Rich Johnston

Rich Johnston
Rich Johnston at the 2007 New York Comic-Con
Born	21 November 1972 (1972-11-21) (age 37) Gloucester, England
Area(s)	Cartoonist, Writer
Notable works	Lying in the Gutters Watchmensch Bleeding Cool

Rich Johnston (born 21 November 1972 in Gloucester, England) is an online columnist who writes about the comic book industry.

Biography

Johnston grew up in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, studied politics at University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and works as an advertising copywriter; he currently lives in Kingston Vale, London, with his wife, Janice Hodgson, and their young daughters, Eve and Alice Johnston.

Lying in the Gutters

Johnston's column Lying in the Gutters was hosted at the Comic Book Resources website,^[1] although earlier incarnations of the column have existed under various titles since 1994, when it appeared as postings to USENET. The Comics Journal declared Johnston as having claim to being "the oldest extant comics news reporter on the Internet."^[2] He mainly posted stories based on rumours and gossip, with a traffic light icon imparting advisory caution as to the possible credibility of each rumour: a red light denoting the least likelihood of accuracy, a green light for the most credible reports, and a yellow light for those that fall somewhere in between.

Johnston's column did not often impart sources. Johnston notes, "I often obfuscate sources to hide their identity—even deny that a story has sources on many occasions."^[2] However, his column reported first on many topics of note regarding the comic book industry, something The Comics Journal attributes in part to "Johnston's discerning intelligence and an attitude that sometimes approaches iconoclasm."^[2] Johnston sees himself as part of a tradition established by the "British tabloid press, one that seeks to entertain rather than inform..."^[2] He cites his biggest influences as Private Eye, The Guardian Diary, and Popbitch.

Popular topics included nonpayment for work by publishers, swipes of work by creators known as the "Swipe File," censored work, spoilers for upcoming storylines accidentally leaked by publishers, creative changes, speculation over "hot" comics and plugs of his own work.

Scoops included the first visual of Two-Face from The Dark Knight movie, Alan Moore's decision to pull The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen from DC Comics to Top Shelf Comics as well as his engagement to Melinda Gebbie, the existence of DC Comics titles 52 and its various spinoffs, Countdown, Final Crisis, "One Year Later",and "Batman RIP", Neil Gaiman to write Doctor Who and the casting of Tom Baker in the same series. He also first publicly revealed payment problems from the now defunct CrossGen, Dreamwave, Dream Engine and Rick Olney's operations.

The column ultimately came to an end, with its 211th installment as Rich Johnston announced to readers in the opening of the May 26th, 2009 column.^[3]

Comics creator

Johnston has written a number of comics as well as worked as a cartoonists.

His comic books fall into two general categories, both mainly consisting of one-shots and graphic novella. The first consists of parodies, such as Watchmensch^[4] and Civil Wardrobe (alluding to Marvel's 2006 story Civil War).^[5] The second include his original work, both creator-owned and those based on licensed properties, like Doctor Who: A Room With A Deja View,^[6] The Flying Friar (based on the life of Joseph of Cupertino)^[7] and Chase Variant which started life at Mam Tor's Event Horizon.^[8]

In 2007, he wrote the IDW trading card set "George W. Bush and the Weapons of Mass Distraction."^[9]

He wrote and drew a number of pages for the Popbitch book and curated the Harrods Comic Timing exhibition of original comic book artwork.^[10]

For 2009, he has a story scheduled for the Spearmint anthology from Image Comics with Sleaze Castle writer/artist Terry Wiley.^[11]

Johnston writes and draws weekly cartoons for the UK blogger Guido Fawkes, appearing each Monday and collected at RichAndMark.com.^[12]

Performance work

Johnston contributed to the British Channel 4 sketch show Smack the Pony as well as for BBC Radio 4's satirical sketch show Week Ending and the stage/TV show The Sitcom Trials.

He appeared as an interviewee in After the Chalk Dust Settled, a documentary included on the DVD release of Steven Moffat's sitcom Chalk.^[13]

He played a zombie in Shaun of the Dead and was a congregation member in the movie Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.^[14]

Journalism

Johnston has written briefly for newspapers like The Guardian^[15] and magazines like Playstation World^[16] and was awarded Punch Magazine's Young Writer of the Year Award in 2001.^[17]

In 2006, he appeared as a character in the comic book CSI: Dying in the Gutters as a source of "inside joke" humour by featuring him as the victim in a murder mystery set at a comic book convention and using other notable real-world comics creators as suspects in the crime.^[18] He also appeared as a character in the Jodie Picoult novel, The Tenth Circle.

His poster campaign for the Churches Advertising Network in December 2006 generated coverage,^[19] including a leader in the Times Newspaper.^[20]

His comics and gossip work has also been referenced in the media, as a comics commentator,^[21] a gossip reporter,^[22] or a comics creator.^[23]

Bleeding Cool

On 27 March 2009, Johnston announced that he would be starting a new blogsite, Bleeding Cool, funded by, but independent of, Avatar Press. He described it as "Lying In The Gutters, four times a day, seven days a week."

He has recruited the likes of Warren Ellis, Si Spurrier, Adi Tantimedh, Josh Adams, Irene Adler, Alex De Campi and Denny O'Neil to provide regular content for the site, and continues many of his themes from Lying In The Gutters - creator control, swipe files, non-paying publishers and scoops of upcoming content, but adding reviews, roundups and commentary into the mix. Scoops have included Marvel Comics on the Apple iPhone, Neil Gaiman writing for Doctor Who, Terminator 5 set in London, the appointment of Diane Nelson to head up DC Comics, the Michael Jackson-written comic book Fated, the resignation of Paul Levitz and the signing of the Cla$$war movie.

Bibliography

Comics

Comics work includes:

• Dirtbag (Twist and Shout Comics, 1995)^[24]
• The X-Flies (Twist and Shout Comics, 1997)^[25]
• Rich Johnston's Holed Up (Avatar Press, 2004)^[26]
• The Flying Friar (with Thomas Paul Nachlik, Speakeasy Comics, 2005)^[27]
• Civil Wardrobe (with various artists, including Darick Robertson, Ashley Wood and Frazer Irving, Brain Scan Studios, 2006)^[28]
• Watchmensch (with Simon Rohrmuller, Brian Scan Studios, 2009)
• Doctor Who: A Room With A Deja View (with Eric J., IDW, 2009)
• "A trip Into Space" (with Terry Wiley, in This Is a Souvenir: The Songs of Spearmint & Shirley Lee, Image Comics, 2009)
• Chase Variant (with Saverio Tenuta/Edmund Bagwell, Image Comics, February 2010, forthcoming)

Notes

References

External links

• Bleeding Cool, Johnston's new blogsite.
• Lying in the Gutters, Johnston's Comic Book Resources column.
• RichAndMark.com, Johnston's collection of non-commercial performance work.
• Rich Johnston at the Internet Movie Database
• Guardian Report on George W Bush cards

Interviews

This section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (December 2009)

• 2002 Interview
• Rich Johnston Interview, 2000adReview, June 17, 2005