It’s a funny thing being dyslexic.

Especially undiagnosed GenX dyslexic.

Turns out that paradoxically, many writers are also dyslexic. And it’s kind of  a super power now.

However, in the 80’s, loving horror and wanting DESPERATELY to create my own stories meant there were only a few viable options were open to me. And one was not writing. I consistently failed ever ‘English’ test.

It was clear. I could not write.

According to the wisdom of the 80’s at any rate.

And so Super8mm film became my choice. That was expensive though, and needed others to help me make films. It was Summer holiday stuff and not dark winter evenings.

But comics, and the kind of dark, twisted horror and sci-fi comiscs of the 80’s, were perfect for me. I was by no means the most talented artist, but I could draw, and I was pretty good with inks.

‘Scream’ was a short lived horror comic that I adored, though I did want more horror than I think the publishers wanted.

2000AD was awesome too, and I recall Hook Jaw (panel below), scaring the bezeejus out of me. This one image below, of the guy getting his legs bitten off stuck in my brain even to this day. I wanted to look away, but I could not. It’s clearly a gory cash in on Jaws, it was gruesome and addictive. And then I discovered Flesh. If you know, you know.

I just was not good enough at drawing, and I took far too long for it to be a real option.

Thank goodness that soon after, spell checkers appeared on computers, and it turned out there was a fix for ‘stupid’, which was what I was told I was.

I still love comic book art deeply, and in a parallel universe somewhere, I am sure that I am drawing horror and sci-fi art for these amazing publications that blossomed in the 80’s.