Interview: Intestinauts are going, going, gone! Time to talk Bowelbot bother with Arthur Wyatt!
20th June 2024
Over the past five weeks we’ve thrilled to the micro-scale misadventures of those Intestinauts once more with Busted Flush, possibly the biggest adventure these tiny tummy trouble teammates have had to date. But now, in 2000 AD Prog 2387, it all comes to a head as the six-parter reaches its finale and Arthur Wyatt and Pye Parr bring the toilet lid down on our alimentary allies once more.
How are the Intestinauts going to stop the Bowelbot-infected Dr Globulon flushing them all down the u-bend of existence? Will Intestolabs be saved? And will you ever be able to go to the toilet with confidence again? All these may well be answered in Intestinauts: Busted Flush, the finale!
Over the course of several adventures, whether that’s in Regened, Tharg’s 3Rillers, or FCBD Progs, those micro miracles of gastric goodness, the Intestinauts, have battled for all of us. But this latest and longest adventure by Arthur Wyatt and Pye Parr has taken us to truly epic levels of tiny adventures.
Over six parts, we’ve seen the Intestinauts launched into battle with an experimental Instestolabs-modified bowelbot, Omega Genocide Four. We’ve watched as that same OG4 infiltrated the very lifeblood of Instestolabs. We’ve gasped in the sort of horror that can send you into the toilet in need of a good dose of Intestinauts as the (literal) brains behind Intestolabs, Dr Globulon, is infected by the bowel-bot programming. And we’ve all said our silent prayers as we’ve watched the Intestinauts launch their last-ditch, desperate rescue mission.
How’s it all going to end in Prog 2387? Well, you’re going to have to read Intestinauts: Busted Flush Part 6 in the new 2000 AD Prog to find out! And perhaps creators Arthur Wyatt and Pye Parr can shed some light on the whole thing. We asked them the questions and they came back with so much that we’ve split this exit interview into two. We’ll talk to Arthur first and then see if, Mr & Mrs style, writer and artist are singing from the same hymn book when we talk to Pye later! [You can find that interview here]
Arthur, just to start, can you give readers something of a potted (or even potty) history of the Intestinauts and what Busted Flush is all about?
ARTHUR WYATT: We all know the situation – you’re at a spaceport, you want to enjoy a tasty Venusian goat curry, but while you’re at the nexus of a thousand different cuisines and cultures you’re also at the nexus of a thousand different diseases and intestinal parasites, and you are pretty sure that street vendor didn’t prepare your dish at the required temperature and pressure to kill them all. Obviously that’s when you are going to reach for Intestinauts – the cure-all wonder pills, packed full of tough-hitting nano-robots who will sweep through your system taking out any unwanted bugs, viruses, amoebas or parasites before leaving next time you go to the loo in what they call “the big flush”.
The telemetry from these Intestinauts then gets uploaded and placed in the next batch of pills, with an increased level of experience dealing with bodily ills. Somewhere along the way, they may have developed a degree of self-awareness and personality, so for them it’s going on a grand adventure…
We’re back to the ages-old story of Intestinauts vs Bowelbots here, albeit in a dangerous and experimental form. And we’ve rather moved past the poop gags of prior tales where we were never that far from a mention of Venusian Vindaloo, tapeworms, or amoebic dysentery and just how the Intestinauts were involved in them all.
Was this always the plan? Lure us in with the gastrointestinal guffaws and then get into the hardcore adventuring?
AW: I’ve always taken the Intestinauts very seriously. They may be small, they may have a job that’s literally shit, and they may be trapped in a hellish satire of capitalism but the whole thing revolves around being a very straight story in a hyper-ridiculous setting.
Busted Flush just scales that up significantly – they basically meet their god in this one. Also, I think what you might be noticing is just having a bit more room to breathe in the six episodes versus three – I don’t know if future Intestinauts will all be this long but it’s nice to think we’ll have one of these mini-epics amongst the smaller chunks once in a while.
So far in Busted Flush, we’ve seen the Intestinauts battle strange new adversaries and been introduced to (quite literally) the brains behind Intestolabs, Dr Globulon.
Had the pair of you always had this in mind when you introduced the little scamps with a mission to ease all intestinal ickiness way back when? Or is it one of those things that’s expanded as each series rolled by?
AW: I think Dr Globulon first turned up in one of Pye’s sketches… Sometime after the first Future Shock… then got a roll in the FCBD one pager and was an established part of Intestinauts lore after that… the same one-pager also introduced Bowelbots in the legal disclaimer, so war between the two was inevitable…
As for bringing the Intestinauts before Dr Globulon in a scene that is almost cosmic scale for them… yeah, I’ve wanted to do that for a bit.
And if you look really closely in the reader offer – the first mention of those nasty Bowelbots!
the scene Arthur says he’s wanted to do for a while!
One thing that seems apparent to me is that you’re both having a blast on this. There’s moments when I’m reading it that I can actually hear the pair of you chuckling at what you’re being allowed to do here. Am I right? Is it as much fun to write and draw as it is to read?
AW: It is both enormously fun to write and very challenging, as it constantly has to one up itself. Both in terms to the stories going from bigger and weirder settings to even bigger and weirder settings and in terms of the storytelling – it always has to be doing something new.
You’ve kept up a tradition of visual invention here in Busted Flush – Arthur, can we get your take on what Pye’s brought to the Intestinauts?
AW: Well, I checked in with him on the bowelbot’s nightmare set of pages where you get to choose your path through a flowchart and his response was an enthusiastic yes, which says a lot. It is not a thing I would drop on an artist who wasn’t up for it. Also, I was able to draw it up and throw a diagram into the script which I just wouldn’t for most artists.
And here’s Arthur’s early diagram and script notes for Pye, followed by the brilliant execution on the page that we saw in Busted Flush part 2…
AW: We actually run a bunch of stuff like that back and forth on a chat thread, along with any interesting new disgusting medical things either of us have found, snippets of script or designs to see if they work, that sort of thing.
And Pye being from a graphic design background has of course heavily informed what we have been doing with in-world literature and diagrams. That’s always been a very fun part of writing it and Pye always does a beyond amazing job of them.
Then there’s the design work for the world in general, as well as the sense of dynamism and fun they bring to everything. Look at I-R-747s face in that panel where they’re rushing down the fluidic panels. They’re having the time of their lives! Pye totally makes that radiate from the page.
They are you know…
As far as going forwards to the next series is concerned, you’ve definitely set things up for plenty of intrigue and peril at the end of Busted Flush. Have you already got plans for where you’re taking the micro-heroes next?
AW: There’s been an escalation of scale in every story so I think we either need to go really big – Intestinauts versus the poop meteor that’s going to destroy the planet – or go sideways and have some stories set in the macroverse that Dr. Drexler inhabits and I-R-404 got to explore for bit. Or maybe go back to the story’s roots, and have an actual gut-based mission, but approach it in some new style or format…
Could we finally be getting the full-blown love story of I-R-101 and I-R-102? The first Intestinauts wedding? Oh, go on!!
AW: “INTESTO-LABS SECRET DESIGN DOCUMENT: I-R-101-102 “TWINBODY” INTESTINAUT: For enhanced teamwork and co-operation fuse the cores of the I-R-101 an I-R-102 units into a single twin barrel “mono-core” giving full tactical interchange and 360 visual coverage, with four legs and four arms for maximum mobility and weapons operation.”
Actually, I just read part 6. No spoilers but all I can say is that, Arthur, you better make good on that idea. Otherwise… [weeping].
Finally, what can we look forward to from the pair of you next?
More Dredd with Rob Williams is on the way! And a secret Intestinauts project probably coming to one of the special progs.
Thank you so much to Arthur for chatting to us. Look out for more Intestinauts chat with Pye Parr in a few days! [Here in fact!] The final episode of the six-part Intestinauts: Bowel Bots is in 2000 AD Prog 2387, out on 19 June and available everywhere Tharg’s fine organ is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.
If you’re looking for more from Arthur and Pye talking all things bowel bothering, we’ve interviewed them here at 2000AD.com for Intestinauts: Symbiotic Love Triangle here in 2021 and Molch-R talks with them over at the Thrill-Cast here.
