"I have always loved comic books, progressing from Dandy to Marvel and DC at the age of 9 or 10. I still remember seeing my first American comics on a display in my local newsagents and being hooked from the first. I read all sorts, whatever they had in and spent most of my pocket money on comics until I was 18. Then I went to University, studying Marine Biology at Bangor, North Wales, and everything changed. There were no comics available. I was too busy enjoying being a student to bother trying to ship any in. As a result, I lost interest in comics. It wasn't until a few years after graduating that I was in Odyssey 7 in Manchester picking up my latest batch of Sci-Fi books (well something had to fill the vacuum), when I caught site of an image of Wolverine by Barry Windsor Smith for a story called Weapon X in Marvel Comics Presents.

I remember Barry from his art on Conan, which had always been a favourite, so on an impulse I searched the shelves that I have been passing without a second look for a number of years. I picked up a few copies of MCP and was hooked by the level of story telling and art. Especially the art. Was this enough however, to renew my passion for comic books ?

Well, not on its own. Looking through the shelves a few weeks later, nothing else seemed to have the same power, then I happened upon Bill Sienkiewicz's cover for the graphic novel of Elektra : Assassin. I was blown away. I bought the book and read it in one sitting. Now I was hooked, the art was incredible, moving through all media, from photo-accurate to cartoony to caricatures. I was stunned. Frank Miller's writing took me from there to Dark Knight Returns and I was back. Comics were even better than I remembered.

After several years of sampling different creators I had built up quite a list. I never stick with a title because of the characters. I follow creators. Mostly artists to be honest, but also the odd writer. I love art that is instantly recognisable and true to itself . I hate 'house-styles'. I love Mignola's Hellboy, Rucka and Lieber's Whiteout, Waid and Ross's Kingdom Come, Moore and Gibbon's Watchmen, Ellis and Cassaday's Planetary, Barry Windsor Smith's Solar, Otomo's Akira. I tend to buy anything these guys produce and am rarely disappointed.

I also like to experiment. Picking up the odd title every month on the chance that it has 'something'. Doing this I discovered Legion Lost's artist Olivier Coipel and Alpha Flight's Duncan Rouleau and Steven Seagle to name but a few. During this time I doodled, sketched, pastelled and painted. I inked, flicked and smudged. I cut and glued. Where was all of this going ?

The comic is born....

Well nowhere really, until one day my wife said (and I think she regrets it to this day), 'Why don't you do you own comic ?'. The thoughts that go through your mind at a time like this travel through the whole range, from 'You must be joking' to 'Hey, maybe I could do something'.

So I set to work. My first effort was a real ordeal. I struggled with everything, changing styles half way through, changing the type of paper I used numerous times and lettering it by hand. It was pretty lousy really, but it taught me my most valuable lesson. I couldn't write for toffees. I had to get someone else to write it if it was to have a chance. Now coincidentally a good friend of mine had written a few books, which had been sent to publishers but never accepted, and I had read and enjoyed one of his efforts. Would Larry write the story ? I asked. He was very enthusiastic and so DevaComics was born.

I had the germ of an idea for a story. This entered Larry's head, crawled around in there a bit and then came out with character and life. I set to work on the art, sometimes getting ahead of the plot, sometimes falling behind. This is real collaboration with Larry influencing some images and me influencing some of the script. The plot is the result of meetings where we discuss ideas for a while over a tape recorder.

This was all well and good, but I found it took too long to turn out an issue. The most time consuming aspect seemed to be the art. I don't know if this is normal, but for us it was a fact we could do little about without help.

Once again fate stepped in. One of the readers of MTWS, where I do my day job (as a database designer) had a friend who had always wanted to do comic art, and was actually pretty good and who happened to have been trained as an artist. I asked to see some samples and Ray Mayers entered the fray. Similarly but through a contact in the Chester comic shop, Callum Webster and Mark Brook joined the crew, and later through a Warrington stall, Angela Renshaw sent in a pinup and after a meeting also became part of Deva Comics. Now none of these people are paid, DevaComics would not make a profit if we sold every issue printed, but we were all in it for the pleasure of sitting at home thinking that someone was out there reading our work and hopefully enjoying the experience.

A year down the line and I for one am still enjoying it. It can be frustrating at times, I spend weeks Editing and chasing contributors for art with no time to do my own, I wait for printers to fit in this small job into their busy schedule, I phone shops asking them to stock the title and then follow up asking how the title was selling (suffering the highs and lows of this). Nothing has put me off. I have now sorted out a cheaper printer with help from Shane Chebsey of SmallZone, I get professional commissioned sketches for issues and the associated website, I have a distributor in America trying to sell the comic, I have been approached by a website who are looking to translate our effort into Japanese, Spanish and French, and I have met a lot of people with the same enthusiasm who have assisted, nudged and supported me through the trials and tribulations.

The Small Press community is thriving. There are some sublime efforts out there covering, it seems, a wider spectrum of subjects than appears in the mainstream. What the finished items lack in publication quality they more than make up for with heart and soul. I am beginning to buy as many Small Press titles these days as mainstream and am usually pleasantly surprised by what I see, and there is a certain pleasure in reading something that I know isn't being read in the thousands, but is limited to myself and a hundred or so others.

More Than We Seem approaches the end of the first mini-series. Issue 7 sees a natural place to pause. Behind the scenes I will still have my editors and artists heads on. 'MTWS : Consequences' will pick the story up again early 2002, when we have at least two completed issues printed before issue 1 is distributed. I will be merging my artistic styles from 'Trojan' and 'Out of Time' , Ray will be doing his thing and Angela will be a regular artist. Larry we retain writing chores and I will still be there driving things on.

We are always interested in artists joining, if they feel their work fits in with the subject matter, and we will even consider one issue involvement if suitable. So if you want to see your stuff in print, have talent and are not doing your own thing already then let us know."

Issues of "More than we seem" can be bought/ordered from our site, our Bishi Bashi event and from Deva comics.

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