Louder AAA
Award-winning comic book creative Mark Buckingham – known for Marvelman, Hellblazer and Fables, among others – is a dyed-in-the-wool prog fan, notably having performed alongside The Fierce And The Dead’s Matt Stevens. In 2015 he explained his background and told of spending a week with Peter Gabriel in the studios of Aardman Animations, as a lowly member of the team who made the award-winning 1986 music video for Gabriel track Sledgehammer.
“Aged 4 I got quite sick and my parents gave me crayons, pencils, paper, clay to model with and some comics to read. That combination and being shut away for months set out my life’s path. By the 80s I knew I wanted to illustrate.
I remember picking up the single of Marillion’s Market Square Heroes and the Mark Wilkinson illustration got to me as much as the music. So I started doing illustrations for some bands for demo tapes and things.
I did a lot of illustration work for a fanzine called A Fascination, which got me into loads more new smaller bands like LaHost, Airbridge and Twice Bitten. At this point I was also very fond of The Enid, and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Imagery then was a lot darker as these were bands living through the Thatcher years, although some of the new wave were embracing that old approach, so you’d have Pallas with their Patrick Woodroffe Sentinel covers.
But behind The Enid was whimsy, and being a West Country boy, one of my one of my favourite bands is Stackridge. I discovered them through meeting [bassist/vocalist] James Warren – we had a mutual friend and we got chatting at a party. I remembered the name, checked them out and realised, ‘Oh my God, this stuff is amazing.’
I’ve been lucky enough to meet a few of my heroes; but Peter Gabriel was my first prog superstar. I’d just finished my design foundation course, aged about 18, and I went in to see my art teacher from comprehensive school just as she was arranging a visit to Aardman Animations to fix up work experience.
So I went along, with a carrier bag very sensibly stuffed full of my artwork and model making, and I jumped at the opportunity just before we left to show it to [co-founder] Peter Lord.
I got a phone call a few days later asking me to do a bit of work experience for a week – which turned into several months. Eventually I had to leave and get on with my design degree, but they always kept in touch, and knew I was a big prog fan.
Lo and behold, a few months later I was called in to spend a week working on the film for Sledgehammer. I was technical assistant, doing ancillary stuff like cleaning models and making the little white sperm – but I was also Peter’s stunt double. They would paint railway tracks around me, or stick me in contraptions to make sure he wouldn’t get decapitated, then he’d come in.
It was quite daunting to have someone that I admired so much sitting a couple of feet away all week long. I took my albums in and he was very sweet and signed them all for me. I really thought animation would be my career – then I made the mistake of falling in with a bunch of reprobates who made comic books instead!”
