A Conversation with Tess Fowler (San Diego Comic-Con, Sunday 23rd July 2017)

Tess Fowler is an artist with an incredible sense of passion and heart which she pours into every project that she becomes involved in - that can sometimes mean that, for someone who makes sure to guard her privacy and personal space, having her heart on her sleeve in such a public manner can make her vulnerable to the elements. But she gets out there anyway and she faces the storms fearlessly. Which is why there's an initial sense of surprise and then an understandable reasoning why she has accepted the request of her new editor, the legendary Shelly Bond, to brave the crowds and bedlam of San Diego Comic-Con, an entity which has over the years evolved into a sanity-devouring beast of its own. Bond has set up BLACK CROWN PUBLISHING, a new imprint of IDW Publishing, and Fowler is the artist on the book first out of the gate for Black Crown: KID LOBOTOMY, written by the equally legendary - and creativity intimidating - Peter Milligan. BLACK CROWN is a unique space in comics in that the books that come from the imprint will all exist in a defined world, centred around the Black Crown Pub, a venue where I suspect requests for a glass of water or orange juice will be dismissed with much scorn from the ornately-inked bar staff, and Little Mix will not be featuring on the battered but beloved vintage jukebox. I caught up with Tess Fowler on the last day of San Diego Comic-Con to talk primarily about KID LOBOTOMY, but the conversation turned, as many about Black Crown do, to the maddening, frustrating, rewarding, uplifting, soul-defining working relationships between Tess and her writer and editor...