Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, Midsomer Massacre

Midsomer Massacre Or Murder Most Mundane?

Published Sat, 05 Aug 2017 11:00:54 -0500

Ash Deadman writes,

I grew up in a small British village a little way outside Oxford – which is known for being a lovely place with beautiful architecture, surrounded by stunning countryside and quaint villages.

It is not known for murder.

Not in real life anyway. On television however, Oxford is a town of murdering psychopaths, the home of Inspector Morse – and the county as a whole provides the setting for (among other things) murder mystery shows like Midsomer Murders.

So, after seeing another poor soul get brutally killed on TV for the umpteenth time – in a place where my memory says there really isn't much of a taste for homicide – I got to thinking. A quick Google told me TV Oxford has a murder rate many times higher than real Oxford, even hitting 11 times that of New York at one point, and I wondered if maybe it really is like that and we just don't know it…

And so the seed of Murder Most Mundane was sown. I've known Matt Hardy for a few years. I'd give his comics a once over with a highlighter and red pen before they went to print. So in the knowledge that we like similar types of story, I took my idea to him. It was to be a murder mystery that hit all of the classic TV tropes but more heavily emphasised the horror elements. We wanted to add a Lovecraftian feeling of abject terror at an unseen villain but also, really amp up the gore.

Matt loved the idea. His understanding of the comic format meant he was able to help fully develop the plot and characters. Matt also jumped at the chance to script an acerbic, smart arse character like Detective Inspector Rutherford – channelling his inner 'git' far too easily I would say! Matt's input has been invaluable in expanding and shaping my initial idea, especially as this is my first writing gig.

With the story fleshed out we needed an artist, and I knew just the man for the job. I was at school with Clark Bint (he was a good friend of my brother) and in the years since my social media feeds had been filled with all kinds of terrifying creations he'd doodled.

Having grown up in the same area as me, Clark would understand what we were trying to achieve with the village part of the story. I also knew he had similar tastes in classic horror and sci fi movies as me, so would be able to nail the tone perfectly. Clark's artwork has a pretty distinctive style that is very "British" in nature, another thing that suits Murder Most Mundane perfectly – we were so impressed with Clark's pencils that we are actually producing both a full colour and a pencil/ink only version of the book.

The level of detail in Clark's work, along with his innovative page layouts mean that Murder Most Mundane is looking incredible. The fact that this is Clark's first full length work is impressive.

No Mad Robot Comics production would be complete without Edward Bentley, and he is ably providing the colour art. We also have award winning letterer Rob Jones' first rate talents to round off the team.

Murder Most Mundane is currently tearing through its stretch goals on Kickstarter.

We've got some great characters, a thrilling story and a really beautiful looking book for you.

Would it kill you to check it out?