backups for you, you know the guys to call!”. We laughed, and Kyle said “Sure! Just send me a pitch!” and drove home. We genuinely just looked at each other dumbfounded for a few seconds before we both started laughing. That’s LA, baby.
We both wrote scripts – I wrote one, James wrote one. I drew those two. Then we wrote one together, which was drawn by our boy Devlin! Kyle responded a month later, saying he wanted to buy the scripts and pay for artwork. I was at work when I got the email. I’m sure there’s security footage of me somewhere, just cheering and laughing to myself in that little warehouse stockroom. I phoned James up, who was on holiday with his girlfriend, and said “Kyle bought the scripts!”. I heard him and his girlfriend laugh and cheer over the phone. I’ll never forget that. Kyle, if you’re reading this, I love you!!
AO: Given that much of your work is rooted in a clear love of genre fiction comics, what would be your dream project if you could tackle just one established iconic comics character?
PHILIPSON: Oh man, I LOVE superheroes. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, considering how my biggest book so far has been a melancholy meditation of mental health and self-image, but c’mon, who WOULDN’T wanna draw Wolverine?
I love Wolverine, I love Deadpool, Batman, the X-Men, all of them, truly, I love them, but my white whale is, and always has been: Spider-Man. I love that guy. If I ever get my grubby northern mitts on that billion-dollar character in any capacity, I think I’ll be able to die happy. I’ll write one Spider-Man story then just walk off into the sunset and retire on a horse farm somewhere like Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. My job will be done after that, I’d have peaked.
AO: So let’s talk about artistic process. What mediums do you work in?
PHILIPSON: Most, if not all of my finished artwork, is done digitally. It’s a bit embarrassing, because I really struggle to do anything traditional. I’ve actually spent a lot of this year getting really into traditional pencils and inks. I want to build up a better understanding of the traditional medium, because I’m so reliant on digital trickery.
That being said, I do think I’m pretty adept with digital stuff now, more than the average bear. I know how to make stuff look aged, or like it really is paper. It helps me mimic styles that are traditionally…well, traditional.
Other than that, my process is pretty standard. I do my basic layouts, then a sketch, then inks, colours, etc. Though I do like to fiddle around with overlays and post-production to really nail down whatever style I’m going for. If I ever do a full comic traditionally, I feel like that’d be a huge achievement for me – then I could sell the original pages! That’s something Traditional artists have over digital fellas like myself. I can’t sell the Clip Studio Paint files, can I? I’m not an NFT guy, obviously.
AO: Finally, what next for Tom Philipson? Are there any upcoming projects we haven’t spoken about? Where can people see you at events this year?
PHILIPSON: I’ve found that, the more I speak about projects I’m working on, the less likely they are to come out! So, for now, I’m holding my cards close to my chest. However, I do have a page in Louis Southard’s Comics are Dying: The Comic, which is a huge book about the history of American comic book publishing, with each page being a different year, drawn by a different artist. That was a really fun project.
I’m also just finishing up work as a colourist on an unannounced graphic novel, drawn by another Broken Frontier darling artist – but I don’t think I’m allowed to say too much. I dunno, I didn’t sign anything saying I couldn’t, but I don’t want to get blacklisted right as I’m actually starting my career.
Other than that, I have a bunch of cool covers and prints coming up for other people’s comic projects that haven’t been announced, so I’ll be around!
I’m also going to be at Thought Bubble this year, so if you’re about, keep an eye out for me there, come say hi! I love yapping.
Visit Tom Philipson’s online store here
Interview by Andy Oliver
Lovely stuff