Comics

Mega-City Max Interviews: RAMZEE & Korinna Mei Veropoulou’s Harlem Heroes take on the world!

25th July 2023

It’s our future – and their reality! Welcome to Mega-City Max, the latest one-shot special from 2000 AD, bringing familiar characters to a whole new audience.

Mega-City Max has five tales of Dredd’s dystopian future from the hottest breaking talent in comics in a stand-alone, no continuity sci-fi comic aimed at teenagers. Join us and them in taking the Mega-Cities to the MAX!

Inside Mega-City Max you get all the intense thrill-power of 2000 AD, just catered to a new teen audience. There’s five strips by the hottest young talent around bringing you a fresh look at some familiar characters, including Hannah Templer’s take on a young Demarco P.I., Oliver Gerlach & VV Glass bring you a teen Devlin Waugh at a devilishly different wedding, Roger Langridge takes Walter the Wobot onto the comedy circuit, and Lucie Ebrey shows us the latest, and daftest, fad to hit MC-1 in Cranium Chaos!

But now, in the last of our interviews for Mega-City Max, we’re talking to the brilliant writer/artist partnership of RAMZEE (Ramsey Hassan)& Korinna Mei Veropoulou who bring us the latest installment of Harlem Heroes, led by ex-Judge Cadet Gem Giant, as they take on the Venetian Vipers in the Aeroball Mega-City Cup.

RAMZEE & Korinna have already revamped Harlem Heroes with two thrillers appearing in Regened Collections Vols 3 & 4 and a third in the 2023 2000 AD Free Comic Book Day Comic. (We talked to them about the new strip back in 2022 here at 2000 AD.com). But now, they’re taking them to the next level, taking them to the MAX!

***Mega-City Max’s Harlem Heroes episode – it all kicks off on page 1***

When it comes to Mega-City Max, you’re right at the beginning of a new 2000 AD comic? What does that mean to you and what do you think of the whole Mega-City Max idea of taking 2000 AD to teens?

RAMZEE: It’s kinda exciting to be on the ground floor of something new. And I think it’s really cool to have a comic that’s smack dab in the middle of Regened Kid Friendly 2000 AD capers and the 2000 AD comic that is for more sophisticated readership.

Mega-City Max being a comic for young adults shares the same youthful energy as Regened but fuses that with that rebellious, sardonic and energetic brand of entertainment known as ‘Thrill Power’. What makes YA unique is that they’re stories typically focused on how characters fit into the grown-up world. The journey of understanding themselves and the world they’re coming into. Mega City Max does that but adds lots of shooting, fighting and explosions.

With MCM, same as with Regened, some are wary of the comics as they’re not ‘their 2000 AD‘, what do you say to that?

RAMZEE: Well, it isn’t their 2000 AD. It’s for an audience that loves sci-fi and wants to read stories with a completely new, contemporary tone that takes a fresh look at established 2000 AD tropes.

I think the shift of character perspective can make a huge impact on a story. Someone could say “Clone Immortal Soldier? I’ve seen that before” but not through the eye of a young character who will have a completely different attitude to the situation and one more in line with the target reader.

KORINNA MEI VEROPOULOU: It’s not for you, it’s for your kids! Last year Ramzee and I did a signing for Regened. We had a dad come to the booth, he was so excited there was something for his 5yo son to read. It was adorable!

Oh, that is adorable! And exactly what we want – comics for future readers!

What do you think of the talent and the strips in it?

RAMZEE: Brilliant. I’ve worked with Lucie Ebrey before and I was super excited and curious to see what she does in the 2000 AD sandbox.

KMV: Super excited to see what everyone’s made! Especially excited to see Lucie’s strip!

Well, I don’t think you (or anyone) is going to be disappointed with what’s Lucie’s done here with her Cranium Chaos strip!

What are your hopes for the future of Mega-City Max?

RAMZEE: I hope that Mega-City Max takes on the fearless, rule-breaking, testing-the-waters attitude of an actual teenager.

2000 AD itself is for a readership that want to read fun new stories about the awesome characters that they grew up with delivered in a recognisable 2000 AD fashion. Mega-City Max should be about redefining what Thrill Power means for a modern audience.

Some of the old ideas of being subversive and satirical will carry over because people will always love that, but how that’s delivered will be different like how The Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, and Arctic Monkeys all play the guitar but in completely different ways.

KMV: I’ve gotten quite attached to the Heroes, it would be great to continue to bring out their personalities more. Plus I’ve got a lot of cool villain ideas!

Okay then, in MCM you’re back to Harlem Heroes, a strip you’ve already done two Regened episodes of in Regened Volume 3 & 4. And one you’ve already talked about how you brought them back in our previous interview.

This time you’ve taken the Harlem Heroes to the World Cup equivalent for Aeroball, The Mega-Cities Cup, where they’re facing off against the Venetian Vipers, not a nice team at all who’re not afraid to use whatever they can to get the win...

Ollie Hicks has described what you’re doing with Harlem Heroes as ‘classic sports Manga stuff’ and I can totally see that. Is that what you were going for here? And, if so, what sports Manga are you referencing, what are your favourites, what should we all be reading?

RAMZEE: When Ollie approached us about doing an all-new Harlem Heroes – I had read and loved the old Tully & Gibbons strip which fused the gritty violence and social satire of Rollerball with a traditional British football comic strip format like Roy of the Rovers and the wild interplay between both was why it was so fun.

Today’s kids won’t be as versed with the classic British football comic to appreciate that but they do know the visual language of sports video games and I don’t know if you’ve been to a Forbidden Planet store or a local library recently but Manga is HUGELY popular with one of the most popular books being Haikyu! – a 55 million-selling manga about volleyball.

What I love about sports Manga besides the kinetic layouts is their emphasis on personal growth, humour, and team dynamics. Other sports manga I referenced were Slam Dunk, Eyeshield 21, and Blue Lock.

KMV: ‘Classic sports manga stuff’ is pretty spot on! I love sports manga but otherwise I wouldn’t describe myself as a sports fan. So my first priority with the Heroes was to get people who aren’t interested in sports hooked.

Eyeshield 21 was my blueprint, it’s a manga that combines comedy, an incredible ensemble cast and some of the coolest action shots I’ve ever seen!

Did Ollie or Olivia get in touch with you to do this or did you pitch it to them?

RAMZEE: Ollie Hicks contacted me to pitch for this. It was around the time the brouhaha about the Football Super League was exploding on the sports pages so I decided to do the Aeroball spin on that.

KMV: It was actually Ramzee who approached me about doing the art for Harlem Heroes in the first instance! We had been itching to collaborate on something for ages. Ollie asked Ramzee to recommend an artist and that’s how I got involved!

Was there a change in the storytelling or the art here to cater to the Mega-City Max audience?

KMV: Pretty much no change other than I could add a bit of blood when Gem gets punched in the jaw

RAMZEE: We could be a little more explicit with the violence and have saltier one liners lol!

With Gem Giant you have a great nonbinary hero for the modern age – it was never specifically referenced but how important was it to make something for readers not typically represented in comics?

KMV: I love that Gem is nonbinary, coming up with their character design was one of my favourite parts of the whole project! As a reader it’s a breath of fresh air to have a main character who’s unapologetically androgynous. As an artist I’m happy I finally got to use all the photos of Grace Jones I’ve been hoarding as inspiration.

RAMZEE: Well, I didn’t want to make a deal out of Gem’s gender identity because I thought that in this future world it wouldn’t be a big issue.

I did use gender-neutral language whenever Gem is mentioned, but in a lot of the reviews of the comic Gem was referred to as male so in this story Gem mentions their nonbinary in a humorous bit of smack talk between them and the rival team’s captain.

That would be this bit of smack talk…

For both of you – for those who haven’t seen or read any of your work before – describe yourselves and what it is you do…

RAMZEE: I’m a writer who loves telling fun and thought-provoking genre stories starring characters of colour.

KMV: I’m a Greek/Singaporean comic artist and illustrator that specialises in anything bold, colourful and fun!

Korinna, we talked a lot about your art when we chatted previously but let’s do it all again. How do you make comics? What’s your process?

KMV: My process is pretty straightforward, I use my sketchbook for drawing up concepts and thumbnails then I do the rest (pencils, inks, colours) using Procreate on an iPad Pro.

Korinna was good enough to send through her roughs and inks for this Harlem Heroes episode… here’s page 1…

How did you approach Harlem Heroes in terms of style – as a big fan of sports Manga is that a big influence on your art – getting that kinetic motion in there that we can see in Harlem Heroes?

KMV: Eyeshield 21 and Ron Wimberly’s Prince of Cats are my biggest inspirations for HH, I wanted it to look dynamic, colourful and fun while also being easy to “read”. Generally I take lot of pointers from Manga, they helped me figure out ways to use page layouts more effectively and help guide the eye through the action.

And of course, you’ve been responsible for the look of this new Harlem Heroes from the start – what was your thinking with the design process?

KMV: Our first priority was to create a likeable cast of characters that looked easily distinguishable from each other but also worked within a group. It was important for both Ramzee and I to make them as diverse as we could so we spent a lot of time deciding on the skin tone, bodyshape, hair and personal style of each character.

We pulled inspiration from many sources, especially artists of colour that we both admire, a few examples are Grace Jones for Gem, Lizzo for Kym, Bootsy Collins for Bernie Foxx and (my favourite) Prince & Cat from Red Dwarf for Jazz Razzmatazz.

And here are Korinna’s initial designs for her new Harlem Heroes…

Korinna, you started in comics rather late in your art career, is that right? You’ve worked in webcomics (including the great Adventuree of Croblin) and traditional print comics since beginning in comics. What was it about comics that so excites you to keep doing them?

KMV: Even though comics have been my goal since I was a teen I started seriously making comics in my mid-twenties after graduating from university. I love the creative problem-solving. you have to do a bit of worldbuilding, you can’t just rely on dialogue and talking heads to do the storytelling by themselves. You have to take into account your colour schemes, your page layout, your character designs, et cetera to add depth to your narrative.

And again, more from Korinna, this time page 2 of this latest Harlem Heroes strip, roughs, inks, colours…

The pair of you are babies compared to the 45+ years of 2000 AD, so it would be great to know what you remember of 2000 AD, how you first discovered the comic, what strips you specifically remember from the time you first discovered it, that sort of thing.

KMV: I unfortunately missed out on 2000 AD because i didn’t grow up in the UK! got introduced in my early 20s When I first moved to London to study. It’s a shame because the punky sci-fi aesthetic would’ve gone down really well with kid me! The first volumes I remember picking up were Alan Moore & Alan Davis’ DR and Quinch and Sinister Dexter.

RAMZEE: I knew of 2000 AD as a kid from Judge Dredd but it looked too grim and gritty for me. I was an X-Men kid growing up, but as I grew up and started to get into comics more I heard about The Cursed Earth spoken about with hushed, reverent tones and saw those Brian Bolland Eagle Comics covers and got into Mike McMahon’s cartoony aesthetic.

Finally, what sort of things have we got to look forward to from you in the future? Whether that’s for 2000 AD or elsewhere?

KMV: Well I’m taking a bit of time off – life! – but I’m hoping to start a self-published project later in the year

RAMZEE: I have a completely bonkers, boundary-pushing, horror-action comic serial that’s dropping in Monster Fun. I’m also developing a TV show with the BBC as well as writing and illustrating a middle-grade series that’s coming out next year.

Ramzee, I’ve known you and your work as a writer/artist since the very beginning and it’s so good to see your career in writing taking off. Although hopefully, you’ll keep in with making comics when you’ve made your name elsewhere?

RAMZEE: I’d love to do more comics. My career is moving me away towards TV and literature but I love comics to death and any editor who contacts me about a comic project, I’ll be into it, especially if it’s Cat Girl related *looks suggestively at Rebellion editorial*

Oh, go on Rebellion, go on!

Thank you so much to both Ramzee and Korinna for taking the time to share with us.

You can find their Harlem Heroes vs The Venetian Vipers strip in Mega-City Max, which you can get hold of from comic shops and 2000 AD’s web shop.

We’ve already talked to Ramzee about his work with Elkys Nova on Cat Girl for the Tammy & Jinty Special 2020 here. And we talked Harlem Heroes with Ramzee & Korinna here when they brought the team back for Regened Volume 3.

Ramzee’s a London-based creative who immigrated to the UK from Somalia as a child. He’s been making comics since 2015, including self-publishing his work, reinventing Cat Girl with Elkys Nova in the Tammy & Jinty Special 2020, Harlem Heroes in Regened Vol 3 & 4, work in Monster Fun, and creating a new Spider-UK for Marvel Comics in 2022.

He’s also, as we mentioned, moving away from comics, with work in TV, as a playwright, writing screenplays, and designing and runing comics and illustration workshops for schools. His first middle-grade children’s book, The Cheat Book, was recently acquired by Hachette Children’s Group in a three-book deal. The series will follow 11-year-old Kamal Noor, a shy kid who finds ‘the Cheat Book’ to getting popular in the library and sees his chance to stand out at last!

Korinna Mei Veropoulou has been working in comics since 2015, with self-published titles including SAPRO, work in LDN2050, and the webcomic Adventures of Croblin. She’s also worked on anthologies including Comic Book Slumber Party’s Escape from Bitch Mountain and Smutcomic, a collection of smutty stories by female-identifying and non-binary artists from Greece.

Go look them both up online – There’s Ramzee’s website, Twitter, and his shop for his early works, Junk Food, Zorse, and Triangle (you can also read a selection from Junk Food and all of Triangle at his site.) Korinna’s website is here, you can also follow her on Twitter.

We’ll end with a look at some more of Korinna’s fabulous artwork, with full size versions of all we’ve shown you above.

First, those incredible character designs…