They put flags on the balls, but Jesus, dogs have balls. I mean, come on! Listen, doesn’t it seem absurd to you that you would hide the balls? Dogs have balls in real life! We do the same thing– we hide nipples! We hide nipples in comics under the T-shirt of a woman – or even a man! It seems odd. Timed to coincide with the 35th anniversary of its first publication in 2000 AD in 1989, this new edition of Pat Mills and Simon Bisley’s groundbreaking and best-selling collection will feature brand new scans – meaning readers will be able to see its fully-painted art in unprecedented new detail. I was about to say, IP probably makes that really difficult. Like working with pre-established characters and histories and all that pressure must add a layer of conscious expectation. A lot of people didn’t know I was going to be here. So it’s been a little weird. They didn’t advertise ‘til quite late. Oh wait, we’re doing the interview now, are we?

I mean, is it? That’s more up to you to decide, isn’t it, because it’s ultimately yours. It’s something birthed from you.Yeah. It’s a good process. Magnificent. But when it comes down to the real deal it can be such a shame. That feels…surprisingly sentimental for you? Maybe not though. It makes sense given what you’ve told me about your creative process before – being able to look at anything and try to find the artistic value in it. Okay. Good. Brilliant. Anyway, traction these days…I think my prices are more than they used to be. So you just tend to get the guys who specialize.

laughs] Well, I mean, pretentiousness is a consciousness of art as it’s being presented and regarded. Talking with Grant, we were talking about the purest form of art – so to do art and to do real art is to do something that would be so utterly unconscious, unpretentious and unconscious. Why paint anything at all? Why even bother? If you’re doing fine art and you want to paint something for yourself, why bother at all? Because when you paint you’re considering a lot of things. How are people going to react to it? Am I going to be a great artist or am I going to be a bad artist? Shall I do this or not do it? If somebody has doubts about it, you’re being pretentious because you’re not really actually doing what you really want to do. Yes! Apparently someone can program in my stuff and it’ll come out looking like that. The thing is, what am I going to do? There’s nothing to do. If they want to put my signature on it… well…now this relates to what you’re talking about. Painted art against digital art. Well this is digital art. It’s another form of digital. So if it’s happening, it’s happening. As long as people can separate the two, and they don’t put my name to it… Danu offers Sláine the opportunity to become her consort, the Horned God, by defeating the Lord Weird Slough Fegg, who had refused to die when his seven-year reign as Horned God ended and has unnaturally extended his life. If Sláine achieves this it would restore the worship of the Goddess and also improve the position of women in their society.King Shit! [laughs] No, it’s not necessarily weird. It’s not weird. Just sort of realizing that you’re a few more steps nearer the grave. Your life’s got to a point, to a degree.

As I finish reading this collection for perhaps the 10th time, I find that Slaine is a very easy 5 stars for me. It's a mixed bag in many ways, both good and bad. Sometimes the sudden shift in tone are hilarious and work excellently for the story, and sometimes they are just that, abrupt jokes that make you cringe. At times you can almost feel the grandeur of the legend being told and at times you've no idea what is happening and why, where it's all leading to and what happened before. Bisley started his career doing magazine and album covers, his first work being a T-shirt design for heavy metal magazine Kerrang!Sláine the Horned God is an extremely popular comic series that premiered in the U.K. comic magazine 2000AD in 1983. This dramatised production provides an excellent introduction to this classic barbarian fantasy series. This was simply excellent. I listened to it over the course of a morning and was totally enthralled. The performances were outstanding including Colin Morgan as Sláine and Gerry O’Brien as Ukko, the dwarf, who is Sláine’s companion and the chronicler of his adventures. Ukko is very much comic relief with great banter between him and the druidess Nest, who ‘encourages’ Ukko to write down the saga. Nest, who was portrayed by Fiona Glascott, was my favourite character. Bisley has done design work for several music videos, including Chippendales' "Room Service". [ citation needed] A brief word on another character who almost steals the show from our hero - Slaine’s nemesis Weird Slough Feg, squatting within his noisome ‘mystic aura’. With a Yoda-like turn of phrase, denoting extreme age and anachronistic speech patterns, he has some of the best lines you’ll read in any comic anywhere: However, the artstyle is not only stellar, it's aweinspiring. There are dozens and dozens of panels that I desperately want to hang on my walls as posters, there are depictions of heroes I want to use as my character on a game and ones to use as inspiration for my next story. The pulp-style art, where the heroes have biceps bigger than a dragon's leg, the monsters are abominations from nightmares and the damsels are both siren-like and dangerous, is breathtaking. Even the humorous depictions work, whether that is the stupid-smug of Slaine or his spikey hair, it's always great.