Interview: PJ Holden Talks ‘the Simian Saviour, the Ape of Good Hope, the Magnificent Monkey, Noam Chimpsky’
28th September 2022
2000 AD Prog 2301 brings you five new strips – including the return of everyone’s favourite ape of Justice – Noam Chimsky, as Ken Niemand and PJ Holden bring you A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure!
Yes, the Chimp champion of Ludi Wittenstein Block returns! Ever since his first appearance back in Prog 2131’s Judge Dredd strip, The World According To Chimpsky, Niemand and Holden have been delighting us with the adventures of the super-intelligent simian who spends his days keeping his block safe from the perps and keeping himself from being rumbled by the Judges. Since then Chimpsky‘s appeared in Chimpsky’s Law (Progs 2178-2182), Judge Dredd: Who Killed Captain Cookies (Progs 2221-2224), and The Talented Mr Chimpsky (Progs 2234-2240).
But now, Chimpsky may be facing his most difficult and dangerous threat yet… in a rather splendid and thrilling little adventure that Messers Niemand and Holden have entitled Timmy & Thruppence in a Terrifically Disturbing Adventure.
We caught up with PJ to chat Chimpsky…
PJ, Hello there – nice to chat to you again. Hope all is well with you and yours – 2000 AD Prog 2301 sees the return of your co-creation, Noam Chimpsky in A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure.
Now, between appearances in Dredd and in his own strips, I make this the fifth outing for everyone’s favourite super-intelligent ape determined to bring some law and order to his block in MC-1.
PJ HOLDEN: Is it? Crikey. Must be doing something right then.
Can you give us a little idea of what we can expect in A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure?
PJH: Hmm.. Timmy and Thruppence, psychotic, psychic likely mass murderers who want nothing more than the sort of simple life they’ve read about in Enid Blyton books, stumble across the Simian Saviour, the Ape of Good Hope, the Magnificent Monkey, Noam Chimpsky who they’re going to find very much has a mind of his own.
I can’t help but get the idea from reading Chimpsky that you’re obviously having a great time with the character. I could be wrong but there’s something about the art that makes me think there’s a smile on your face when you’re drawing this one.
PJH: Oh he’s a delight. Firstly, as you know, I love drawing Dredd and Dredd’s world, but even way back when first working with Gordon Rennie, I loved doing the side characters, the little goofballs that make their way through the Big Meg, never doing anything too wrong (or too right) who are often crushed under the oppressive heal of Judge Dredd just as he’s taking down some larger threat to the city. That’s my jam.
After Gordon stopped writing Dredd, I thought I’d miss that sort of playground, but along comes Ken Neimand whose take on Dredd’s world is even more in tune with mine, yes, to optimism, yes, to good times, yes to the good guy winning in the end.
I do miss drawing Dredd though, but you know, I’m sure we’ll see him. Sort of.
Let’s go back to the creation of Chimpsky – how did the character come about and how did you get involved?
PJH: Not sure if Ken had me in mind, but certainly, I got an email asking to come up with some character design stuff from Ken, largely describing Noam with his little twirly hat. I pictured a sort of Just William school boy character (and so I added his catapult which would later come to vex Dredd – and some readers).
The readers getting worked up about something like that – nah, surely not?
PJH: As with my Dredd, I think I’m refining my approach to the character as I go, so at some point I’ll get real good at him.
Grofaz, Stan and Chet were largely one-word descriptions and I just lent into them. Luckily Matt was on board (I do sometimes wonder if I’ve pushed the cartoony too far… or not far enough)
Nope, I think we’re hitting the sweet spot on Chimpsky – thought the picture book opening page style and the refined art style here was just great.
What’s it like working with Ken Niemand – how’s the creative collaboration there?
PJH: Generally I’ll get a script and then send back some art – sometimes I’ll make little changes – possibly adding a small panel or something purely as a way of making up for whatever deficits I’ve introduced elsewhere.
I will sometimes make a slight change (as I did to a recent strip) which I think makes the character work a little better (I’m not keen on Chimpsy ruthlessly dispatching his opponents, for example, so I try and make it as bloodless as possible) and I might make a few suggestions to Ken – but, for the most part, get the script and draw the script – which when you’ve a great writer like Ken is about all you need to do.
A couple of things I noticed about this and previous Chimpsky appearances… firstly, the art here really does highlight the city – presumably that’s down to having a character who swings around the higher places of the city – so the angles and the visuals are necessarily different for you.
PJH: Yeah, I suppose, in this series Noam is largely running around his own block and we’ve lots of different locations so I’m getting to expand on what you might find in a block just to introduce some variety into scenes so there’s texture in the location – an outside gym area, a strange alien garden, a shopping centre inside the block.
When Noam’s out and about it is an opportunity to follow him as he swings through the city like some sort of long-armed spider-man.
The other thing about this latest Chimpsky, and I might be wrong, but it seems to have a slightly different line style, finer perhaps? Any reason for the changes there?
PJH: All style changes can largely be explained by me panicking that I have no idea what I’m doing and maybe if I try this it’ll coalesce together.
I’ve been drawing digitally for a while and it could be you’re just seeing me refine the drawing process a bit on my computer.
We’ve talked before in Covers Uncovered about the process you use on your covers, but how about the process of getting the pages together – particularly the flow across an episode?
PJH: Again, I’m constantly trying to figure this stuff out. As it happens for this episode I actually pencilled the entire story in an A4 sketchbook, because I wanted to feel pencil again (I miss the texture). So it was largely read the script, draw some thumbnails, and then begin pencilling.
Page 1 was pretty simple in terms of storytelling, I think the hardest part of the puzzle was trying to get enough height so I could make the kite feel like it was properly flying.
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PJH: Page 2, pretty straightforward all as described in the script…
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PJH: Page 3 was a real pain though, largely because the script just called for an explosion in a chemical factory so I pencilled one version of it in a book and I thought it worked but it really didn’t – there were too many focus points, and there’s no storytelling going on…
PJH: I ended up re-pencilling and reinking that big primary panel to something that lets you see the big explosion first then you travel out seeing all the other bits going on…
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PJH: But that’s my general flow, layouts from script, pencils from script then ink while watching some telly or something.
As far as more from Noam – presuming he gets out of the latest adventure both intact and out of a MC-1 iso-cube, are you and Ken already planning the next one?
PJH: I dunno if he’s planned the next one, but I do know there were things we talked about a while ago that we know would be fun to do – Chimpsky is the sort of character you can drop in to stories to see where they take you.
As long as Ken wants to write more, I’ll certainly draw them (Unless they convince Brian Bolland to draw it instead!)
Well, yeah, that’s fair enough – who’s not gonna step aside if Bolland turns up?
one of my absolute favourite pages so far and the one that I reckon shows you how much fun PJ’s having here
What else do we have to look forward to from you? Have you managed to convince Rory McConville about the Department K and Conan strip yet?
[Dear reader – we refer you to this interview about Department K where the suspect, sorry, PJ, had this to say – ‘I know if I was the ongoing artist I’d be asking Rory for all sorts of things (RORY! LET’S DO CONAN! RORY! LET’S DO A RETRO-80S STRIP! RORY! RORY! WHY ARE YOU NOT ANSWERING YOUR PHONE?)’]
PJH: Plenty of stuff outside of 2000AD, but nothing I can speak about.
Spoilsport!
PJH: And I’d quite like to come back and do some Dept K (now we’ve established it’s a world where different artists can have a go) and … what’s that you say? Dept K and CONAN? I’d be tempted by that.
Oh heck, I can just hear Rory emailing now and including me in that restraining order he was talking about. Ooops.
Thanks so much to PJ for talking to us – you can find the new adventures of Chimpsky – A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure beginning in 2000 AD Prog 2301. It’s rather spiffing!
Now, the full-sized versions of all that lovely process artwork PJ sent along…
