Richard: Were where you born and raised and what was it like growing up?

Stephen: was born, raised and currently live in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I think I had a pretty normal childhood, if there is such a definition. A lot of people from across the seas still expect me to have been raised in a war torn country, especially if they’ve read that issue of Spider-man, where he comes to Belfast amid buildings reduced to rubble and crazy World War 1 tanks parading the streets. It was never quite as bad as that and I was lucky enough to have been born after the worst of it.

My parents were mutants though, so that was pretty weird.

Richard: What characteristics do your art give Morley?

Stephen: I like Morley to look like a real person. I didn’t want a square jawed body builder type to be the central character in a story that is very 3-dimensional. Morley has a very distinct personality, he suffers from cotard's syndrome, and this makes him very distant from anyone in the real world, yet the people and characters in Cancertown seem to crawl their way under his skin. Its fun to act out these odd facial expressions that are sometimes cold and distant, while at other times portray flashes of anger and resentment. I use myself as reference for Morley, so maybe he’s basically me in 20 years time lol.

Richard: How do you portray Cancertown the alternate world?

Stephen: I’m doing the ‘real’ world in ink, but Cancertown itself is left in pencil so its looks a bit less defined and a little more sketchy (after all, it may not be real). This leaves Cancertown looking a lot dirtier and smoggier than Morley’s London. Its really fun to draw because even though their needs to be some manner of perspective so we know which way the world fits in the panel, but Cancertown twists and turns so we can distort it a little and don’t have to be as strict.

Mel (Cook the colourist) does a great job helping me separating the two as well, keeping the real world colours nice and defined in the real world, while adding dark, smokey texturised whiffs to the Cancertown air.

Richard: Did you enjoy drawing the Badmouth?

Stephen: Yes, a lot. The badmouth was the first monster I drew in the story and after trying to give the first half of the first chapter a very grounded ‘real world’ approach it was nice to break out and go crazy with the badmouth. I just loved the description that Cy (Dethan, the writer) gave me to work with. Something along the lines of "A big lumpy round ball with arms and a mouth filled with big molars’. No matter what I drew, that was going to look creepy!

Richard: Which character do you like to draw the most from "Cancertown"?

Stephen: It changes every now and again. It was definitely the Badmouth for a while, and I really like the Peacemaker because he’s different in every panel (which make him the easiest to draw because it’s almost impossible to get him wrong), but I think my favourite panels to actually draw were the ones with the Corspegrinder. He has quite a unique physiology that makes his appearances range from downright sleazy to immensely powerful. He definably gave me an opportunity to really break loose.

Richard: What work did you do for Small Axe comics?

Stephen: Small Axe comics was local Belfast produced anthology comic funded initially by the local Arts Council, and edited by Gary McKeever. It only lasted 4 issues and I drew 3 strips during its run. "Feelin’ Fine," written by my friend Jim McMorrow about a priest looking forward to the imminent meteor strike, so he can experience the pleasures in heaven he has denied himself on Earth, to find himself the only survivor. Another strip Called "A little Night Music," the story of the Archangel Gabriel coming to the local bar to end the world, only to spare it upon hearing a tune on the tin whistle (written my Malachy Coney) and an illustrated poem by myself called ‘Dreams’ (no religious overtones with that one lol).

Richard:Would you like to work for Marvel Comics?

Stephen: I’d love to do a bit of work for Marvel some day. It was actually my original goal when breaking into comics, but the more I work with Cy and others on creator owned stuff, I think my heart may lie there. I’d love to do a decent run on Daredevil or Thor (A big stylistic difference I know) but I think If I could make a living out of it I’d probably come back to some more creator owned stuff.

Richard: Do you plan to do more lettering?

Stephen: I’ve done very little lettering myself. Just the odd few pages when I’m doing all the art, and I helped out a Mal Coney a few years ago when he had a regular page in Fortnite magazine (and that was because he hadn’t the technology at home to get from art boards to the printed page). Nic constantly surprises me with the fonts and choice of bubbles (can we call them bubble-fonts lol?, for each character so I think I’ll be working with her for a while.

Richard: What advice do you have for new artists?

Stephen: I don’t know if I’m really qualified to give advice. But for me, learning from life as much as learning from other artist’s work was a big help. It helped me understand the way people act and move, and not to pick up too many other artists mistakes.

Richard: What is after "Cancertown" for you?

Stephen: I’m teaming up with Cy and Nic again for Slaughterman’s Creed; a series coming from Markosia sometime later in the year, which I’ll be starting work on next week. I also have a strip in the first issue of Rí-Ra, an Irish language kids anthology coming out soon.

Richard: What comics do you read and did you as a child?

Stephen: I started off reading the strips in the newspapers, but Batman was my first introduction to superhero/American comics (with the exception of Banana Man who came first). I turned into a Marvel zombie with my first X-men comic (around the time of the 90s cartoon) and my brother is the DC fan boy, so that gives us most of the mainstream comics between us. Particular favourites are (again) Daredevil and Thor, characters I’ve always loved and now have great creative teams.

Also got to give some love to the indies I pick up; Tank Girl, Starship Troopers, Walking Dead and Criminal/Incognito are on the pull list.

Richard: If you could have any super power what would it be and why?

Stephen: The power to freeze time and be able to draw 4 pages in a day.

Richard: How can someone contact you?

Stephen: They can visit my website www.stephendowneygallery.com (under construction but you‘ll find my email there at least), follow my blog at stephendowney.blogspot.com , or lastly anyone on twitter can find me as stephenmdowney.

Richard: Any last words?

Stephen: Did you know you could pre-order Cancertown: An Inconvenient Tooth on Amazon right now! Well aren’t you glad I told you. Go and pre-order it so we can afford to make some more.