Comics

Interview: Karl Stock & Warren Pleece talk ‘debauchery and authoritarianism… soaked into the bones of it’ in Fiends of West Berlin

12th July 2022

Marking 2000 AD‘s 45th birthday, 2022’s summer special has a musical theme as the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic continues to celebrate 45 Revolutions Per Minute with Comic Rock!

Up next in the series of interviews about the Sci-FI Special, it’s Karl Stock and Warren Pleece with Fiends of West Berlin, where the vampire Constanta meets Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ From Her To Eternity.

***Luke Preece on the cover art, wanting to know… Are you ready to rock?***

Out this week this years’ 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special is rocking out to the tune of six tales inspired by six pieces of music. Inside you’ll find Judge Dredd, Sinister Dexter, Psi-Judge Anderson, Judge Death, and Middenface McNulty – it’s a Thrill-Power overload of comics with a soundtrack to kill for – especially if you’re the Vampire Constanta in Fiends of West Berlin.

Inspired by the original Comics Rock of 2000 AD Prog 167 where Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill took The Jam’s Going Underground and twisted it into Terror Tube, the very first appearance of Nemesis the Warlock, the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special is bringing back Comics Rock for the modern age!

BUY FROM 2000 AD >>

BUY FROM FORBIDDEN PLANET >>

FIND YOUR NEAREST COMIC BOOK STORE >>

Time to turn the decks over to Karl Stock and Warren Pleece right now to tell you all about their strip in the Special, Fiends of the West Berlin, inspired by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ From Her To Eternity.

Karl, Warren, in the Sci-Fi Special, you’re bringing the Vampire Constanta back to the strange world of 80s Cold War Germany in the story Fiends of West Berlin.

It’s a story suggested by From Her To Eternity, the Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds song. Can you tell us a little of what we can expect from the latest Constanta and what was it particularly about the song that made you come up with this latest Fiends episode?

KARL STOCK: It’s inspired specifically by the live version of From Her to Eternity in Wim Wenders’ film Wings of Desire, which is getting a reissue this summer I believe. I love Nick Cave, but I love that film too – saw someone refer to it on the socials recently as a “portrait of a city which doesn’t exist,” in other words Cold War-era Berlin.

And here’s the very track Karl’s talking about, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds performing From Her To Eternity from Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire…

KS: My script was written with the same aesthetic spirit of debauchery and authoritarianism living in close proximity soaked into the bones of it, I hope. The sense of old Weimar glamour gone rotten around the unhealed scar that was the Wall. The film is as much an influence as the song’s lyrics, there are hints and easter eggs concerning both in there if you’re looking.

Of course, Wings of Desire is about unseen angels moving among the people, and the sense there’s something pure and true which moves between humans, beyond the control of the petty politics of the time – that’s an easy flip to the demons of Fiends’ world, to create a far less pleasant mirror story.

A while ago I thought a Fiends of the Cold War strip with a period update would be a lot of fun to write, and of course now Ian Edginton is doing one, or thereabouts. [For more on that particular tale, Fiends of the Eastern Front: 1963, have a look at this interview with Ian Edginton].

This is a framing story to the original Fiends saga’s own framing story, and an excuse to scratch that particular storytelling itch.

Now Warren, seeing as it was Karl’s choice of music, was it a case of having the track on for hours to get a feel of what the writer wanted? Did the pacing and content affect the way you made the pages? And just for the record – which track would you have picked as a fave to illustrate?

WARREN PLEECE: Yes, this was great fun to draw; Fiends, Cold War 80s Berlin, Wings of Desire, Nick Cave, almost like I’d paid someone to come up with some choice nuggets just for me to draw (Thanks, Karl). Actually Karl had kindly included a YouTube link to the Bad Seeds scene in the film in his script, so I really did have everything on a plate. I’m not sure if the story’s pacing is a direct lift off the song, but it seems like a great track to merge with the Fiends mythology. I would’ve gone for The Birthday Party’s Release the Bats, of course!

Warren, when it came to illustrating this one, was it a case of reading through Karl’s story and then assaulting yourself with all manner of versions of Cave’s song?

WP: I knew the original well and probably the Peel session version. After that, it was probably on my internal ear worm loop for rest of the drawing process!

In many ways, it’s an unusual Fiends to draw, as it doesn’t feature the normal amounts of bloodshed we’re used to. Instead, it’s a quieter affair, of obsessional love and being in service to a monster. In this, I think it’s something that plays well to Warren’s natural abilities to give us brilliance and drama in everyday situations.

WP: Yes, definitely. I mean I can do the gratuitous gore if called upon, but really I’m just a kindly old storyteller for the kids of all ages.

KS: Warren’s done a great job of course, his character storytelling is always a treat. Most importantly, he really nailed the sense of place and time I was after, and the references to the film throughout.

Karl, Warren, are you both big fans of Nick Cave? What is it about him that lights a fire beneath you? (Personally, as much as I love his early stuff with the Bad Seeds, which I got into after hearing The Mercy Seat, it’s the later stuff that I’ve come to really adore – I don’t think he’s done a better album than Push The Sky Away.)

KS: Well, how long have you got? The Birthday Party were always a bit feral for me, although thinking about it I probably missed a trick, I should have written a Fiends story based on Release the Bats. Then again, Constanta as a ‘sex vampire’… maybe not.

Anyway, pretty much everything he’s done with the Bad Seeds has been excellent, although like a lot of people I know I only caught up with him in the 2000s. I knew him from Where the Wild Roses Grow with Kylie Minogue in ’95, of course, and had a vague appreciation of his work otherwise, but I went to see the Bad Seeds live in Glasgow around the time of… I don’t know, Abattoir Blues I think? And I was a convert from then.

Yeah, Push the Sky Away is a contender for the best thing he’s done, but Skeleton Tree and Ghosteen are almost unbearably emotional, given his personal circumstances, and one of the first gigs I saw after lockdown was Nick and Warren Ellis (not THAT Warren Ellis) doing their pandemic album Carnage, which made it doubly moving. If any readers want to start from scratch, I’d suggest the ’98 Best Of personally, then work forwards or backwards from there.

WP: Yes, I’d say I was, though from a respectable distance. I really liked the Birthday Party back in the day and a lot of the Bad Seeds stuff, though I probably had a problem keeping up with all their output, a bit like later Fall albums. Nick Cave’s more recent work is amazing, dark and intense, maybe not your usual jogging/ dinner party playlist favs, but then you haven’t been to mine for a dinner party.

KS: Of course, describing any song or artist as your favourite is a hostage to fortune, I probably have a couple of each every week. But this song was my favourite while this script was being written, hopefully it comes through.

Also, thinking about it, Higgs Boson Blues would be a good title for a Future Shock, right?

Yes, why hasn’t anyone done Higgs Boson Blues as a musical Future Shock? Karl, the stage is yours for that one now!

What can we expect from you coming out in the future? The Mighty One has now moved onto his second Betelgeusian cocktail, this time with the gizzards of some strange little thing as a garnish and has just described the latest tune he’s listening to as ‘if Dolly Parton and Joy Division made an opera’… so I reckon he’s in the right place to sneak out a tidbit of something special…

WP: Bits and potentially exciting bobs.

KS: Things with zombies. Including a version of what I believe is the most primed-for-a-reboot 2000AD series going.

Now there’s a tease to end with! Start guessing now! (And hope Tharg didn’t hear Karl, otherwise it’s down to the punishment rooms for 24 hours of Whigfield and Wenga Boys.)

A massive thank you for Karl and Warren for talking about both comics and tunes with us. Go get some Nick Cave for yourselves. Your ears will thank you later.

You can see Fiends of the Western Front, a perfect meditation of music and mood, by Karl Stock and Warren Pleece in the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 2022 – it’s out on 13 July 2022 and available from wherever Thrill Power is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.

Warren was also kind enough to send along a magnificent look at his design process for the characters, plus his inked page one of the strip, which you can lovingly look at below…