The genesis of the project was a movie treatment I wrote and then teamed up with another screenwriter (Chris Wheeler) to develop. I really wanted to see this kind of story told; a World War 2 mash up with nazi supervillains, monsters, Mecha War machines and cigar chompin’ heroes – but done in a very realistic style, a la ‘Saving Private Ryan’ which had just come out. And because of that I had a group of talented artists designing monsters, sequences and machines which naturally fed into us making DARK AXIS the first publishing project for a company I established called DIEZELPUNK. And the essence of that company is creating an outlet for the kinds of stories I’m interested in; largely Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Horror based material. You know, the fun stuff!
I began life as a visual artist who then moved into film directing, then became a screenwriter also – so starting a publishing company was a great way to take huge story ideas with amazing visuals and get them out there into the world. And it’s incredibly satisfying seeing all the hard work and care that goes into creating these things finally out there on the shelves. It was put together by a tiny group of passionate people which I think shows in the work and the quality of the storytelling – which beside the idea, is the most important thing for us. We’re committed to putting out 1 or 2 really unique and well crafted series per year so we’re pumped with the next projects on our comics slate.
